trans europe express part 1 - Scotland to Albania

The small town of Munzenberg in central Germany.

Crossing the Rhine at Koblenz.

The spa town of Karlovy Vary (or Karlsbad), once a favourite haunt of the European elite, and patronised by Goethe, Schiller, Beethoven, Chopin, and Karl Marx.

Wild flowers flourish in the less intensively farmed fields of the Czech Republic.

A spectacular field of poppies.

A view across Prague and the river Vlatava from the castle. The famous Charles Bridge is on the right of the picture.

Part of the trail that winds for miles through the rock pillars of Adrspach-Teplice near the Polish border.

The geography of the rocks results in unusual climatic conditions. Even on a warm June day, an icy draught blows through the 'Siberia' passage and winter snow still lies on the ground.

The good soldier Svejk, a famous satirical figure from Czech literature, enjoys a quiet drink. Drafted into the Austro-Hungarian army, Svejk sets out to survive the war and undermine the army by 'svejking'. I think he would have turned up his nose at the apple juice that he appears to have been served here...

Jara Cimrman was a prolific inventor, composer, author, wiseman and auto-didact gynaecologist. He helped design the Eiffel tower, got within 7 metres of the North Pole and advised Chekhov on his plays (you can't just have two sisters, Cimrman is said to have said - how about three?). This picture shows the bicycle he invented for firemen. Cimrman won a competition run by Czech TV that asked viewers to vote for the greatest Czech of all time, beating figures such as Vaclav Havel, Dvorak and Martina Navratilova. The only problem with this was that Cimrman is actually a fictitious character created 40 years ago by the film director Zdenek Sverak and his friend Jiri Sebankek. Czech TV don't appear to have much of a sense of humour and declared the result of the poll null and void. Above the bicycle you can see another of Cimrman's inventions; an improved hammer that allows the user to drive 3 nails simultaneously.

A retired Polish steam engine.

Wawel hill, where Krakus is reputed to have killed a dragon before founding the city of Krakow.

Distinctive Polish haystacks near the border with Slovakia.

The railway sidings inside Birkenau concentration camp, where prisoners disembarked. Around 75% of the incoming prisoners were killed immediately, with the remainder being interned in appalling conditions to work as slave labourers. It is estimated that between 1 and 1.5 million people, (mainly Jews, Roma, gay men and Soviet POWs) were murdered at Auschwitz and Birkenau.

The Little Wood, Birkenau concentration camp. Prisoners selected for immediate extermination waited in the Little Wood for what they were told was a disinfecting shower. The ashes of people gassed and burned in the nearby Krematoria were dumped in the pond in the middle of the picture. In the background is the Sauna, where prisoners selected for slave labour were stripped of their possessions, shaved, deloused and tattooed with a camp number.

Camping beside the Dunajec river in the town of Cerveny Klastor. The river marks the border between Slovakia and Poland, and raft trips through the Dunajec gorge are a popular local tourist attraction.

The town of Bardejov has won UNESCO awards for preservation and restoration of its Gothic architecture. This picture shows the market square with its unique town hall, and the church.

Lviv street market, with the Opera House in the background.

The Ukrainian flag flies from the top of Castle Hill.

Castle Hill affords a wonderful 360 degree panoramic view over Lviv and the surrounding countryside.

The ornate interior of the Lviv Opera House.

The horse cart is a ubiquitous form of transport for people and produce throughout the rural areas of Eastern Europe.

The endless steppe stretches to the horizon, south of Lviv. The chernozem, or black soil, of this region is incredibly fertile, and Ukraine was the breadbasket of the Soviet Union, producing more than a quarter of its agricultural output. Despite this, the disruption caused by Stalin's collectisation of agricultural resulted in a famine that killed more than 4 million Ukrainians in the 1930s.

The road quality deteriorated a bit when I detoured into the Carpathian National Park. Mountain bike? We don't need no steenkin' mountainbike!

