In Transit

I'm back in Europe, sitting with a cappuccino in my Fiumicino hotel, waiting till it's time to head back to the airport for my flight to Vienna. My intention was to do a new long-distance walk called the European Peace Walk: 6 countries in 600 kilometers. Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Slovenia, and Italy.  

It starts in Vienna and ends 24 days later in Trieste. It began last year, the 100th anniversary of the start of World War I and the route is meant to celebrate the open borders now shared between all these countries. Being so new it was a challenge for the organizer to find accommodation at appropriate distances and so it's a semi-organized walk in that we sign up for a start date so that for at least the first, more crucial week, our hosts will know how many walkers to expect.

So that was the plan. Except that my previously injured left ankle decided last week that enough was enough and it just didn't want to walk anymore. I was training, preparing for the Peacewalk, and doing so well. I'd worked my way up to 10 miles, 4.5 days a week for the last 2 weeks. It was just that 3rd day in a row (the .5) that it started to protest, and this past Wednesday it put its foot down, literally. No more walking without pain/limping. So that's another big setback in my rehab and the end to my Peacewalk.

I emailed the organizer to say I couldn't do the Walk; and he replied, "Sorry to hear, but have you considered biking it?" Well, that's a great idea! Tickets and trains and hotels and hydrofoil were already booked, so why not? I still would like to do the whole Walk one day, so the current plan is to rent a bike for two weeks - spend a week on the Walk and another week on the Danube Bike Path, then another week bumming around Italy. To be continued....