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Dierhagen & The Baltic

October 18, 2018ricklongboardLeave a comment

With the better part of a week to travel along the north German Baltic coast while we wait for our front fender (which needs to be ordered and painted). We’ve travelled up through Rostock, although we did not stop there, having had enough of urban space for a while. So here we are 50m away from the sea, just outside Dierhagen and on our way to the National park at Darss for a bit of cycling.

Travelling on the back roads has been a bit interesting, and I’m at a loss as to how the speed restrictions work. There are very few speed signs as you approach a town, and typically none when you leave. That means 50km/h in town, sometimes 60 or 70km/h when leaving, and, at some unmarked spot, the limit goes to 100km/h. As there are no signs this is more usually indicated by cars riding right on your bumper to add some encouragement. Usually doesn’t work for me, except in the case of huge trucks, which certainly are intimidating. And in this area it’s not as though there are any hills on which you can leave the trucks behind.

We’ve had some lovely sights on the way up, with autumn colours now predominating. The Baltic has been the flattest lake ever! Cycling to Dierhagen – next to the beach, all forested – took us to the small harbour where we spent some time trying to distinguish sky from water. There is a bit of mist around, and between the deep green colour of the sea, the grey/blue of the sky, and the reflections off the mirror-like surface means that it is quite disorienting. I think if I were on a boat I’d have difficulty knowing which way was up – apart from the breathing thing, of course.

We had a big van cleanout yesterday, which has proven relatively easy to do on a regular basis. This morning we still need to do the water tanks as they’ve not really been cleaned in a year. Our fresh water supply has been in good nick, mostly because we use so much water that the tank is being filled with fresh water every three days. We are also very careful about not having food scraps etc go into the grey water tank – I don’t shave in the van for the same reason. Even so, we put dose of cleaner in monthly, but I think it’s time to get out the cloths and do it properly – an unpleasant task, I’ve been told. We are also good for another two weeks on the clothing side, having done three loads of washing – at exorbitant prices, unfortunately.

With a bit of luck we’ll be in Hamburg (again) tomorrow, get the van sorted (hmmm, some insurance issues on the horizon) and then start heading south (again!).

Round ‘n Round They Go …

October 15, 2018October 18, 2018ricklongboard2 Comments

It’s been a higgeldy-piggeldy kind of two days, with more of the same coming up…

The Hanseatic Museum on Saturday should only be spoken of in superlatives, but I lack the skills, so … It took us almost 5 hours to do the main tour, at the end of which we decided to forsake further wanderings through adjacent historical sites. The museum is filled with the most stunning ehibits, and the information given on each area was very informative. Your ticket, with a QR code, triggered explanations and mobile exhibits, in your language of choice, and with enhanced information depending on what you chose in the setup. I chose Bergen and ‘Law & Order’, so, at appropriate points, the interactive screens added info for me – how cool is that, Norway? We had to take a break halfway through and calculated if we didn’t speed up our walking / reading / comprehension / ooh/ahhs we would be there long after dark!

Kaispeicher, Hamburg

Hamburg, heading to the tourist harbours

Sunday saw us heading to Hamburg, intent on getting the van sorted out. We slept in a narrow, tree-lined road in a residential suburb, with passing kids staring in and making comments – perhaps not the usual sights on the way to school? That meant we had much of Sunday to walk around the main tourist harbour area, Speicherstadt, and take in the waterfront in weather more summer than autumn.

Having a beer outside in the sun Niki had a bit of a tearful moment. Her mum, Ursula, was born in Hamburg and lived through the bombings, and the last time Niki and mum were together had recounted those experiences. An interesting point I think I remember from somewhere … a greater tonnage of bombs dropped on Hamburg in the Firestorm than dropped on England in the entire war?

This was brought home with a visit to St Nikolai, left in remembrance to the horrors of war.

Monday brought hours of driving through Hamburg’s busy suburbs as we went from a) Fiat dealer to fix the fender dinged in Sweden months ago – come back next Monday b) Burstner dealer to have a water integrity check done – no, we didn’t know we had to pay for this ourselves, it’s got a 5-year warranty c) Pioneer to sort out our satnav – No, we didn’t know the data card was from 2015, but thank you for checking with Pioneer and sorting the card out, not charging us €65! Ho Hum.

So, what to do with a week while we wait for our new fender? Hmmm, how about back to Lübeck? So here we are having Grille Hax, rotkohl, kartoffel salat und weisswein … I’m fully engaging the culture! Tomorrow will see us heading north Rostock along the Ostsee to Stralsund before looping back to a national park in Müritz, north of Berlin. With a bit of luck we’ll get back on the bikes and cycle through what looks like a 1000 lakes. IF the weather holds … beach und bier for the next few days!

