EUROPE 2015 ISSUE III

Castles on the Rhine

A two week, organised river cruise is like nothing we have done before.  The best part, you can unpack and live in your own space for two full weeks.  The downside, you’re not in control of the where and when of your adventures.  It’s just the smallest bit unsatisfying.  Perhaps it is because our time is so short in each location, or that the history of this area is so convoluted and intertwined, never mind totally unfamiliar to me.  It may be the language barrier, although for the most part our tour guides have had excellent English.   Guess the biggest frustration has been our tours.  They need to appeal to everyone and as a consequence they have been more than a little superficial and lacking in detail about life in this part of the world.  

The focus has been on the age of the buildings, what style of church are we viewing or who lived here.  No real discussion of the politics and or economics of where we are.  Just what it is, is hard to say, but it may be just the sameness of all these tiny river communities (not in a bad way) or the fact that one super exuberant Baroque, Catholic Church begins to look much like another.  

But I get ahead of myself, there’s still the trip down the middle Rhine with it castles and the Lorelei rock where sailors were lured to their death by the siren song of a young girl.  We probably sailed past some of the more dramatic

structures while we slept but once we enter the gorge there are nonstop ruins of castles and fortresses for miles.    The mountains, they are too steep to be called hills, come down to the river’s edge with acres of vineyard terraced in to their sides.  It is green and lush, but not nearly as lush as the Austrian countryside to come.  The towns, or perhaps villages would be a better description, seem barely more than a street deep, and cling to the edge of the river.  Each has its requisite onion domed Catholic Church and fortress/castle looming on the heights. How they actually built anything on some of those peaks and slopes is a mystery to me, but they did.

Some of the towns on the north or is it east side of the river,  seem to have roads accessing more development back behind them. On the other hand, the opposite bank seems trapped between the river and the mountains.  A narrow band of development fronts the river, with terraces of grapes further up the slope.  In some areas a train line shares the limited flat space and there seems to be a roadway that runs along the bank. There are no bridges on this stretch of the Rhine, do you think they had tourists and cruise ships in mind?  So you want to cross the river to visit a friend or do a bit of shopping . . .  Never 

fear, you will find small car ferries that ply their way across the river carrying everything from small delivery trucks to mopeds and I assume pedestrians.  There is no opportunity to moor at any of these little settlements so we don't learn much more.

From here it is a progression of medieval cities, Miltenberg,

Wurzburg, Bamberg, Nuremberg, Regensburg, Passau . . . and a succession of baroque churches and quaint town squares, ornate city halls and decimated Jewish communities. The sausages change as we move down the rivers . . . . smoky, spicy, brown, white. Not to be forgotten, the mustards change as well. They do of course have to go with changing sausage which means they have gone from sweet and spicy to a hot Dijon style to plain old American style. 
Sausages change, mustards change and the beers change as well.  Guess that should be no great surprise, if I just think about all of our micro-breweries at home.  Here each city seems to have its own speciality and at least one major brewery that serves that particular city.  Our strangest experience was the smoky beer in Wurzburg, I think.  Having decided we needed to taste it we went looking for one of the two pubs purported to have it.  It was a cute little place all dark wood and Bavarian costumes on the staff (they really wear that stuff . . . dirndl skirts and

lederhosen, I mean) and plenty of folks with big pint mugs of beer sitting in the sunshine.  The smoke flavor comes from roasting the hops, which we were told was typical of all beers early on.  The atmosphere was delightful, what’s to complain about, vacation, sunshine and an ice cold beer. . . oh so very wrong.  Beer is supposed to taste like beer, not a barbecued sausage!!!  Wrong, wrong, wrong. 

