We’ve been taking a one-day break in Wackershofen, deepest SW Germany, with Annette and Robert, the former once leading soprano in the East Berlin Cathedral Choir where we sang 1977-81. That’s them on the left/above, with formidable breakfast lined up in the kitchen (originally a stable) of their beautiful 400-year-old half-timbered home just outside Schwäbisch … Read more …
I’ve cycled this stretch of the Rhine (Basel to Schaffhausen along the German/Swiss border) twice already, once on a solo in 2008 West to East on my way to Budapest and back, and then on Daisy 2 with previous stoker from West to East 2011. So it was very weird with Jutta today, heading West, … Read more …
Look closely in the photo above, and you’ll see fairytale Neuschwanstein, model for all those Disney cartoon castles, less than a day short of Daisy’s current destination, brother/brother-in-law in the deepest, brightest, greenest Alpine foothills of Bavaria. Two months in and with a month to go till we’re home, this is the furthest away from … Read more …
If one picture is worth a thousand words, this post is a very, very long one… Last reported from Leipzig, we’re now a week-plus further into our tandem journey around Germany, eight-and-a-half weeks in and just outside Jutta’s birthplace and home for her first 15 years, Vilsbiburg (about 75km north-east of Munich.) The ride has … Read more …
With thanks to Heide and Juergen, VERY old friends from student days in Leipzig 52 years ago, for use of their flat here for the last three nights (they’re in Sweden marking their own 53rd wedding anniversary), we’ve had a brief rest from cycling, half way through our three months on the road, to overload … Read more …
From contradictory Weimar, home to Germany’s greatest writer Goethe, this wonderful country’s doomed effort at post-WWI parliamentary democracy, and, yes, the horror of Buchenwald concentration camp, the briefest of posts (wordcount-wise) with pictures to capture Daisy’s progress through week seven of our three-month journey. First, a map to summarise the last few days from Berlin … Read more …
Where to start and what to include is always the question with these travel blogs as we find ourselves on Wednesday evening sitting in our tent with the rain pouring down (we would have Booking.Com-ed if we’d checked the forecast…) catching up on our tandem journey the past three days from Quedlinburg to Wernigerode, and … Read more …
On a day where Russia has blown the Kachovka dam on the Dniepr river – a war crime visible from space – it seems somewhat flip to be posting pictures of our peregrination around Germany, as of yesterday exactly half way through our planned 12 weeks on the road. But life goes on, as do … Read more …
Long-distance tandeming and blogging as we go is a strange old experience. There are two continuing conversations. One is for real and delightfully constant with Her Stoker Ladyship on the back (Stoker is what serious tandem riders call the rear partner). Tandeming is after all a VERY sociable thing to do (though they do say … Read more …
Today’s brief (as in, words) post needs just to capture two magical days in Berlin with old friends and Daisy’s rear inner tubing systems, with four (FOUR!) massive, monumentally explosive blowouts thanks to a stretched outer tyre, wrong and misrouted rim tape (my bad), and sheer wear and tear after nearly 2500 km. Photos will … Read more …