Porvoo - June 15-17

The plan was to spend a day in Helsinki, then travel to Porvoo for three days, then back to Helsinki. Shortly before arriving in Porvoo by bus, life intervened. Chris told us that Monna's father had died. This terrible news put us in a bit of a tailspin. While Monna went to her parents' place outside of Helsinki, we went on to try to enjoy the itinerary she had planned for us, albeit with somewhat dampened spirits.

Porvoo is a cute little town 50km to the east of Helsinki. This also puts it about 100km from the Russian border. While people are joking that one should see Porvoo before the Russians get here, the Finns are in fact looking at Vladimir's recent expansionist ambitions askance and have heightened the state of alert of the armed forces. One hopes that some sanity is left in the big state to the east. Porvoo is the second oldest town in Finland, and was founded around 1370. Its importance was based on its location by the exit of the river into the gulf of Finland. A row of warehouses on the river is still preserved.

We arrived on a Sunday and found out a little too late that restaurants close early that day. After wandering around aimlessly, first on the web, then on the streets, we wound up at a Nepalese place. So much for local cuisine. I overcame my prejudice for eating non local ethnic food outside of Queens, and it was actually pretty good.

The next day we were being hosted by friends of Monna's family. We started by visiting a small Orthodox Church, complete with private tour by the pastor, followed by a tour of the locale cemetery and its notable deceased. After that we had coffee at their house followed by sauna. Can't come to Finland without that. Alas, the weather gods were starting to desert us. It rained much of the afternoon and got colder.

Today started with flurries. That curtailed any thoughts of kayaking or biking. We went to see an organ concert at the Lutheran church and then had lunch with that same family. The afternoon was spent largely inside, since it was decidedly uncomfortable outside.

In spite of my earlier comments about the midnight sun, I'm becoming very fascinated with the bright nights. I wound up wandering around in a very empty Porvoo last night at 1:30 after we closed down the Irish pub. I get this sense of not wanting to give up daylight. Had it not been cold, I very likely would have stayed out much longer. It also totally screws with your sense of time.
Midnight:

1:30 am:

Helsinki - June 14

Land of the midnight sun - also, land of the midnight clouds. The whole daylight thing turned out a little anticlimactic for me. In the north of Germany, where I'd been for the past week, the sun sets at 10 pm this time of year. In Helsinki, it sets at 11 pm (and rises at 4 am). So with the aforementioned clouds, the difference wasn't that much. Still, it was undeniably not dark at 2 am, when I went to bed.
Helsinki is a busy, bustling party city. Just don't try to find coffee before 10am on Sunday. Clearly, the crowds who stand in line for the clubs at 1am have no need for an early pick-me-up, but I was getting pretty antsy without my morning caffeine. The market at the harbor provided relief.

After touring the city a bit in the afternoon and retracing my steps from the harbor to the train station from 22 years ago, when we took the boat from Stockholm, I hooked up with Chris, Monna, Chris' mom and Lonnie for cocktails.

After a nice dinner of reindeer shank, we finished the evening at a local wine bar. Walking back to the hotel, it seemed like there were more people on the street at 1am than 1pm. Many clubs still had lines and all the bars were full. The late sunset really does warp your sense of time when you're not used to it, perhaps even if you are. Note the time in the picture:

Ostsee/Nordsee - June 8-11

Back in Grafenau after the 2800km loop of Germany. Time to organize pictures, catch up on posts and get ready to leave for Helsinki tomorrow. Traveling is stressful business.
Deutschland Tour

Deutschland - June 2014

After leaving Wismar my target was Schoenbergerstrand on the Baltic Sea.

Since it was only 100km away, I detoured through Luebeck and the island Fehmarn. Luebeck is yet another Hansestadt, and was to be my last on this tour. Also, it was the first city back in western Germany. It's a very pretty city with a large clean old town and the famous Holstentor. It is not on the water, so a canal was dug to the nearby Baltic Sea. Its other claim to fame is Marzipan. Since I tripped over the store of the main manufacturer (Niederegger), I felt compelled to pick up some provisions.

The detour to Fehmarn did not prove successful. It was a holiday weekend, and the little town of Burg was packed like Times Square on a summer Wednesday. I backed out rapidly and resumed my way towards Schoenberg across the northern backroads.
My reason for staying in Schoenberg was to visit old friends. Many moons ago, when I was but a wee lad, I stayed at a family after school until my parents came home from work. This went on for five years, until we left for the US and they really were a second family to me. "Mom" had moved up north, as had one of my "sisters". I stayed a day longer than intended. It was nice to catch up, chill out, go swimming in the "Ostsee".  Too easy to loose track of time and friends.
Schoenbergerstrand is a little tourist town directly behind the levee. The entire north of Germany is surrounded by levees, since the land is at or below sea level. Mostly this keeps the farm lands dry.