Octoberfest

When it comes to beer the "Star of David" hanging outside the establishment is a good thing.  You see them suspended

from the sign and they purport to be the official symbol of the brewers guild which goes back to the early 1500s.  The symbol itself is older, dating in to the late 1300s.  There are six points to the star and six parts to brewing beer . . . water, hops (preferably not roasted) grain, malt, yeast and the brewer.  
As days pile up one city fades in to the next, and we have taken to referring to them as Berg-Burg.  “Remember that place where the city hall was on the island with all the bright colored buildings, or the place where we bought Lebkuchen and ate chopped pork sandwiches.”   You might have an opportunity to get it right, assuming of course you can remember a few specifics of each community.  Using the German language you can back in to it, if there is a mountainside it is probably something-bErg; while if there is a fortress/castle it is most likely something-else-bUrg.

Next stop Nuremberg (I see no mountains), a city on the Rhine-Maine-Danube Canal, in the German state of Bavaria and the administrative region of Franconia.  All these descriptors seem of utmost importance to the Germans, to me they are just more words to fill up the page of my blog.  We opted for the optional tour to the “documentation center” and some of the infrastructure left over from the Second World War.  The documentation center is really a museum showing the rise of Hitler and his impact on European history and of course the various Jewish populations that fell under his control.  Given that it is in Germany and designed as an educational facility they have done some outstanding work at making it accessible to English speakers. 

Nuremberg held great significance during the Hitler’s regime.  Because of the city's position in the center of Germany, the Nazi Party chose it as the site of huge Nazi Party conventions – the Nuremberg Rallies. The rallies were held from 1927 until 1938. After Adolf Hitler’s rise to power in 1933 the Nuremberg rallies became huge Nazi propaganda events. Most of the films of goose stepping Nazis and the straight armed salutes were staged (quite literally) and filmed here as intimidation devices.  We saw a number of ruins that were constructed solely for these assemblies, many of which were never finished. The saving grace they are now used as venues for car racing and rock concerts. 

 

EUROPE 2015 ISSUE II

Kinderdijk Mill

We are in the midst of a “Grand European Adventure” along with our friends and neighbors Carol and Frank Sobtka.  It all started as a bit of a joke when I asked them what exotic place we should visit this summer.  Carol’s response, “you pick” and we left it there.  Well the next day what should arrive in my mailbox but the Viking River Cruise catalogue.  How I got on their mailing list in the first place I have no idea, but generally I just toss it in the rubbish bin.  This time I took a look at it and flippantly suggested we do their “Grand European Tour”, five countries, fifteen days, Amsterdam to Budapest, on the Rhine, Maine and Danube.  Carol called my bluff and here we are, almost two weeks in, sitting in the town of Passau on the German Austrian border.  

Tile Work Amsterdam

Now here is where I get extremely embarrassed by our extravagance.  Not only are we spending three extra days in Amsterdam and three in Budapest, we will spend a week in Switzerland and are meeting yet another couple, Carolyn and Jim Tabor in Paris for a week.  That makes six of us sharing an apartment in the Marais.  After that it is off to the UK to spend two weeks with Mick’s Dad and finally home in mid-October, just in time for Halloween and our annual pumpkin carving party.

So what is life on a riverboat like?  It’s a lot like being spoiled rotten.  Thank goodness there isn’t the excess that you find on ocean cruises.  There are three square meals a day, but not around the clock.  The portions are adequate but not excessive and there is always a choice between three appetizers, three entrees and three deserts.  The night they were doing a special, because mushrooms were in season, I heard that at least one patron, who did not like mushrooms, ordered three deserts!  I’m just sorry I didn’t think of it first. 

 

KINDERDIJK

Our first stop out of Amsterdam is Kinderdijk, a UNESCO World Heritage site.  No lazing about this morning, after sailing through the night we dock in Kinderdijk (pronounced kinder dike) some time shortly after 6 a.m. and our tour is scheduled for 8:30.  It’s off for a quick breakfast and I think I have just died and gone to heaven . . .apart from your typical eggs, bacon and eggs there is an enormous plate of smoked salmon, with all the trimmings as well as sliced meats and cheeses.  Life is good.

