Windmills and bicycles but not many tulips

Well I guess I have just been too busy enjoying myself to update this for a while! Anyway for those who are interested since the last post we have spent a couple of days in Köln, Germany, then on into the Netherlands. We left Holland this morning and I am sat in the cab writing this and listening to the church bells (they are very musical, a bit like an ice cream van! and play every 20mins or so), in Lier, Belgium.

Holland has been great and we have been making the most of their cycle lanes, and have been on some fantastic rides. I eventually got used to being stared at everywhere we went, it would appear that unless you wear full lycra,cycle helmets are just not worn (can't quite figure out why wearing lycra makes them acceptable!) and very few have anything other than shopping bikes so we looked just a little bit different!

We spent the first few days in a place called Lisse, visiting the Keukenhof and the town of Leiden. It has to be said that the Keukenhof was slightly disappointing and lacking in Tulips as we were a bit late in the year, but they did have the most fantastic display of lilies.
Then we moved on to Zeiriksee, a small and typically Dutch town in Zeeland, and a lovely little farm campsite. We spent a few days cycling the island and playing on the beach. Yesterday we went up the Megatouren in Zeiriksee, a huge church tower in the middle of town which no longer has a church attached but gives some amazing views of the islands, bridges and dams. This is the area of Holland that like the East Coast of the UK was flooded very badly in February 1953 and today on the way here we drove via the delta project, the huge storm surge barrier that was put in to stop this scale of flooding happening again.

As we drove towards Belgium today I was hoping that the roads in this part would be better than where we were a week ago. This was not the case and we had a bone shaking ride here. Its a bit like France 20 years ago, but it seems that rather than mending the roads putting up signs saying holes forming (even on motorways) is preferable. Sorry rant over, just abit touchy about road surfaces after the tyre saga !

Anyway its getting dark and that means bed time. Off to explore here tommorrow.

Believers or non believers in the Grand Duchy

13th May 2009

We arrived in Belgium last night after having spent a great 10 days in
Luxembourg. So far we are enjoying Belgium. I am sat in a cafe in Malmedy
writing this while Chris is very happily paging through our new Belgian
"all things chocolate" recipe book.

Anyway our route through Luxembourg took us into the country from the south
to a place called Dudelange and then on into the wooded valleys and castles
of the Ardennes region in the North around Esch Sur Sure.

Dudelange is an ex mining town, although much nicer than you would expext
as a result! We stayed here for 5 nights spending time cycling the local
area, exploring the town and spending a few days in luxembourg city itself.

The city is fantastic, situated on the cliffs of two river valleys. The
river terraces were covered with allotments of which I was very envious,
and surrounded by the remains of the fortifications on the cliffs
(picture). ON our second day in the city we went to the town museum. These
are usually really interesting and often fusty places with the most random
collections of artifacts. Luxembourg's on the other hand is very modern. On
arrival we were asked if we were believers or non believers and given USB
sticks accordingly! This was so that we could take part in an exhibition on
faith. IT was extremly interesting as it was made up of video and audio
clips of people talking about their beliefs and attitudes to prayer. All
quite thought provoking. The USB stick was used at various points to ask
questions and at the end tell you what attitude you had to faith.

After we left dudelange we spent a couple of nights canoing on the river
sure. It was great to finally get the canoe out again and we are now all
enthused to find some more lakes and rivers for the summer. Watch this
space.....

Yesterday we left Luxembourg, having spent a day touring the castles at
Borscheid and Viandan, and visted Clervaux and its family of man photo
exhibition. This is a brilliant collection of old black and white images
from all over the world depicting people getting on with their daily lives.
My favourite was a photo of an audience, who were, judging by themajority
of their faces watching something very funny. It was one of those photos
that you could make up stories around for ever. Luxembourg was definately
worth visiting, and at the risk of sounding like their tourist office should
definately not be overlooked for its bigger neighbours.

May Day fun

10th May 2009

It would appear that may day is a much more important affair over here than
it has become back home, with celebrations going on in all the towns.