Since I had blown the day I had planned for visiting Hamburg, I drove straight across to the North Sea to spend a couple of days with my sister and brother-in-law. They had rented a vacation house in a park next to the North Sea levee on the peninsula Butjadingen. One of the definig things about the North Sea is the Wattenmeer. The "beach" has barely any slant to it and goes on for miles out to sea. At low tide it's completely dry and you can walk across to some islands. The tide delta next to land is about 6 feet, but further out it is more than 12. The effect is absolutely fascinating. Mostly it's a solid surface, but at times there is deep slick, soft as quicksand.

North Sea levees are much taller than those on the the Baltic Sea. They have a permanent "maintenance crew" of sheep herds on them that keep the grass mowed and also tamp down the earth.

Meandering in Mecklenburg - June 7

Leaving Usedom was as tricky as entering it. While the Germans did bother to put up a bridge, it opens once an hour to let sailboats through. After enjoying the lovely countryside for an extra 20 minutes I was on my way. I decided to head north, towards the coast and found a town called Stralsund. This turned out to be another member of the Hanseatic League and once again had the same funky architecture as the others (some day I'll have WIFI again and post pictures). It also hosts several tall ships, among them the Gorch Fock I, which was the sailing school ship of the German Navy. Its younger sister is still currently in use. I moseyed aound, had a hering sandwich for lunch and headed further up the coast.
The north of Germany is very flat. Lots of meadows with cows. Also, most of the country roads a lined with trees. I'm not sure what that's all about. It looks pretty neat, but it doesn't seem like a particularly safe pactice. Somewhat un German. Maybe the Vikings started it? The next stop was a little fishing village called Barth. I stopped for coffee and cake, a German habit as ingrained as British High Tea.
On to Wismar, yet another Hanse Stadt, my target to stay for the night. I didn't want to repeat the previous night experience of finding a place to stay at 20:30, so I had reserved a room at the "Alter Schwede" (old swede) restaurant, which also has a few rooms to rent. Insider tip from the friends from Kiel. Wismar is very well restored and has the hanseatic architecture on full display. Solidarity tax money well spent.
The "solidarity tax" is money the west Germans have been paying since the reunification. The result of this extra tax has at times been dubious, but certainly in some instances it's very obvious where the money went.
After failing to score an outdoor seat in any of the town restaurants since it was a holiday weekend, I wound up at a great Kneipe (pub) across from the local, requisite, monstrous red brick church (St. Nic). Awesome find. Had a nice local fish, a couple of beers and chatted with the patrons at the bar. I called it a night and retired at my room at the old swede.

Into Poland - June 5-6

Who knew that WIFI could be so elusive. Four days without now and the cell data is as slow as it can go as well. Whatever will I do? Guess I'm not quite ready to go off the grid :)

Yesterday, I entered back into into the old West-Germany, having left it shortly after I departed Lichtenfels. There are signs on the Autobahn when you cross a former intra German border. Much has been restored, repaired, improved over the last 20+ years, but much remains to be done. There's still an enormous amount of lengthy and annoying Autobahn construction going on, but the rest is in very good shape. The cities are mostly very clean and I never had a feeling of being in the east, in fact I forgot that I was likely still in old East-Germany and had to look up an old map.

After I left Dresden, I drove into Berlin. Berlin traffic sucks. I spent over 2h that and the next day getting in and out. On top of that there's construction in the center and no parking anywhere. Nonetheless, I managed to walk around a couple of hours around the Brandenbug Gate and Checkpoint Charlie, before heading off to see Nina and Glen, a mere hour from the center. Luckily, Glen had the Prosecco ready and all was well with the world. After a few hours, friends from Kiel arrived, more bottles were opened, "Obstler" barrels were tapped, beasts were grilled on the barbie and there was much rejoicing.
It's mindblowing to realize that this year will be the 25th anniversary of the wall coming down. The first time I was in Berlin, it had just been down a couple of years and the difference between east and west was marked. All that has been erased, but of course there's much to commemorate that chapter of history.

From Berlin I drove northeast toward Szczecin (pronounced Stecheen I think) in Poland. I drove across 4km of the worst pice of highway imaginable. Dirt roads would have been embarrassed. The pavement wasn't broken up, but it was so incredibly bumpy, I think I started getting seasick towards the end. Poland is EU, but not Euro zone. That dawned on me when I walked towards the parking meter. DOH! By the time I had tracked down a bank to exchange 5 Euro and made it back, I had a ticket. Double DOH! It's in Polish - no clue what to do with it. Szczecin doesn't really have a cohesive old town. There are however a few cool old buildings sprinkled among Soviet ugliness. I saw the first of some massive red brick buildings, which I was to learn was a mark of the Hanseatic League, of which Szczecin was a part. I had a tasty bowl of Bigos and moved on.