Because we are quite literally moored across the street from the site, we are out on a guided tour before the place opens for business.  As a consequence the option of riding a bike or a cruise along the dike is not available.  Holland is a low lying land that was mostly swamp and marsh until these ingenious peoples drained the land, installed dikes and took to agriculture.  This is not a one-time thing but an ongoing way of life.  If ignored the sea and rivers would invade again and the polders would revert to swamps.   At Kinderdijk it all started with two canals that were used to drain the polders and direct the excess water to the river.  By 1740 this system became inadequate and they built a series of mills to pump the water out of the canals in to storage reservoirs and then ultimately in to the river.  

There are still over 1000 windmills in Holland that have been preserved.  They are all still operational and each has a miller, who lives onsite, must be able to operate the mills as a back up to the more modern diesel and electrical powered pumps that serve the same purpose.  

This excursion doesn’t last nearly long enough and by 11 a.m. we are back on board and cruising down the Rhine on our way to Cologne (Koln).  

Mealtimes are a big part of this cruising business, one seating only and no reserved spaces.  Once the daily briefing is finished on the upper level there is a mad rush, well as mad a rush as can be expected when the majority of those involved are of retirement age and greater.  There are those who stake out the window seat to ensure a good view.  Then there are those traveling together who must have a table for six and, NO, you are NOT welcome to sit here.  You never know who you might be sitting with, it could be an endangered species biologist from Moscow, Idaho or space technologies engineers from the Silicon Valley.  Politics run the gamut and there was the day when I had to apologize to the gentleman next to me when his fairly conservative viewpoints ran afoul of a pair of Canadians and our more liberal positions.  He was gracious but they did leave the table rather early.  

Monday, it must be Cologne.  Cologne was bombed during the war and as a

Cologne Cathedral

consequence has little of historical value to offer, at least in the city center.  I will borrow an image from the internet since even with a wide angle lens I cannot get an image worth posting.   We had a guided tour by a gentleman with the most amazing whiskers who shared his thoughts on being German given there was so little else to talk about.  He also bought several open faced sandwiches to share with.  It was a dish of highly seasoned raw pork topped with raw onions.  I am happy to report that nearly everyone took some to taste and although it was not a great hit at least we redeemed ourselves by being willing.  All that was missing was a glass of beer, which we remedied that evening with a pub crawl.

Kolsch Beer

Another borrowed picture, carrying a camera when drinking is probably not a wise move.  This is the traditional way to serve Kolsch beer, the beer of Cologne.  The glass are about 4 oz and the beer very hoppie.  It is meant to be drunk cold, as a consequence, small portions. But small portions does not ensure small quantities being consumed.  Once your glass is empty you can expect another to surreptitiously take its place.  The proper way to indicate you have had enough is to place the cardboard beer mat over the top of your glass.  If you wish to tip your server, you "buy" them a beer.  You can see there are probably 12 glasses in the serving "tray.  The server has essentially purchased all of these beers even before he knows he has a customer to consume them.  So when buying him a beer he has the choice of whether to consume it (which they sometimes do . . . delivering beer is a thirst business) oe sell it to the next customer.  

Next stop Koblenz and the Marksburg castle and the Ehrenbreitstein Fortress.  

View from Ehrenbreitstein Fortress

It was grey and foggy and ultimately it poured down rain.  That is our ship moored below and we took a gondola up to the fortress.

Marksburg Castle

Europe 2015 Issue I

We are floating down the Rhine on our way to Cologne (Koln), our arrival having been delayed by half an hour by forces unknown, to us at least.  So I guess it is time to begin an exploration of our adventures to date.  This is my third time in Amsterdam in the last 45 years and each trip has been something unique.  My first time, I was on my own, staying in hostels and hitch hiking across Europe doing the “Grand Tour”.  The food was odd, not nearly so many people spoke English and it poured down rain.  My most outstanding memories; the first, the hostel was co-ed, just a room full of bunk beds, a communal kitchen, and you had to leave the premises between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m.  While the second is watching Fellini’s Satyr icon in Italian with Dutch subtitles because it was raining so hard and there was nowhere to go to get out of the wet.  

