At last.
I started!

I love trains. You can usually get very easy to the train station, you don't need to check in. You can slowly ease into your destination and see the landscape outside changing. It is my absolute preferred way to travel.

Sometimes, at least in Germany, there are downsides as well. Trains are late, connecting trains can't be made and restaurants are not functioning. And the worst thing. Dirty windows. So you can't see the landscape properly. If I'd be the CEO of any train company, this would be my absolute priority. No kidding.

A little disclaimer. I only count the days cycling. It's actually already day 4 if you count the total trip. The first few days I mainly spent on trains. From Fulda to Bologna, from Bologna to Bari, and from Bari to Brindisi. These days went super smooth, with maybe two key learnings. One: It's good to have food on you, especially if your hotel is off-center and your arrival is late. Two: Arriving at night in a city can be a bit disorienting (I only saw the next morning that there was a nice bike lane).

Day 1 of cycling. Generally, it went really well. Just 55km, but that was according to plan. The road I followed was as well at most parts really good. There was one exception though and I ramble about that and the results in my first newsletter post.

Ok, here we go. The first real newsletter. First of all, thank you everybody for joining. It's more people than I expected and believe me, I won't be upset if you decide to unsubscribe after this one. I will need to get into writing and this will take a tad of time.

I imagined fabulous things. I imagined that I would tell you that I had a glorious time in Rome November last year. That I would speak now fluent Italian and that I met tons of great people. My Italian is still non existent. I didn't meet people. I did not have a glorious time. But I had a good time. Every day I went for a run, every day I was exploring the city and its churches and every Saturday I went to the farmers market (which I totally recommend if you are in Rome). I made adjustments in my life, which I won't tell here, at least not yet. They were important and good. All in all, the last few months were unspectacular, exactly what I needed.

As I was rambling in the newsletter, I somehow got too much into my head about dogs after my first day biking. This is definitely not a qualified statement, warning people about cycling in Puglia. But sometimes this happens. My main goal is to bike, to see Europe and to have a good time. Being super tense all the time is not part of it. But I'm very sure Apulia is great for biking, just this time not for me.