Christian Cummins

2 weeks ago | substack.com | Christian Cummins

Schnapps was not the first thing my stomach called for we saw was the top of the red and white Tyrolian flag, standing tall and rather proprietorial in the luminous mist. At last a mountain hut!I was feeling exhausted and light headed after an exhausting two hours of winding climbing up from the East Tyrolean village of Matrei on my mountain bike.

3 weeks ago | substack.com | Christian Cummins

Current time: 0:00 / Total time: -9:16Audio playback is not supported on your browser. Please upgrade. Discussion about this episodeA Vienna-based journalist at the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation since 2002, before that a Vibe Fm4 in Accra, Ghana. I write about the environment, travel, sport and history; sometimes all at the same time. A Vienna-based journalist at the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation since 2002, before that a Vibe Fm4 in Accra, Ghana.

3 weeks ago | substack.com | Christian Cummins

If you were to mix a bit of James Bond with a bit of Quentin Tarantino's Inglorious Basterds, you'd get the true story of the Second World War commando unit 3 Troop. This heroic body of soldiers, also known as “X Troop” because their operations were clandestine and strictly off the books, was made up of Jewish refugees. Having escaped the Nazis, they then volunteered to be sent back. After arduous months of training, they risked their lives in derring-do raids behind enemy lines.

1 month ago | substack.com | Christian Cummins

I'm in Charleroi in Belgium and I'm staring at a lost world. Along the banks of a canal that crosses Belgium from east to west, there is a huge abandoned industrial complex. You'll see the rusted towers of a steel works, chimney, giant lifting hooks, the hap-hazard looking piles of buildings of an old coke works. This was the world of soot and sweat that Emile Zola wrote about. This area of Wallonia was once the beating heart of carbon-intensive industry that that made Belgium and Europe rich.

1 month ago | substack.com | Christian Cummins

By the time I woke up in Mantua for the fourth day of a riding, the rhythm of bike-packing life already felt entirely natural. You wake up, pull on the same cycling clothes that have been drying in the cramped hotel bathroom, stuff your already malodorous evening-wear in sausage like saddle bags and launch yourself enthusiastically into the breakfast buffet. Life is simple and calories are, for once, your best friend.