Bike Tour Day 4: Day of the Castles

The ride on Day 4 started with a shuttle to our new starting position. This is partially because of the flooding and the new route we are using along the way. Partially because this new start point was claimed to be much more interesting... And it was. We started at an old partially restored castle that included a moat. It was more like a giant mansion, but one has to remember this area of Germany was split into many little Kingdoms for a long time. Each town seemingly had a king and the king had a castle. Some of these castles look more like mansions or palaces.  The owner of the house typically holds an event once a year to welcome people to tour the castle.  From what we understood he is not able to fix up the castle very much as it needs to remain authentic according to local laws.  The castles we saw after this were progressively larger and larger, some with immense moats around them.  Along the ride we found the route took us over dirt roads and farmland to a supposed bridge over the autobahn, only the bridge was torn down.  After a little looking at the GPS/map, we re-routed ourselves easily over the course and got back on track.  This time we did have lunch at a beer garden, a massive pork schnitzel.  We had gotten it with the idea of sharing and stopping at a recommended place for brauts, but the schnitzel was so large that we barely could finish it while sharing it.  Instead we opted to stop for cake at a recommended place, and they were right.  Heather did the ordering and apparently fell into the cake trap, where they mis-labeled cake.  What we thought was the Champagne Cake, was really the Orange Mandarine cake.  The Champagne cake was the better of the two after tasting.

The first castle of the day

Second castle

Panorama of the third castle

Fourth castle with the biggest moat

Bike Tour Day 3: The Tour of Silence

Our ride on day 3 was to be our most hilly portion on our way to Bautzen.  The route sheet listed the elevation in meters, so it wasn't really a useful gauge for us on the amount of climbing to be done over the day. We were ready to go even before the Sherpas showed up, which is unusual for this trip.

The ride itself was nice, cutting through the valleys and farmland of eastern Germany.  Often we would be riding along small one lane roads that are actually for two way traffic.  We would see so few cars, trucks, buses, and other cyclists that we could just ride beside each other.

This also turned into our most difficult ride day yet. Once we started, we could not find a place to eat, purchase drinks, a beer garden, or even a WC to use the entire day. Mixed with the sun, which finally came out to join us in this vacation, we were struggling along. We did stop and see a castle turned into a museum.  The castle was not very remarkable, the museum was mostly poster boards (last name in the guest book was from May), but they did have a WC and water.  We decided it was worth the cost of entry after that discovery.  Thankfully we both brought a power bar and rationed that off as we rode.  Once those were gone we moved or search for food up in priority.  We ran low on water until we finally we broke down and asked a local working on her yard for some. Connie was more than happy to help and chat with Heather for a bit about our trip, the weather, her recent cycling to Berlin, and telling us most people get the route wrong in front of her house. She also confirmed that the street signs have a second language on them, but it is not Polish as we guessed. It is Sorbien.

We did make it into town. Dan began to salivate at the first food place we found, a McDonalds. Heather convinced him to wait and found a cake shop instead which tasted much better.  We found the hotel, despite the cobblestone streets, with ease. It's a family run restored 13th century building. They even welcomed us with two cold beers, left for us by our sherpa team.

The town of Bautzen is really nice, with an old section that we explored as the sun set.  It has many towers surrounding it from the former city wall. We did not get to check out the Stasi prison museum that we were told is worth stopping in (got to town too late). All said it gives us another reason to go back to Bautzen.

Bike Tour Day 2: To Poland

Day 2 of the trip started easily enough. One of the tour organizers joined us for the first 10km so we didn't get lost.  She provided lots of fun and interesting facts about the area given she is a local.

The second day should really be called frustrated beer tour, as most of the beer gardens were closed. Not because of flooding, but because working on Mondays is a bad idea. While I don't disagree with that, drinking beer on Mondays is a good idea so I'm a little torn on which to support.

We rode along the river that provides the border between Germany and Poland. It was more of an off road adventure as we rode through mud, running and standing water, and dirt paths. We found a place in Zittau that had an amazing dunkles beer, and a Kloster that brewed an amazingly yummy series. We took some of their spirits home with us.

