Entlang den Rhein - how I criss-crossed Germany on a bike | Success stories and anecdotes | Forum

Guten Abend liebe Damen und Herren!

I haven't wrote anything in this Forum for quite a while since I've been on the road. I've been in Italy for a week, in France for three weeks (where their refusal to speak English caused compulsory immersion), and now I just finished traveling in Germany for two weeks. I would like to tell you about these two weeks , which have been the craziest and most random weeks of my life.

The idea was to take bikes from Freiburg (in south Germany, next to the black forest) and travel the "Rheinweg" – the bicycle path that leads you along the Rhein from Switzerland, through Germany and France and all the way to the Netherlands.

Our ammunition: mediocre German, about three years in the making at varying paces. Two bikes, four waterproof bags.

Our goal: Meet lots of people, waste absolutely no money

We started by Couchsurfing in Freiburg. I didn't send any requests, and just put a message in German describing us and our trip. Two days later a woman contacted us, and invited us to come. She was impressed by our goals and our motivation to learn German, and helped us plan our trip 6 weeks before we even came to Freiburg – she got us discount bikes and bags, helped us plan the route, provided tips and much more. Looking back, without her help this trip would have been much much more difficult. That would not have been possible without German.

And then started the craziness.

Every night we would knock on doors and look for a place to stay. "Guten Abend, ich und mein Freund fahren den Rheinentlang, und wir suchen einen Platz zu schlaffen. Nur eine Hütte, ein Dacht oben unsere Kopfe" (good evening, me and my friend are travelling the Rheinentlang (along the Rhine route) and we are looking for a place to sleeping. Just a cabin, a roof over our heads).

And every night we met a different amazing person who had us over for the night.

We slept in a flower shop and heard about the difficulties of flower selling (from a person who has been selling flowers since the 30's), in the town hall of a small town between Mainz and Koblenz, in a caravan owned by two bike lovers who fell in love with us as soon as we knocked on the door (and gave us coupons that got us into Baden-Baden for free), in whole villa which was given to us for the night in exchange for language-learning tips, in two rooms next to a wine producing factory (the owner gave us two complimentary bottles of wine and a free tour of his facility), in a hut where there is a kindergarten during the year, and more. Some of these hosts were kind enough to invite us for breakfast, and some also gave us more provision for the road. That of course and many conversations and stories.

I was amazed at the German hospitality. On the one hand, what we did was insane and dangerous. On the other hand, it also takes a particular kind of person to go along with us – one who is not afraid of the two young men with bikes standing on his doorstep and willing to lend them a room for the night, without knowing who they are.

We left gifts (until we ran out of them, and then gave away the wine bottle that was left) and notes thanking them for their hospitality. I hope we also left them a nice experience like the one we had.

I am also glad to know that the fact that I am Israeli didn't matter much. Older Germans have a soft spot for Jewish Israelis, but we were only asked where we are from after being admitted inside (and for some reason everybody thought we were French). However the subject of the holocaust came up twice, once by two old people who wanted to know how come we don't hate Germany and are learning German, and once by the host in Freiburg (who has her own interesting story). This subject has been bothering them in the past and they were very glad to hear how many Israelis love Germany and that the Goethe institute is 4 times bigger than what it was in year 2000.

That positive impression was one of the most important things we left behind on this trip.

To sum it up,

We had an amazing time. We enjoyed hospitality and met amazing, generous, kind and good-hearted people. We did good sports, we travelled in beautiful places.

And none of this had been possible had we not spoken German.

That's it for now, tomorrow I'll be in Amsterdam (Couchsurfing tonight, also in German).

Have a great day everyone!

This trip cost us a tantalizing and unbelievable 11 euros per day per person, if you exclude the one night we took a hotel in Heidelberg (didn't have enough internet access to look for couch, and you can't simply knock on doors in big cities…).

11 euros includes the rental on the bicycle.

27.7.12 will always be remembered as the 0 euro day – we slept at a friend's house, got a free tour of Frankfurt, ate breakfast and lunch with her family, and then continued on our way. Ate dinner from our own provisions and slept at the city hall of a little town next to the Rhine, with some beer courtesy of our host

btw, I am giving back to the Germans next week – I'll be hosting two German Couchsurfers who are crossing Israel on bicycles (just a part of their enormous Germany-Egypt trip).