   

My second time in Amsterdam we stayed in a funky canal barge on the edge of the city center.  It would have been a flower child’s dream, lava lamps, bean bag chairs and macramé plant hangers.  We explored the Red Light District, ate Gouda Cheese and walked for miles dodging bicyclists. I guess I must have aged somewhat.  I haven’t quite fallen in to my dotage, but the creature comforts have more appeal with each passing year.  This time out it is a midrange hotel near the museum district, an easy walk to public transport, with breakfast included.   That said, Amsterdam is still a fascinating city and I have yet to leave the inner core to explore the suburbs. 

They say there are as many bicycles in the Netherlands, (aka the Low Countries, aka Holland and not to be mixed up with Belgium) as there are people and I do not doubt this in the least.  There are dedicated bike lanes that run between the car lanes and the sidewalk with their own traffic signals and protocols.  Do not walk in the bike lane, they will yell abuse at you and ring their bells in the most insistent and uncompromising manner.  If you feel a second class citizen when competing with vehicular traffic, Amsterdam’s bike lanes will truly make you feel powerless.  You see grandmas peddling home with their groceries, women in high heels and skirts on their way to work, businessmen in suits, young mothers with children variously strapped to them, riding in a basket at the front or perched front and/or rear on their individual seats.  One afternoon it began to rain, the only perceivable difference in behavior, a proliferation of waterproof ponchos.

Travel, it is all about expectations.  You build up an image of what it is you are going to see and do.  How it is going to smell, the cool breezes, the sunny skies the great works of art you will view and then there is the reality.  Reality, may not be as poetic as your expectations, but often times it is so much better.  Riding canal boats in the rain without one useful picture to show for your efforts is much more memorable than dozens of images that look exactly like everyone elses.  The memory of Gypsy soup that consisted of three mushrooms in a bowl of unidentifiable red broth and roast beef sandwiches that chewed as though they were made from the outside of the cow will remain far longer than the extravagant dinner of basil ceviche and fish cakes at the upscale fish bar.

I could give you the blow by bow of what we saw and where we went but instead I shall share a few more observations and finish  of with more pictures.  Have you ever considered what it might take to repair a road that is probably no more than 12 feet wide with four story houses on one side and a canal on the other . . . 

Did you notice, the building supplies are on a barge in the canal?

I reckon most of you have heard my story about needing to have a penny to use the toilet on New Street Station in Birmigham.  We seem to have set a new record 1 Euro ($1.10 appx) in Amsterdam.  

It is a bit questionable what of this will be saved and what I might lose.  We are sitting in a lock on the Rhine Main Canal and our internet connection is totally unstable.  More than that I am on the Espanol version of Google and can't find the translate function.  But more about cruising later.  

I have an internet connection, so am going to post this now,  More to come.

ROAD TRIP CANADA 2014 PART IV

WILD FLOWERS IN JULY

The skies have been  hazy and overcast  for several days but nothing out of the ordinary for a hot summer.  As we head West out of Edmonton the change is dramatic.  The once blue sky turns a dirty yellow brown and there is a definite smell of smoke on the air.  Western Canada is on fire.  There are reports of fires up in the Northwest Territories as well as Eastern British Columbia.  Canada has a policy of let them burn unless they are endangering personal property.   So, it would seem we are in for a long stretch of foul air.  The weather has been dry and hot and there is no change predicted in the near future.  As we head out of the plains for the mountains the weather reports include predictions of dry lightening, not a good thing. 

Once again we are out in rural Canada, rolling hills, rape and wheat fields and the occasional stand of pine and/or fir trees.  The communities are few and far between, mostly groupings of a half a dozen or so homes, small convenience stores associated with camping and recreation sites a few lakes and lots of green and yellow.  Once you get on to Canada 16 (the Yellowhead Highway) there are only about four crossroads over the next 400 or so kilometres.  These roads take off for exotic locations like Slave Lake, Grand Prairie and Dawson Creek; ultimately reaching Alaska.   