After this we made it to Görlitz where we had dinner, drinks, and left to walk over the bridge to Poland and had another drink.

Now... Some photos

Bike Tour Day 1: Dresden

Writing from the cellphone so please excuse the short text and errors.  We started our bicycle tour of Germany, from the partially flooded city of Dresden.  If you've never been, I highly recommend stopping in as the city is very impressive.  We met our sherpa team in the morning to help lead us out of city. As we left we ran into the first thunderstorm of the day and waited it out in a coffee shop... eventually. We had to ride through some heavy rain to get there.

Finally we got to leave and saw the locals moving sandbags now that the water was receding.  We ride through a couple flooded areas in recovery, a museum still flooded, and an excellent cake shop. A difficult hill climb later we found our first open beer garden and stopped in.  We then followed an old rails to trails route to our new hotel, the Bastei. Located in a national park, it promised amazing views and hiking.  Unfortunately we only briefly got to see these views as we raced a second thunderstorm to the hotel. Once it passed the area was blanketed in fog except for a brief window of time.

Tomorrow we head for Gorlitz.  This area of Germany is beautiful and seems to be overlooked by tourists. Now.. Some photos.

Munich: 15 Years Later

We've been enjoying our time in Munich this week. I'm thrilled to put my German to use AND I'm learning more rapidly. It's less exciting for Dan as I rattle off conversations with our hosts, Carolin and Stefan and then only translate 10% (according to him). Carolin was one of my housemates when I lived in Munich during my year abroad in 1997-1998. She and I have kept in sporadic contact over the years. It had been three years since we had last been in contact when I  e-mailed her letting her know we'd be coming to Munich for our honeymoon. She wrote right back and invited us to stay with her and her husband, Stefan. They're expecting their first child at the end of July - exciting!

Some things here strike me as just as I remembered them - only older, like the older subway trains. There are newer ones now too, with digital screens. The old buildings are of course still here - as are the naked people sunbathing in the Englisher Garten.

Carolin and Stefan's apartment is in Untergiessing. We walked from here to Marienplatz on Tuesday and crossed the over full Isar. We had lunch in the Biergarten in the Viktualienmarkt (food market). We tried taking the subway back, but missed it three times because it was so full. We decided to walk back when we saw the bus we needed instead. It wasn't full at all, thankfully.

On Wednesday, we caught up on laundry and waited for Carolin to come home from work about noon. We made lunch, ate, and then went shopping. First at the fruit and vegetable market run by a Greek family, and then to a supermarket where we bought ,5 liter Munich beers for under 1€ each! After putting the groceries away, we all left again, taking the bus and U-Bahn to the Studentenstadt where Carolin and I used to live. Much of the student residences looked the same. The buildings had fresher paint, and some of the color schemes had changed. We snuck into our old house and relived some fond memories, talking about some of our other former housemates, like Alicja and Gerlinde. We got a snack at the old Dada Cafe. It looked different. Then, we walked briefly in the Englisher Garten. On our way back to Carolin's, we got off at Münchner Freiheit and enjoyed and ice cream. I remembered having gone to the art market there at Christmas time. We walked around the neighborhood a little. Munich has lovely old apartment houses.

I started this post a couple of days ago. There's more to add to the Munich part of our trip. I'll have to get to that later. For now, we're spending or second night in Dresden and we start our bicycle tour tomorrow!

Photos of Munich

A few photos from the past few days.  We haven't posted any of the flooding but we have a few.  Here in Munich it looks like the water is finally starting to return to normal, as the flood banks are starting to show through the water again.  Oh, and the sun is out... so everyone is out in the English Garden making sure they get their proper sun coloring.

Outside the Munich Airport, airplane food!

As you leave the Munich airport, you can find this food truck.  It's living inside a mock airplane and swears it has the best airline food.  Cute idea but we didn't try any.

Currywurst, a German original, with extra curry

Once we got settled, Heather and I headed out to explore the city.  Along the way we found the farmers market in the old town, which we both remember separately from our previous time here.  One of the additions of the market is a beer garden that called to both of us.  We really can't remember what the beer was (most likely Paulaner), but the food captured our attention.  It was a drastic break from kebab that we have been eating for the past few weeks.


