Europe here we come!

By the time this post is published, my partner and I will winging our way from Christchurch towards Singapore on the first leg of our nearly-6 week long tour around Europe. And, as you can see from our itinerary below, we won’t have much time to stop along the way…

Yep, it will be a fairly whirlwind tour, checking out various locations along the way, in many cases only for a day or two. Some of these places I have visited before on my last trip to Europe, including Vienna, Copenhagen, Zurich, Amsterdam, and London.

We will however also be checking out some new destinations, including Greece, Croatia, Czechia, Sweden, Norway, and Ireland, plus visiting a few new cities in both Germany and Italy. Our longest stay will be for five nights in Rimini on the north-eastern coast of Italy where I will be taking part in some of the 2026 Velo-City Cycling Conference (even if unfortunately they didn’t accept my proposed presentation on all the great things that Christchurch has been doing for cycling…).

For the most part, we will be in holiday mode, checking out the tourist attractions, enjoying a few beaches/cafe/bars, and maybe doing a few bus and boat tours – with luck there will also be a few bike tour options for getting around some of the cities as well. But, ever the transport nerd, no doubt I will also snap a few interesting photos here and there of things related to cycling that might be of interest back here in NZ.

One of the challenges of being on the move for nearly six weeks (especially when largely in holiday mode) is trying to still continue providing some blog posts for you, dear readers, back here. Fortunately I’ve taken the liberty of already pre-loading some Flashback Friday posts for each coming week – watch for those! And if I see some really interesting cycling items along the way, you may also get a few other one-off posts as well – or on my return…

I learnt a lot of interesting and valuable observations last time I was over there; no doubt I expect that I will find a few more this time – stay tuned…

Have you visited Europe before? What did you think of the cycling facilities?