After almost a month of searching and a week of worrying about the rental contract, I finally get my dream flat in an old art nouveau villa in the centre of Regensburg. My own place. The end of a year and a half of travelling, the beginning of a new home in an old city. I’m almost running myself to death organising everything for the move in February. Then I’ll go travelling one last time.
The tour takes me via Munich pubs and Zurich, first to Zug in Switzerland to go snowboarding. From there on to Bern to see old friends at night. Then kitesurfing with the wild horses in the French Carmargue. The final destination of the trip is Barcelona to learn Spanish for a fortnight and to do some World Wide Web design one last time.
The trip starts well, as always when we start at the best Greek in the world. I wake up early the next morning with a heavy head. Everyone in Munich wants to go to Switzerland today, and they all see my advert on Mitfahrgelegenheit.de. I give two of them a lift from the station. They tell stories, travelling is nice. My sat nav gives me directions and I listen.
In Bregenz, the sat nav says that the motorway immediately after the border is still toll-free and doesn’t direct me down. The gentleman from ASFINAG corrects this opinion. While I loudly insult my sat nav, he smugly hands me a 120-euro ticket for 10 km of Austrian motorway. Thanks for the assistance, Becker Traffic Assist! Immediately after the cupping, I scratch the “Sponsored by ASFINAG” sticker off the back of my junk sat nav.
I unload the first passenger in the almost cute little town of Zurich and get thoroughly confused by the highly chaotic road layout. Two pedestrians on one of Zurich’s 257,315 zebra crossings narrowly escape the stability test offered by my bumper. At Zurich speed trap no. 17,345, my 5 km/h don’t cost that much. Compared to the fact that the most expensive speeding offence in Switzerland cost a certified 35,000 euros.
I unload the second passenger at Lake Zug and drive on to a friend from my trip around the world. I hiked through the forests of Lothlorien with Andrea in New Zealand. Sheep graze in front of the hotel, and Andrea grins just like she did a year ago when I tried to shear a sheep with my bare hands in New Zealand (I failed… unfortunately it escaped into an electric fence).
The Hotel Waldheim is located directly on Lake Zug. There are 15 Gault Millau caps and the Michelin Guide emblazoned at the entrance. I’m going to be very small. We were all backpackers, this is just the other end of the scale, I had no idea. Andrea invites me into the most beautiful tower room in her castle.
The food in the evening is more than classy, it’s excellent and the high price is reasonable. I just don’t dare take a photo of the marvellous pictures painted with food, it would probably be a breach of Swiss understatement.
The lake lies in the winter fog and I ask myself once again how I can give back everything that people have given me on the journey.
Frank Woelky, born in 1973. Kitesurfer since 1998. Since 2006, I have been combining kitesurfing and web design on trips lasting several months off the beaten track.