After that we headed into the heart of the old city at Marienplatz.  We stopped by several of the tourist sites, and were surprised at just how crowded the platz was even at this time of year.  Heading up further we found the German Turkish people were protesting the Turkish government as well.  Everything was very peaceful yet there was a large police presence there. 

No trip to Germany is complete without an old town stop

Our hosts made us dinner the first night in town and one of the dishes was... SPARGEL!  Spargel is the german word for asperagus, and it seems to be the best thing ever for them.  They do prefer the white kind.  It's cooked by peeling the "shell" off, and then boiling the spargel until it is soft.  It's very tasty but a much different cooking method than what we use. 

It's spargel season.  Should say enough.

Wine on Beer!

Heather and I decided to take on trip up to a beer garden she used to stop at often with a friend of hers while she lived here.  This one is for you John!

Heather having a drink Seehaus in memory

Pergamum the Bergama

It's a little late in being posted, but we thought we should add some commentary on Bergama, a city often overlooked by tourists in Turkey.  It was a stop I added after reading some about it in the Lonely Planet guidebook and on the Turkey Travel Planner website. 

Bergama is the town/city closest to the ancient city of Pergamum, consisting of a series of ruins spread out over several "layers" and the first medical center called the Asclepion. 

In the town of Bergama we saw very little in the way of tourists - only when we traveled through the Museum did we actually find any other tourists in the town.  We were told that most tourists begin to show up in July and typically have a day trip not staying in town.  That said, Bergama is a lovely town that should be checked out by anyone traveling through the area.  The bus system is a little challenging as the otogar (bus terminal) is outside of the city now, purchasing tickets to other locales is limited, but it is possible to travel to and from via the bus system (we also discovered you could almost do this entirely by dolmus, a sort of shuttle, from Selcuk).  The people were friendly, pointing us in the correction directions, helping us to find what we needed (contact solution etc), and even making free donuts (which we later discovered were a Muslim practice commemorating a family member who died). 
 
It is also the one place we found the Lonely Planet guidebook let us down. The hotel suggestion, the Gobi Pension, was spot on and an excellent suggestion.  This was also confirmed by TripAdvisor.  The let down was more on the places to eat and details on the ruins to visit.  The book ignores the cable car system that goes from the city to the base of the ruins.  It also over exaggerates the distance to the Pegamum site. 

Most of the interesting artifacts of Pergamum though are no longer on the site.  Having been excavated by the Germans in the late 1800s, most of the artifacts can now be found in the Pergamum Museum in Berlin (including the impressive frieze for the Temple of Zeus).  This leads the question of what was there to see in Pergamum.  The old building architecture below the Temple of Trajan was the first impressive sight to be found.  The old archways were later converted to a cistern and today stand almost entirely intact.  Walking through them, even in the early summer heat was we did, you can feel the moisture in the air and smell the mildew in the room.  The other impressive piece to Pergamum is the theatre, built-in to the side of the mountain and missing any kind of a backstop.  You get a full view of the mountain incline and have to fight off feelings of falling over the whole time.  What was even better was the hidden stairwell/tunnel needed to get into the area from the Upper Acropolis and Temple to Athena.

The best reason to visit Bergama though is the Asclepion, one of the first hospitals.  Overall there isn't a huge amount left, but you do have a lot of access to what is left.  It's easy to find the underground walkway which still today has running water in it to cool it down.  The old circular treatment center, where the cool and hot baths were thought to have healing powers when using the sacred water.  Dream analysis was needed to make sure the proper bath process was utilized.  Bits of the sacred walkway are still visible (as is the Theatre where we found school kids challenging senior Italian men to a sing off).  This was probably the most interesting site we found in Turkey as it was different from anything else.