Last thing: Big ‘Thank You’ to Niki for navigating today. Strange city, pedestrians/bikes/buses/carscarscars, a navi that went on the blink (almost said, ‘went on the fritz’!!), and all of it on small suburban roads: Kept her cool, overrode the GPS (with 50/50 success, if truth be told) and got us to each point with minimal fuss. Really cool!

Lübeck and the Hanseatic League

October 12, 2018October 18, 2018ricklongboardLeave a comment

So, true to form, we’ve been absolutely useless at heading off as planned. Reasons for this are quite simple: Absolutely stunning weather, fantastic parking spot, and the medieval capital of the Hanseatic League, Lubeck.

When we arrived on Thursday morning the intent was to spend a day or so going through the old city. Turns out that there is just way too much to see, and that’s just part of it. It’s great being back in Germany – we have quadrupled our beer intake, had coffee and cake whenever we’ve wanted, and opened our evening fare with a standard German dinner.

Today we went on a pretty full-on walking tour of the old city, with Niki going full Deutscher, proceeding at pace and stopping at each of the points marked on the very good tourist map. I hadn’t taken a watch, so was unable to control the flow of walk – rest – walk – beer – repeat, and it was only when nearing collapse that we were able to settle down to a bite to eat and a large beer. The latter was required because I couldn’t reach the water bottle in my bag, and also because the steadily increasing temperatures required adequate rehydration – forecast for tomorrow is 26°C. When thinking that we left Norway at a midday high of 6°C, well, we are enjoying this.

Niki meets an old friend at St Marien Kirche

The city has proven to be an absolute gem, and even with Niki cracking the whip we didn’t get round to seeing the Hanseatic museum, and that is apparently a 4 hour expedition. So we’ve shelved plans to move for another day or so, and will look to get to Hamburg on Sunday. We’ve booked the van in for repairs to the fender on Monday in Hamburg, which is only 60km away, so no need to rush anywhere.

Hanseatic Gates – What symbols of commercial power!

Might look into a van conversion – this would pay our way. Coffee Van To Go.

Highlights of the walk today – Wow, so much! The St. Marien Kirche was simply astonishing. Begun in 1200 it underwent various additions. Entering the church is impressive enough, with soaring aisles that really characterise the gothic church construction – but then you take a few steps further, and the main vault soars almost 40 meters above ground, with twin spires of 125metres – the highest brick vault in the world, and Germany’s third largest church. I had no idea brick could sustain those stresses, and it’s clear to see why the church itself was used as a model for 70 churches in the Baltic region. Bombed in 1942, reconstruction began in 1947, in the process uncovering some of the original frescoes painted over during the Reformation. The church bells remain where they crashed to the ground in 1942.

History all around you here, from magic marzipan shops to the salt cellars of the Hanseatic Leagues (salt fish for the English), church spires and merchant homes, Willy Brandt to hidden gardens. I’m looking forward to another day here, particularly as coffee and cake right outside the van gives us another opportunity to see an eye-wateringly kaleidoscope sunset, fish eagles, migrating birds (collective noun for a group of swans?)… etc etc!

And … Happy Birthday Devon! (Yes, Dad knows he’s a day late!)

Last Night in Denmark

October 10, 2018October 18, 2018ricklongboardLeave a comment

So, our kids are laughing at us as we continue to fail to leave the north …

As anticipated our best intentions of racing down south came to nought, and only with partially good reason! We stopped off in the coastal town of Ebeltoft on our way down to Legoland, expecting to spend a few hours. Instead we spent 2 nights. The town itself was very pretty, with a real, functioning city centre that has withstood the passing centuries pretty well. Given the absence of tourists, we had the town pretty much to ourselves, as well as some prime parking on the harbour. With the wind occasionally reaching great strength this was a mixed blessing.

Bar in Ebeltoft – Before a beer

Ebeltoft

The highlight of the stay was clearly our visit to the Danish ship Jylland (in English, Jutland – sound familiar?) Commissioned in 1860 as a 44 gun frigate it was Denmark’s first steam powered screw driven warship, and its last wooden hulled ship. It was engaged in battle Helgioland in 1864 with ships from Sweden (hmmm, recurring Scandinavian theme here) and Austria. It went on to be converted to be the Danish royal yacht, got old, sank, sold, recovered, and is now being restored.