We had our planned cycle trip along the danube on the 30th, covering some
50km in 3.5hrs, it was great but my was I saddle sore. Much in need of
sugary food we wandered into town in the evening to find the first of the
celebrations under way. In the town square an enormous maypole was being
lifted into position using ropes and poles. All the men were in traditional
costumes and in my English naivity I assumed that after going to all that
effort to raise the pole they would dance around it the next day. Well it
appears they don't do the dancing bit. I thought this was a bit strange but
as Chris rightly pointed out you don't dance around everything you put up!

We left Donaueshingen on the 1st and drove up motorways and side roads to
Bad Wildbad, not a a traffic jam in site. It appears to be a peculiarly
English desire to spend bank holidays sat in cars. On our drive North we
saw lots more towns with poles and also encountered a a number of wooden
huts, being towed around on the back of tractors and full of people
drinking beer, throwing confetti at passing traffic and pumping out load
europop.

When we arrived at the campsite in Bad Wildbad, a pretty spot on the banks
of the river I caused huge concern amongst the campsite staff by trying to
use the washing machines. It appears they do it for you and an old lady
appeared in a chequered apron operate the washing machine. There was a
heated discussion in German about how to turn it on and finally I got a
small amount of the washing loaded into the machine, and was told it would
take 90 minutes. The old lady was seen to come back a couple of times and
tend the machine, I gave up all ideas of doing a second load after the
panicked look that they gave me.

I began to feel like I had been transported to a parallel universe, where
everything was just slightly awry. This was not helped by going for a walk
along the valley and finding a big field full of piles of logs being
watered copiously.

If anyone can explain any of this please do...........

Germany

29th April 2009

Time for an update. Since my last entry we have travelled a long way and had some great days out walking. For once, as planned we have made it where we wanted to go and I am writing this tonight in Donaueschingen, in the Black Forest in Germany, and at the source of the river Danube – or so they claim. I am always a little bit dubious about the locations of river sources, after all who decides which small tributary stream (or in Donaueschingen's case a spring) is the important one!!??

Anyway for those of you who are keeping track of our route; since my last entry when we were in central France we travelled on through Auxonne on the river Soanne and then to our final French town of Thann in Alsace.

We had our first experience of a mainland Europe border crossing last Friday on our way to Freiburg in Germany. The open borders and the Euro certainly make things easy for travelling around but I have to admit to the border being just a little bit unexciting! We just drove through on the motorway; past the old border posts and a sign saying "Bundes Republik Deutschland" and there we were….new country.

We arrived in Freiburg before lunch time and spent a wonderful afternoon wandering around in the sunshine. It was market day and there were lots of hotdog stalls which we failed to resist (or rather Chris found really rapidly!), and then we followed that with coffee in the town square and ice creams. A proper treat of a day! We both liked Freiburg, a really bustling town, with lots of beautiful old buildings, and I was taken with the wisteria which had been trained across the side streets, wonderful.

We left Freiburg on Saturday and drove out to the high Black Forest and a place called Bernau im Schwarzwald, an 8km long open valley some 900m above sea level surrounded by the higher forests and mountains (see pictures). Once again the van did superbly and the roads although quite steep and windy were very good. The weather was fantastic and we had great views of the snow covered peaks and wooded valleys as we drove in over the high pass.

We stayed in Bernau for 4 nights as it was such a wonderful spot and managed to get in some long walks every day. The highlight was Saturday when we walked up the highest peak (1415m, they give you heights on all the route markers!) in glorious sunshine and could just see the Alps in the distance from the top. We appeared to be just at the end of the snow melt and although the valleys were clear a lot of the higher paths had a good foot of snow still lying on them; this made the walking great fun although very tiring as now and then we sunk in to our knees. I was also victim to several snow balls during the course of the day!

We have had a much needet lazy day today driving here and wandering round town before hopefully a nice long cycle along the river tomorrow.