On my way to Usedom, which is an island that is part Poland, part Germany I learned the ways of Polish back road passing. The shoulder is very wide, 3/4 of a car width. If you see someone wants to pass you, you move to the right. The passing car goes and the oncoming traffic - remember, we're on a two lane road here - moves a bit to the right and voila, room for three. Takes a bit of getting used to. In order to get to the island one needs to pass a waterway - maybe a 1/4 mile accross. Someone didn't want to put in a bridge, so there's a ferry. It's free, but it simply sits there until it's full, then goes accross. It seems to me that one could sit there for a long time. I got lucky and maybe 6 cars behind me the boat was full and off we went.

I crossed the border and stopped by some Baltic sea spa towns to stop for the night. It turned out to be nontrivial to find a room, since the modus operandi seems to be to rent vacation apartments. I wandered accross the beach and the promenade, passing Villa this and Villa that and got more and more uncomfortable with the vibe and decided I really didn't want to be there. It was getting late, but I decided to move on and see what I could find. After a few more failed attempts I wound up in the town of Usedom where I found a nice hotel & restaurant. Perfect. Usedom is a cool old fishery village - that whole town thing seemed vastly optimistic. I love the colorful houses and cobblestone streets.

Leipzig/Dresden - June 4

I am in Dresden, sitting on my most amusing abode yet. It's called the D. Poeppelmann, and is anchored in the river Elbe. Cheapest place to sleep in Dresden. I just couldn't resist.

Yesterday I zoomed down to Lichtenfels in my diesel VW Golf. It's reasonably fast, being able to comfortably cruise at 110 mph, but when going past 120 , it gets a little loose, so I mostly avoid that. Would be nice to have a fast car, since I'm actually finding quite a few unlimited stretches of Autobahn. OTOH, it gets 36 mpg when flogged mercilessly, which is pretty good.
So anyway, being in Lichtenfels on a Tuesday meant I had to have "Schlachtschuessel" - butcher's plate, because Tuesday is the tradidional day for slaughter. Blood sausage, liverwurst, boiled pig parts, sauerkraut. Apologies to my vegetarian friends, but YUMMO! This was in a village called Uetzing.

Today, Leipzig was first up. It has a pretty cool downtown. Interesting architecture and a marvel of city hall. It's basically a castle. Also the university is downtown, so you have lots of students going about lending a cool vibe. I wandered around for about 3h and then set off for Dresden.

Dresden's architecture is very different, despite being only 100km away. I have to read up on why. I guess the cities were built during different time periods. Despite the infamous bombing during WWII, there are quite a few old buildings left, many right along the river. It was a gorgeous day so a lot of people were hanging out on the grass by the river front and the beer gardens were very popular. I checked out the old town, the new town and a couple of bars. Did about 5h or driving and 5h of walking today. A tad tiring. Tomorrow, on to Berlin.

On the road again

Well, it's been over a week since I rolled in from Italy all grimy. Much has happened. Most notably I turned 50. Not surprisingly, the world did not end. And a very good thing it was, since the day was really nice. We started the day with a family breakfast, which included a carrot cake with - yep - 50 candles.

In the afternoon, friends arrived from Lichtenfels, where I grew up. We had coffee and a Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte. Rather monumental and very good. For the party in the evening, we had 15 people, which is a good size. There were songs, poems, toasts with champagne, a very nice meal catered from Landhaus Feckl, which sports a Michelin star. Among a few other choice tidbits were beef cheeks braised in Barolo. Definitely a highlight.

If I must, it was a great way to turn 50 and I'm really thankful for my family throwing it for me and for all the friends and family to turn up and make it a party.

My friends from Lichtenfels stayed for the weekend and we toured the country side a bit, looking for beer gardens in Tübingen.

The rest of the week was spent recovering and preparing for the next party. My sister Judith and her husband Eddie bought a house very recently, so it was time to give it a proper break in and have the house warming party. While we were at it, we also celebrated Eddie's 40th, my 50th, George Lucas' 70th and William Shakespeare's 450th birthday, because - why not... Once again, there was much merry making and a rough day after. Fun was had!

So, it's time to go, I'm getting itchy staying in one place. Next up is a Tour de Germany. Starting tomorrow, I'll be driving east from here to Lichtenfels. Then north to see Leipzig, Dresden, Berlin. A bit further east to Poland (because it's there); and then start heading west through the Baltic and then North Sea areas of Germany. Back in Grafenau on the 12th for a day of R&R before heading to Helsinki.