HIGHWAY MARKER

I kept wondering why they referred to it as the Yellowhead Highway, thinking perhaps it referred to a bird.  A bird with a yellow head would not be an uncommon occurrence.  What I finally discovered was it was named for Yellowhead Pass, the pass which the highway travels in order to cross the Canadian Rockies.  The pass in turn was named for an early fur trader and explorer named Pierre Bostonais. He had yellow streaks in his hair, and was nicknamed "Tete Janune" (Yellowhead).  In the end we were not destined to cross Yellowhead Pass but I believe Frank and Carol may have traveled it on their way from Kamloops to Jasper.  


We are making our way to Jasper, definitely a tourist area.  In order to avoid artificially high prices and limited choices we choose to stop in Hinton before entering the park.  Our first foray into civilisation leads us to a small IGA (Independent Grocers Alliance) which I though was American but it seems to have made it in to Alberta.  It was small and pretty limited, just what I was hoping to avoid.  Inquiries lead us back to the highway and a much larger IGA, perhaps 5 km down the road.  We stock up on perishables and Mick finds there bulk section which has some very stale sour gummies; to each their own bad taste!!

ATHABASCA RIVER

 With forty kilometers to go it hardly feels as though we are in the mountains.  The reality is we are IN the mountains, having already climbed gently all the way from Edmonton.  We travel along the Athabasca River but the sky is so heavy with smoke it is hard to get a real sense of the mountains around us.  I am going to "borrow" some images from the Internet since I chose not to take any myself.  

We find ourselves in the town of Jasper while still trying to find signage directing us to the campsite. My first impression is of high end condos and townhouses lining the roadway.  These give way to the shopping street with the railway station on one side and a large tourist information center on the other.  There is the usual assortment of outdoor stores, fishing shops, souvenir stores, women's clothing and restaurants.  People live here but the main street is obviously all about the tourist.  We try to make our escape, not wanting to pull the tent trailer through town.  A traffic light offers the opportunity for a left turn on to Hazel St., which our map indicates should take us back to the highway.  A red truck honks and flashes it lights at us, uh, omg it's Frank and Carol.  We wave frantically at them and then all progress ceases.  Yes we were supposed to meet up in Jasper, but not at a downtown intersection, talk about small world.  

PATRICIA LAKE

They take off in the other direction while we sit with eight or ten vehicles (mostly trucks) in front of us.  It appears that we have turned on to a street that has a train line crossing it and, naturally enough, there is a train going by.  This is not  a little passenger train, not even a reasonable length freight train but a giant, economy size freight train going about two miles per hour.   We wait, and wait and wait some more.  The tail of our trailer nosing out in to the cross traffic behind us.  But we have nowhere to go.  As if the indignity of having our rear end out in traffic is not enough someone pulls in behind us and then just to cap things off the train comes to a halt totally blocking through traffic.  Finally someone, a few vehicles ahead, pulls out of the queue and makes a u-turn.  Traffic creeps slowly forward but the dude directly in front of us holds his ground, he is going nowhere!  I finally get out of the car and walk forward to politely ask if he would pull forward so, we too, can make a u-turn.  I get a frown and a grumble and something other than polite acquiescence but he does move. We make the u-turn, trailer and all and head out of town.  Yes we waited probably ten minutes plus, yes I had to ask someone to move and yes we made a very poor choice.  But just to make it even more absurd . . .  the road through town took us where we needed to go  and although it had to cross the same train line there was an underpass which totally eliminated the need to be stopped by any train at all.  Suffice it to say, although we spent another four days in Jasper we never once attempted traveled on Hazel Street.  

