Susan Hausberger emails from Austria.

Hi Andrew!

Hope you don’t mind me writing to you (otherwise I don’t suppose you’d publish your email address!).

I am very interested in your tour as I am planning to go from my home in the Tyrol to Christchurch/Bournemouth in August – a sponsored trip for charity. Are you doing it for charity too? Good question; still have to decide – I may do so, quietly, but would have to pick a charity out of thin air. Any suggestions anyone?

I will go from here via Lake Constance and the Black Forest to the Alsace and was planning to go through France (South of Strasbourg, Nancy and Reims, St. Quentin, Amiens – north of Paris) to Dieppe and cross with the ferry to Newhaven, now after just finding your route and the EuroVelo5,  I’m wondering whether to change my plans. What is the route like – mostly on minor roads or are there real cycle tracks (off-road too?)? And how well is it signposted? Do you know anything about the altitude profiles (apart from the Swiss part)? I’ll be honest and say that, despite all the information on this website, I don’t really have answers to your questions! I suppose I will find out when I set off. The best thing  you can do is watch the blog in the days after the 18th July and see what happens. It is worth noting however that your route actually sounds more loyal to the Via Francigena than mine!

Do you have any experience of France (my route) at all? I know there aren’t many cycle routes and I was planning just to use minor roads. What I do know is that the roads in France tend to be good quality and I have no worries that using even secondary / minor roads will not be a problem.

Also I would like to keep a track of my progress on the internet but although I have made several websites myself, I have no experience in blogging. Do you have any tips for me in this field? Easy! I would recommend WordPress – go to their site and follow the instructions.  And do you always find easy reasonably priced internet on your trips? I suppose I will use the Internet when I can if it is available is cafes, camp-sites etc… I will also have my mobile phone which allows access to the Internet but the problem there is, of course the cost. I will probably invest in a local French / Italian SIM card which will at least enable me to send text messages to this blog and there are local numbers for Twitter which allow cheap updates. What I probably won’t be able to do is update the blog as I am doing now with lots of pictures.

Thanks for replying

Thanks for getting in contact Susan. Good luck with your own trip and let me know if you start a blog; I’ll add it to my list over there on the left.

Happy cycling!