FEATURE STORY
Biking for Breath Around the World
 by Paula Holmes-Eber
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Part I: From Greece to Germany -- "It has been a long time since anyone has camped in our fields!"
the kindly, plump, grey-haired Bavarian woman said, smiling wistfully as my husband Lorenz, our eleven-year-old daughter Yvonne,
thirteen-year-old, Anya, and I sat chatting and drinking "apfelscholle" in her cozy farmhouse kitchen.
"Twenty or thirty years ago, we had many bicyclists stop by, especially from Holland, Germany, and Austria. But no longer," her thin, wiry
eighty-year-old husband added. "Perhaps it's more comfortable to stay in campgrounds or hotels now," his wife, Irma, added.
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Family tandeming through Italy. | |
That evening, like many others we have shared in farmers' fields during the two months we have been pedaling through Greece, Italy,
Austria, and now Germany, a constant stream of little gifts arrived at our tent: farm-fresh eggs for breakfast, candies for the girls, and
slices of homemade chocolate cake. The next morning, after Irma's tearful hugs and waves of goodbye, we pedaled off down the Romantische
Strasse. It was clear that the elderly German farm couple had enjoyed our interruption of their quiet, and perhaps sometimes lonely, routine
as much as we had appreciated their hospitality. As we cycled over a sparkling river to a picturebook German marketplace surrounded by
Fachwerk (wooden framed) houses, it occurred to me that it was not the spectacular mountaintop Greek ruins of Delphi, nor the gondola
filled canals of Venice, nor even the quaint gardenia-decorated Alpine villages of Austria that have been the most memorable features of
the almost 2,500 kilometers our family has pedaled through Europe to date. No, indeed, our most treasured stories and adventures have come
from the people we have met and the places we have stayed along the way.
A few days later on our journey up Germany's famed Romantic Road, we stayed in a little bed-and-breakfast where the hostess and her husband
invited us to a huge dinner of grilled bratwurst, schnitzel, and kartoffelsalat. That night she washed our limited collection of grungy
cycling clothes, delivering them the next morning to our room soft, folded, and smelling sweetly of homemade German warmth and hospitality.
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On the stuccoed veranda of an Italian grape cultivator in northern Italy, we were treated to Italian pastries and grappa with coffee while
overlooking our tents, which were tucked between their horse stables and surrounded by hillside rows of neatly cultivated vineyards.
On the island of Samos, Greece, after arriving at 2:00 a.m. by boat to a sleeping red-, blue-, and green-painted town, an overbooked hotel
keeper let us roll out our sleeping bags on the flat whitewashed rooftop from which we watched a spectacular rosy sunrise a few hours later.
And in Austria we set up our tents in a breathtaking spot just off the bike path along the Imst River, surrounded by the imposing peaks
of the Alps and lulled to sleep by the gurgling and splashing of the unspoiled gray glacial river waters.
Initially, our decision to seek out unconventional sleeping spots in Europe had been driven by financial and practical factors. What we
found, however, was camping with a family of four in Europe, where campgrounds charge per person and per tent, is significantly more expensive
than in the United States. European campgrounds are often a luxury experience with swimming pools, private beaches, rows of sparkling hot showers,
washing rooms for dishes and clothes, and even stores, restaurants, bars, and nightly entertainment. Unfortunately, the price tag of between
$30 and $50 per night quickly began to eat into our budget. Likewise, the modest pensions that had seemed so reasonable when Lorenz and I
had pedaled through northern Europe on our honeymoon now cost $120 or $130 per night, or twice as much for two double rooms. (Rooms accommodating
four people in Europe are a rarity, and children generally pay full price after age five.)
Yet, truthfully, after a few weeks, a more important motivation for our predilection for sleeping off the beaten track began to grow: the
freedom to travel and stop when and where we wanted, allowed us the opportunity to glimpse a world most tourists never see. Indeed, our
European cultural experience does not end as we lock up our tandems, unloading our gear for the night after a day of pedaling along jagged
Mediterranean coastlines or over wildflower-filled Alpine passes. To the contrary, it's at this time that it begins. Photos of a tour of
the Acropolis in Athens can't compare to a night on a Greek interisland boat, snuggled in a sleeping bag under the same brilliant stars
that lulled Odysseus and Alexander the Great to sleep. Nor can they compare to waking under a scarlet dawn breaking over the ancient
walled city of the Knights of Saint John on the island of Rhodes. And while a day pedaling along the lazy former barge towpath along the
Rhine River, gazing up at crenulated castle after castle perched on the cliffs above, is certainly memorable, pushing our tandems through
the slick slate courtyard of the 11th-century Castle Steineck, once the stomping stones for the horses of medieval knights, is truly
unforgettable.
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Yet my most poignant memory of Europe is not of castles and knights but of a simple tired Italian woman in a long skirt and scarf, clipping
the grape vines near her house in the countryside south of Vicenza. As we set up our tents in her apple and olive orchards, she offered us
bottles of cold iced tea and insisted upon washing our clearly sweat-filled clothes in her small machine. Seeing our dinner of macaroni and
tomato sauce cooked by Lorenz on our small Whisperlite stove, she insisted that we join her, her elderly mother, and her twenty-year-old son in
their simple, untidy, yet warm kitchen for a second meal of fried zucchini, roasted potatoes, boiled eggs, fresh-picked green apples, and
white wine. But we were sworn to tell her son Salvatore that we were only cycling one week through Italy, not one and a half years around
the world, for she feared Salvatore, an avid cyclist, would want to join us.
We left early the next morning, waving goodbye to Salvatore's pumping arm and beaming face, our secret still untold. As we pedal off, I
dream that one day Salvatore may cycle unknowingly in our tracks over the Alps and ask to put up his tent in Irma's German wheat field, closing
the circle of friendship and hospitality that has nurtured us so warmly on our journey through the homes and hearts of southern Europe.
The Eber family departed on their sixteen-month cycling tour around the world for asthma on May 6, 2003, World Asthma Day.
To read the more recent installments of the story, check out Part II, Part III, or Part IV.
To follow their progress or to make a donation for asthma research and programs, you can visit them at
www.bikeforbreath.org or email them at
bikeforbreath@hotmail.com.
Photos courtesy of the Eber Family.
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