IT'S 5 O'CLOCK SOMEWHERE

Just in case you had imagined that when traveling in this style we stint ourselves in any way please be assured that when it comes to food we do well.  Guess I really didn't need to put that in writing, did I?  Our accommodations may be somewhat primitive, our facilities lacking in  modern conveniences but food, well that is another thing entirely.  If we do well our traveling companions manage to take it a step further.  After dealing with a long day of travel and inconvenient train stoppages we arrived at our campsite to note from Carol and Frank inviting us to dinner.   We gathered up our chairs; chairs are one of the things of which you do not carry spares when camping, and made our way over to their campsite.  

SASKATOON aka SERVICE BERRIES

We are greeted by hors d'oervre (pistachios, cheese and crackers) along with a gin and tonic, including a wedge of lime, not too shabby.  Dinner is a stir fry but it doesn't stop there.  Carol and Frank jointly prepare a cobbler of Saskatoon berries, which they have picked at their previous campsite.  Not only do they prepare a cobbler but the prepare it in a cast iron dutch oven right in the coals from the campfire.  Guess that must qualify as real camping, not exactly our version of it, which entails buying a rotisserie chicken and making a salad. 

MALIGNE LAKE

WILD ROSE - PROVINCIAL FLOWER

We did our best to keep up with Frank and Carol who are "hiking fools" but it was pretty much a lost cause.  You really need to understand I like a walk with the best of them but hiking . . . that means you have to work at it and probably get all hot and sweaty.  According to Websters a hike is a long walk especially in the country or wilderness.  That definition pretty much works for me except possibly for the "long" part  I long ago discovered that my max is about five, possibly seven miles on a flat surface.  Add ups and downs and rocky uneven surfaces and my enthusiasm drops dramatically.  Never mind, we had fun and explored Patricia and Pyramid Lakes as well as did part of the Five Lake Trail.  

One evening was spent on a walking tour of Jasper.  It was a salutary reminder of just how new a place western Canada is.  The area in and around what is now the city of Jasper and Jasper National Park was first a Hudson's Bay Company fur trading outpost.  It was a part of the the route from York Factory (on Hudson's Bay) to New Caledonia or what is now British Columbia.  Much like Fort Edmonton it was an outpost for the collection of furs and meeting place for the trappers and First Nations people.  The park was established in 1907 but the town of Jasper, originally named Fitzhugh, did not really exist until 1911 when the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway made it to the park.  Just to put things in perspective it was until September 1905 that the Canadian government added both Alberta and Saskatchewan to the Commonwealth.  

We finished our visit to the park with a boat trip on Maligne (pronounced maleen) Lake and tea at the Chateau.  The name was given to the lake by priest who termed it maligne which in french apparently means wicked.  Just exactly what was wicked about it I no longer remember but it is pretty inaccessible and often covered in ice.  The trip out there took us past the Maligne Canyon and an intriguing lake which has holes in the bottom, a Karst Formation.  The lake never quite fills and the "river" downstream is often dry, but the water pops up again as springs some 15 or so miles further down the valley.

Not to ignore the tea at the Chateau.  It was quite wonderful with a view out across the lake at the distant glaciers.  One of the items we were presented with was a multicultural delightful . . .  French bread, English Cucumber and Canadian Goat cheese and more than that it tasted good.   

Things I have learned:

1. Rape seed (Canola or Canada oil) is "Traditionally made in to salad oil, frying oil, margarines and shortenings, canola is also being used in cooking sprays and flavoured oils; coffee whiteners and creamers; cosmetics and aromatherapy oils; dust suppressants, industrial lubricants, hydraulic fuels, biodiesel, printing inks, plasticizers, oiled fabrics and as an anti-static agent for paper and plastic wrap."  Doesn't that just make you want to rush out and buy some more.  
2. "A" is for avalanche.  When you look at wooded mountainside and you see an area where there are no trees, if that area is "A" shaped it was most likely caused by an avalanche which tears down the mountain obliterating everything in its way.
3. Fire stations are built with towers so hoses can be hung up to dry.  Try to imagine using a hose that has frozen solid in the dead of winter.