Vassily, Vassily, Misha and Misha turned up in their horse cart just after I bivouaced in a nearby picnic shelter, and proceeded to build a campfire to cook their supper while enjoying a drink or two. Big Vassily (holding the lemonade bottle filled with local vodka) was keen to compare mobile phones with me, and somewhat disappointed that I lacked the appropriate technology.

Sucevita monastery. The richly decorated monasteries in the northern region of Bucovinia have been jointly declared a world heritage site by UNESCO.

The colours of the frescoes are astonishingly vivid, given that they were painted in the 15th and 16th centuries. Graphic depictions of saints being martyred in a variety of creatively gruesome ways are a favourite theme.

A Romanian attack cow? I have no idea what this was all about.

When the tarmac on the route I was following ran out and the road eventually disappeared altogether, the locals helpfully put me back on course, which turned out to be a path through a field...

...leading to this extremely dodgy bridge, which seemed to held together with chewing gum and string.

This Romanian apiarist had set up his hives in a layby at the start of the Trans-Fagaras Highway.

The Trans-Fagaras Highway crosses Romania's highest mountain range, climbing to over 2000m. It is a spectacular feat of engineering, with precipitous hairpins, multiple bridges and tunnels, but was really just a vanity project for the former dictator Ceausescu. It serves little purpose as a transport route, and is closed by snow from October to June. This picture was taken near the top after a tough, bottom gear climb of 3 hours from the plains below.

On more than one occasion, when wild camping, I opened the tent door to find that I had pitched in the path of early morning commuters.

A view of the mediaeval town of Sighisoara from the clock tower. Sighisoara was the birthplace of Vlad Dracula (son of Dracul, "the dragon") also know as Vlad Tepes, "The Impaler". Tepes, who was reputedly one of the inspirations for Bram Stoker's Dracula, was an exceptionally cruel ruler whose favourite method of killing his enemies was to impale them on a stake. He allegedly killed tens of thousands of people in this fashion, and an invading Turkish army reputedly turned back after it was confronted by 20,000 Turkish prisoners impaled on stakes by Tepes.

Storks' nests are a common site throughout Eastern Europe. This nest is constructed on top of an electricity pole, but many villages appear to be proud of their storks, and erect special poles and platforms specifically for the birds to nest on.

The town of Dabuleni in the plains near the Danube was packed with farmers bringing watermelons to market. The guy on the left of the picture immediately starting slicing great chunks of watermelon and handing them to me when I stopped to take a photo.

Crossing the Danube from Romania to Bulgaria.

A field of sunflowers in northern Bulgaria.

A Sofia church, with the distinctive domes and crosses of the Orthodox faith.

Rila monastery was an important centre for the preservation of Bulgarian culture during Ottoman rule. Most of the monastery was rebuilt in the 19th century after it was destroyed by fire.

Detail of the frescoes on the exterior of Rila monastery.

The ruins of Heraklea, founded by Philip II of Macedon, the father of Alexander the Great.

Detail from one of the floor mosaics discovered during excavations at Heraklea.

Lake Ohrid at sunset. Lake Ohrid is a huge, deep freshwater lake that forms part of the border between Macedonia and Albania. The water of the lake is incredibly clear, with visibility down to 22 metres.

The 13th century church of St. Jovan Bogoslov-Kaneo, on the shores of Lake Ohrid. The town of Ohrid and the lake is a designated UNESCO world heritage site.

Enver Hoxha, the former dictator, had a bit of an obsession with building bunkers to defend Albania against invasion. It is estimated that up to 700,000 bunkers were built during his rule. Designed to withstand heavy weapons, they are almost impossible to remove, and have become a feature of the Albanian countryside.

Blocks of flats in the capital Tirana have been decorated in rather striking colourschemes. This is a project instigated by Tirana's mayor, a 39-year-old conceptual artist called Edi Rama.

The main roads I cycled on in Albania were in excellent condition, but Tirana had the most shocking roads I've ever seen in a capital city. It was like cycling through a building site.