Here are some photos of my 2002 Europe trip. They are in chronological order.
I don’t have too many good quality still photos of this trip. I brought a Sony miniDV video camera and documented the trip with an hour long video. Unfortunately I don’t have the bandwidth on this server to allow you to see it. These stills will have to suffice. These are pretty much in chronological order. The first one here is the town of Baeza, Spain. Set in the Sierra Morena mountains, it was definitely a climb to get to. Even though it was only May, temperatures reached over 90 deg. F.
Out of shape, I had to walk up some hills in southern Spain.
Here’s a view of southern Portugal, the Algarve it’s called. Very nice, somewhat rugged, but with some nice beaches. The cliffs plung down into the sea.
One of the more adventurous (crazy?) things I did was to ride down the 10 km long Rio Cares trail in northern Spain, the Asturias district. The trail floows a gorge cut deep into the picos de Europa, a mountain range. It is not a difficult hike since it’s pretty flat, but it is not for riding, especially on a fully-laden touring bike. The trail is cut inmto the side of the mountain, about 4-6 feet wide. On one side a sheer rock face, on the other a plunge of several hundred feet down. I walked my bike on this one.
Here’s a shot of the Picos de Europa, nice mountain range that surrounds the Rio Cares trail.
Here’s a shot of the Rio Cares trail. This is near the end, when the trail approaches the river level.
The trail was actually buil to support a canal, shown here still in use.
You can see why I chose to walk my bike on the trail.
Once I left the Rio cares trail I still had to climb over the Picos de Europa. I did not expect to see snow but there it was.
Another shot of me in the snow. This exact spot is called the Alto de Valcavao, a high pass. Going down was nearly as bad as going up. I froze.
Once out of the mountains things warmed right up. I crossed northern Spain to the Costa Brava. Here’s Barcelona.
Aigue Morte, or Dead Water in France is an interesting walled city.
Marseille, the original sin city.
I spent a couple days in Verona, Italy.
Getting into the Alps. The dolomites in Italy.
There were some tough climbs in the Italian Alps.
Anterselva valley. Very nice–on the way to Austria from Italy.
Stalle pass crossing into Austria. A tough climb.
Linz, Austria. A nice city.
The quaint town of Cesky Krumlov in The Czech Republic.
The railroad into Auschwitz concentration camp, now a museum.
The ovens at Auschwitz.
A view of the old city in Krakow, Poland.
On the road in Central Poland.
Finally made it.