My favourite part of this ride is that there is no fixed route. I’m looking forward to getting somewhere each day, and getting the map out in the evening to see where I might head tomorrow. Even so, I do have some destinations in mind.

A long time ago I went to the Moselle valley on a school trip and I’ve frequently thought of going back. (In those days my German was fairly fluent!) The scenery is beautiful: vineyards, picture-postcard towns, and the gentle pace of the river which joins the Rhine at Coblenz.

The summer before university I went Interrailing with my brother and a friend, and we started off along the Rhine, past the Lorelei Rock. I planned to go back to that stretch of the Romantic Rhine soon afterwards but, like many plans, things changed and I never made it. There are castles around almost every bend.

The one thing I never get tired of is cycling in mountains. I like the climbs, I like the views from the summit – and 10 miles coasting downhill the other side never gets boring. By the end of week one I hope to be in the Austrian alps, heading to Liechtenstein, Switzerland, and back to the Rhine before returning home. Before that, I have a hot tip for the highest bit of tarmac in the alps. It involves a 1.7km tunnel and a glacier. More of that another day…

I might get half way round and fancy a detour: a city night, the Black Forest, or just putting my feet up. We’ll see. I’ve bought an Interrail ticket: I can travel on any seven days in a month, which gets me to the start line (maybe Trier) and gets me home. But most importantly it means I can hop on a train any other time I feel like a change of scenery. (Oh, and I treated myself to 1st Class.)