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If only Norway could loan Denmark a few hills, and if only the Danes could send some folks knowledgeable about the fact that exhibitions should, at heart, exhibit! There was more to see on a single deck than in all Norway’s umpteen museums. We spent three hours going through the ship, as well as the amazing collection of ship models. You may recall that we visited the cathedral in Kristiansand which had a model of the Jylland, presented by the Danish royal family (why??) – seeing the real thing was just so interesting! The result – we had too little time to pack, move to Legoland (Billund) and make use of an afternoon there. So we stayed another night, leaving at the crack of dawn this morning …

Crack of dawn is now about 7:30am, so it was a more respectable 9:00am before we were on the road. I wasn’t initially too keen on a day in Legoland, but had been warming to the idea. Arriving we were swamped with German tourists – schools on holiday, and so scenes reminiscent of the Shanghai International Expo greeted us after we had found, manoeuvred, and paid for parking.

Niki baulked, so it was back in the van and on our way to Ribe, Denmark’s oldest town. What a great stop! Free parking just outside the old town, €6 pita for dinner – so huge we’ve brought one back – dumping site on hand and temperatures up to 18°C. On parking we witnessed two massive flocks of geese heading off south – they must know something – as Ribe is a major stop for bird migrations. The town is still lively, and is obviously well frequented by tourists – but without the July chaos. Had a great day visiting “one of the world’s 100 loveliest cathedrals” – yes, that is a local quote. Nevertheless, it truly was beautiful. The core of the current church was built from 1150 to 1250 in Romanesque style, with the obvious later additions of new gothic ideas. Fascinating to see the large, square Commoner’s Tower, which looks like it was built last year, in fact dates from 1283, following the collapse of a previous tower.

House dating from the Great Fire of London

Not without some controversy! Niki and I have loved visiting churches as repositories of art, collections of artefacts, symbols of faith of bygone times and, for me, a continual reminder of power and politics not foreign to our times. I must admit to being a little conservative when mixing periods too freely – and it seems I’m not alone. It took three years for the authorities to grant permission for a redecoration of the apse – I wish the debate was still ongoing.

Now I’m sure that there will be someone out there looking to comment on ‘artistic juxtaposition’ or something similar – please comment elsewhere … In the same vein I have little sympathy for amateur reconstructionist who, with the best intent, still screw up important legacies from the past – see here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecce_Homo_(Mart%C3%ADnez_and_Gim%C3%A9nez,_Borja)

Hmm … losing flexibility in your old age, or becoming more comfortable in stating a point of view 🙂

100 DAYS!!!

October 9, 2018October 18, 2018ricklongboard4 Comments

It’s been 100 days since we left Berne – perhaps time to take stock and do some reflection?

This opportunity to travel was not entirely of our making. I was certainly tired after a long time in education, and I don’t think the last posting was particularly easy. So when the school board and I parted ways, the question was – what next. I certainly had no intent to step into a new position – Niki had spent 4 years doing online teaching, something she found surprisingly pleasant, but lacking the professional life and growth afforded by a more conventional school system. After 4 years of not sharing weekends (Niki had Friday & Saturdays off), and not really having school holidays together, we took the opportunity to just pack up and go. Was this the right choice?

Well, 100 days feels like we’ve just got started. I’ve no idea what I’ll be doing next year, but I don’t see a school on the horizon. Niki, by contrast, will be looking for a teaching job somewhere in Europe – if you hear of something going at international schools, drop us a line! I’m of the mind that if I start to think of next year then what we are doing is simply a holiday. I can see this going on for a little longer – in fact, the bad dreams have been about this ending!

So far, the van has suited us just fine. The smaller size allows us to park almost anywhere, it’s been cheaper on tolls and ferries, and we have not found ourselves crowded at all. We have been quite particular in putting things back in their place (to be honest, still a learning curve for me), and that has reduced clutter. Our food storage areas have emptied, and there’s no need to have cartons of milk behind our seats, or cans stacked on top of wetsuits.

My clothes from top: Socks & underwear, cycling gear, summer clothes. winter clothes.

The 3-day routine of filling up with water and dumping waste has simply become a routine – we plug in a dump station between overnight stops and only once have we been stretched to find a station. We are now picking up groceries more regularly, often doing so on our way back to the van after a walk through town. Showers and toilet in the van are cramped – but that just is, and we are not complaining. And even as the temperatures start to drop, the van heating has kept us cozy. So neither of us have felt too squashed in the van, nor felt short with each other – in fact, the opposite. Cash wise we are working out well, and at the current rate I can see a second year coming up … not having this conversation yet with Niki! So 100 days and almost exactly 10 000km sees us in a better position than when we left: More confident about finding overnight locations, more comfortable in the van, more relaxed on the road. It has perhaps helped that we have made up our mind to be heading off to Spain, albeit with a couple of detours as they become available – Dutch painters, Belgian beer, French mussels … Things could be worse. As soon as we have more of a plan than ‘South’ I’ll drop a map on the website. Till then – the difference between living on the road and a holiday is who cares about when?