We left our home with unusual amount of baggage in comfortable time to catch the first train from Vienna to Munich in the afternoon. In addition to our bikes, Panda carried Lentil in the carry and I pushed the trailer called “Thule” (promotion not intended). To be agile enough to get on or off the train, most of the baggage was concentrated in the trailer, keeping our bikes as light as possible. We finally had a chance to try the elevator at our home station. My bike, Thule and I fit there just fine, even being able to breath deeply.

We were also lucky with the first city train to be a low-rider, so we could easily drive in and out with all our vehicles. It was not as easy with the long-distance train, where we needed to lift them and squeeze through a narrow door to the bike hooks. With a bit of stress and luck we successfully boarded the train with all the baggage pieces. The way was pleasant and relaxing as Lentil really enjoys traveling by train.

The train arrived to Munich at 18:30 and we walked to a hotel close by. The pandemic measures required a negative AG test from us. The hotel could provide tests only to people with permanent residency in Germany, not for us. Luckily we were allowed to use our own self-tests which we got for free from a pharmacy in Vienna. With two negative test results and two bicycles parked in the narrow yard we entered our room. It was big enough to fit all our baggage and Thule and still provide crawling space for Lentil. We enjoyed a usual traveling dinner: pastry with spreads, cheeses and fresh vegetables, Lentil got the pastry and the rest of cooked zucchini. Right after the dinner Panda and Lentil quickly showered and hurried to the bed to make sure Lentil gets enough sleep before the long travel-day starting at 5:45.

The alarm rang loud enough to wake us up and quietly enough to let Lentil sleep further. Panda made her obligatory morning coffee with 3-in-1 powder and cold water. We silently dressed and packed, then woke up Lentil and dressed her. At 6:10 we left the hotel yard in a usual train-boarding setup: Lentil in the carry with Panda, as much weight as possible in Thule for me. At 6:25 we successfully boarded the ICE train to Frankfurt am Main. The way was relaxing again, maybe because so early, most of the passengers had their usual Wednesday morning commuting to work. This time our ICE luckily did not stick to its reputation of being always late, so in Frankfurt there was enough time to buy proper coffee and something sweet to it. The next train to Hamburg left around 11:00. We parked our bicycles in a big area at random spots, since those we booked were not there.

The reservation of bicycle spots was the only reason why we couldn’t take a more convenient, direct connection from Vienna to Hamburg in the first place. Instead, we were forced to take 3 trains with an overnight stay in Munich because a concern called DB, somebody that operates probably the most trains in Europe has quite sub-optimal reservation system for bicycle spots. When searching for connections, one can only filter by those, that could theoretically carry bicycles. It does not tell you, whether there is still a free spot or not. The user is informed only in the 3rd step of the reservation process after entering his/her name, if lucky. Otherwise, in our case more likely, the reservation fails in the last step after entering the credit card details with a dubious message: “All the spots were just booked out.” It’s quite sad that such a huge corporation has such a useless booking system and makes me fill the whole paragraph complaining about it. It’s probably the cyclists’ fate to be always neglected. Starting with infrastructure, ending here. Big respect to Panda, who with a lot of patience and spit, was able to book this breakneck combination of tickets and bicycle spots. Even though they were not there eventually.

The car, where we had our seat reservations was closed for unknown reason, so we sat in the same one, where were our bikes. Along the way more cyclists got on wondering, where their spot is, including a lady with a bike, who complained the entire time of her travel. Other than that, the train was getting a substantial delay and we were getting a bit nervous whether we make it to the ferry in time. To rule out any unnecessary risk, Panda checked the layout of Hamburg’s main station and how to get to the correct platform. We also packed and queued in front of the train door well in advance, even before all the impatient pensioners. This thorough preparation helped us to make the stressful change. We parked our fleet in a regional train to Lübeck next to a pregnant mother traveling with her two kids, one of them with a missing shoe, for the whole day already. Naturally, they were a bit loud so Panda carried Lentil upstairs to make her sleep in the carry.