On our exit from Bergama, we found we could not catch a bus to Bandirma, where we had planned to cross the Sea of Marmara.  Instead we took a bus to Bursa, a slow ferry, and then to Istanbul, an 8+ hour ride.  We also learned even if your guide says that he does know English, you should quiz him a lot more.  Our Turkish bus service guy was so proud of "knowing" English, he didn't really tell us anything going on.  When we got off the bus, he ushered us to a servis (smaller bus) to get us towards our hotel.  As we got on the servis, we checked with the driver for a destination, and he was heading towards another location.  We were able to get things clarified, and caught the servis towards our hotel. 

Misadventures in Travel

In Germany now with record rainfall and flooding going on.  The rivers here in Munich are close to breaching the flood banks, and many of the buildings along the river as pumping out water as quickly as possible.

We head to Dresden in 2 days, which is currently experiencing the same water issues, if not worse.  The river there is expected to crest in 2 days, and then slowly receed.  Basically it means Dresden won't be much fun for visiting, and we're not sure how the rest of the stops will go.  The tour organizer told use today that everyone else cancelled on the trip, and that H and I are the only people going now.  We also had to change at least one hotel due to being underwater. He is adamant that the tour should still go on, but is leaving the choice up to us.

Looks like there will be adventure in our near future!

Arrival in Germany

We left for Germany this morning, leaving from North Cyprus and flying to Turkey and then Germany.  Both of us were a little sad to be leaving Turkey and Cyprus as our time there has been amazing.  We have vowed to come back sooner rather than later.  Not just to see Mustafa and Ariel but to explore more of the countries.  And we'll see them again as they were excellent hosts.

That said a few things weren't expected in our trip:

The protests in Turkey were a rather large surprise.  The photos we were shown by locals who had friends protesting, the sounds of the protest preparations, and how quickly the protest went from peaceful to violent (changing its cause).  We thankfully missed the big action in Taksim Square by not even visiting it outside of a brief servis bus stop.  Once the real protests started we had already been in North Cyprus.  When we decided to take a trip to see South Cyprus though we could hear the North protests, across the EU green line, as we walked along.

The temperature change between Turkey and Germany has been a bit of a shock to us.  Going from 90+ temps to ... 50 (or lower) really shocks your body.  Not to mention the record rainfall and flooding going on here right now.  It may put a stop to our next adventure on this honeymoon as several rivers have flooded over their banks. 

The other biggest surprise for us, how much weight we put back on in Cyprus (and Turkey).  The food has been excellent.  Maybe we don't know how to exactly eat like a local, but the meze is good... too good... to leave any of it behind.  The kebabs of lamb have been amazing (it's not just meat grilled finally!!)

Tonight we enjoy some time with Heather's friends in Munich.  And after a long day of traveling I can't find many more words to say... so expect more later.

The last divided city

Yesterday, Ariel took us to Lefkosia/Nicosia, the last remaining divided capital in the world. We walked through border crossings a few times. The north gave us a visa. The south didn't even check our passports. For them, it's not considered a real border. Between each checkpoint is a no man's land. Houses and buildings which are falling apart are left as they were 40 years ago. You can still see signs of a battle having taken place-bunkers with sandbags and buildings damaged by bullets.
On top of that the historic city has several sites, including a walled city with mosqueedrals, a caravanseri, and an old gamblers' inn. The latter wasn't really open to tourists, but Ariel found an alternate entrance and we did a self tour of this structure that looks to be under renovation.
On the Greek Cypriot side, it was similar to being in any Western European city, complete with a Starbucks and a McDonalds. The money changed, the language changed and the whole infrastructure changed. We saw working cathedrals and an old nun who smiled at us.
Cyprus is a really fascinating place. I was mostly looking forward to seeing my friend. I thought it would be interesting, but I had no idea to what extent.

In the south, a Turkish coffee is called "Cyprus Coffee"

You can't really say "no"

Bikes not Tanks... true.

protests and beaches

Short and quick as the internet access here at put hotel in Cyprus is awful.  We are okay and haven't really seen any of the protests going on. We could hear them while checking out the divided city of Nicosia yesterday but that was it (we were in the southern half, the protests were in the northern half).

We leave Cyprus tomorrow, off to Germany. Our trip is rapidly coming to an end.