In Lübeck Panda went to a shop to stock up on fresh groceries for the ferry ride until tomorrow morning, while Lentil and I were checking out all the screens on the platform. The last train on our long-lasting journey to Travemünde came shortly. The forever-complaining lady with bicycle from the previous train got on with us and we learned about her plans to ride along the North Sea coast and she learned about ours. In a few minutes we got off at Skandinavienkai station warmly welcomed by squeaking seagulls.

While Panda breastfed Lentil I repacked from train-boarding to a temporary bike-riding setup. There was still a short, 2.5 km long ride to the harbor, luckily on a bike road. Even on this short segment I managed to take a wrong turn and ended up carrying our bikes and trailer upstairs. Lentil didn’t like it either and started to cry as soon as we packed her back into Thule, so the last meters to the booth she was carried by Panda to calm down. There were a few other cyclists, including families with small children riding their small bikes with small panniers. This might be us soon :). All the cyclists wore safety reflection vests, as required by the ferry company, except us. Eventually they gave us vests themselves instead of sending us back home.

Then we parked on a huge area, right behind the booth, and waited for an hour or so until a van escorted us into the ferry, where we locked our bikes at the wall next to the trucks. We could take Thule with us into the cabin since the ferry had big enough corridors. It was a double cabin with folding beds and we could set up an airport made of mattresses on the floor. We happily used the shower after the long day, then Panda fed Lentil to sleep. Afterwards Panda and I had a quick and silent dinner and finally hit the sack listening to the vibrations of the ferry in the floor.

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A friendly voice of the captain from a speaker woke us up around 6:30 in the morning, telling us that soon we’re in Malmö and that we can buy a coffee or last minute duty-free alcohol. Panda preferred her cold, 3-in-1 instant coffee from a toothbrush cup. We dressed up, packed and left the cabin while being politely kicked out by a pleasant female voice from the speaker. Panda with packed lentil went ahead to unlock the bikes while I had problems driving Thule through the corridors, now full of laundry trolleys. After a while, waiting for an empty elevator, we all successfully met in the truck deck, now with significantly more cyclist around than at the departure. Only a few moments of breathing the fumes separated us from getting out there and starting our adventure in the north.

First we pushed our bikes out of the ferry with sleepy Lentil in the carry. Once we got to a safe spot in the harbor we set everything up and finally started to pedal on the broad street, from time to time overtaken by a late truck from our ferry. Lentil seemed to enjoy it, at least she was not complaining. After a few minutes she fell asleep and her head was pushed down by her helmet in a weird angle. We stopped and tried to remove it and hoped she would continue sleeping. She didn’t and instantly started to cry so we continued riding and expected her to quickly fall asleep again. After a few minutes of screaming we were forced to stop again and calm her down by Panda’s feeding. When she seemed slightly happier, we put her back into the trailer along with multiple distractions including, but not limited to Mr. Pig, wooden worm and a hat tied to a key chain, waving and ringing with everything and quickly started to move. It seemed to work and she enjoyed the ride through outskirts of Malmö towards our first stop: supermarket in Arlöv. The entire way was on a separate bike road: an infrastructure that we’ve been looking forward to the whole time.

The parking lot in front of the supermarket was almost empty in the morning. Panda went shopping and I packed Lentil into a carry to make her finally sleep. In the meanwhile I filled our cooker bottle at a nearby petrol station and checked our further route for today. After Lentil woke up we had a little breakfast, kanelbullar med blåbär yoghurt, packed the food and hit the road to our original goal: tourist shelter near Krankesjön (work name Krakensjön 🐙) around 30 km away.

We continued through Arlöv, apparently still part of Malmö, to Åkarp village. We passed neat, new brick buildings reminding us of Finnish towns but a bit nicer with less concrete and functionalism. Lentil’s good mood lasted until Åkarp after weak 30 minutes of riding so we started to look out for a spot to have a break.

We stopped at a parking lot just out of the village. A plain gravel area was surrounded by trees providing nice shade in the unexpected midday heat. There we changed Lentil’s diaper, dried her clothes from an accident and had the second breakfast. She was happy to be outside, able to move freely, and inspected the gravel very carefully.

After 1 hour 15 minutes we dared to continue cycling, hoping that Lentil will already fall asleep again. This time neither distraction nor swift start helped, she started to scream horribly after 100 meters. We were forced to stop, take her out of the trailer, pack into the carry and walk back to the shade we started from. It took another hour to calm her down and make her sleepy enough to be able to continue. We sensed it won’t be as easy as we imagined…

The route continued along fields through village Hjärup into town called Lund where we took a wrong turn thanks to my famous navigation skills. Lentil’s complaints made us stop after 40 minutes of riding. We sat on a bench next to the bike road, ate a bit and discussed our next plan. It was apparent that we won’t make it to Krankesjön today in reasonable time and mood so we looked for a nearby place to stay. The only affordable hotel we found was accidentally 600 meters from us, so we decided to go there and maybe even get a better price than on booking. There was no rush since the check-in starts only at 15:00. We chilled and played on the bench and walked to the hotel around 13:30.

It turned out to be a staff-less hotel but we were lucky to find a lone woman cleaning up, who told us after a few minutes research that there would be a double room for us. Only that this room was smaller and more expensive than the one, seemingly the TOTALLY LAST ONE, BOOK FAST NOW!, offered in booking. We thanked the lady and went for the cheaper option despite the evil monopoly corporation that offered it. There was still an hour until we could check-in which we spent in a nearby park enjoying grapes and making Lentil sleepy.

At 15:00 sharp we entered the hotel again and Panda tried to self-check us in. It worked smoothly except that she needed to call somebody to turn it on first. Our room was in the ground floor, one level lower than the foyer, facing into a peaceful street and something that looked like a terrace, which, as we found out later, was not accessible. Panda breastfed Lentil to sleep wile I moved all our baggage. After Lentil fell asleep on a soft sofa we showered, washed some of our clothes and checked practically all possibilities what to do next, including taking a train back to Malmö and going home. The plan we eventually came up with was to dump Krankesjön, escape the agricultural wasteland and get to the forest as soon as possible. In order to do that we’ll take a train to Osby, a small town around 100 km north from Lund, our gate to foresty dreamland.

I hopped on a bike and rode to buy groceries and to the train station to ask the staff at the desk how it is with our bikes and buy the tickets for tomorrow. This should be the fastest and safest way we thought. As I suspected, the station was staff-less with a few ticket machines. If this will be the future, I’ll be lost in it. So I started to google information about bikes and trains and it turned out that there are many train companies of which some allow bikes on certain routes. On our route there were two operators that allow bikes, Öresundståg and Pågatågen. One cannot reserve a bike spot and it’s allowed to board the train only if there is enough space in the part of the coach for strollers, wheelchairs and bicycles, ordered by descending priority. Nevertheless I bought tickets for tomorrow 10:00 Öresundståg. Except they were not bound to the train I selected, but valid from now on for two hours. I tried to buy them again to see where I made a mistake and noticed tiny print after selecting an option to print the tickets right away saying something like “Your ticket will be valid immediately instead”. I gave up on buying tickets for now, went to the local Coop to buy fresh fruits and vegetables, some “sweet plasters” for the pain from failure and hurried back to the hotel.

Lentil just finished her dinner and Panda seemed quite trashed, so I quickly ate my portion of pasta and made Lentil ready for bed while Panda showered. Then I shared my experience with the staff-less future, we both complained and decided to go a bit earlier tomorrow and buy the tickets right before. I even installed an app of Skånetrafiken, the company that groups multiple train operators and owns those bloody ticket machines as well, to have a backup. When Lentil fell asleep we planned a bit the next days from Osby and went to sleep early.