Cycling – Off We Go

Dazzled by Barcelona

by Roslyn Green

September 17, 2017

9:31 pm

Australian Fixations – in Dresden

by Roslyn Green

September 16, 2017

6:14 pm

1 Comment on Australian Fixations – in Dresden

Cycling, Travelling

bombardment, Davey, Dresden, Dwayne, Geelong Cats, Kunsthofpassage, Linda, Stadtmuseum

**Was it to be an omen of the Geelong Cats’ resurgence? Linda certainly hoped so when she saw this little cat in the Kunsthofpassage.**

We spent two nights in Dresden and once again our diverse aims shaped our single complete day. As far as Linda was concerned, the main question was not which parts of Dresden to visit but how to watch the Cats’ second final as we wandered around. Davey was fixated on locating the perfect bike shop and, although his team was playing Linda’s, he viewed the game as a side issue. Meanwhile, I was on the lookout for the Jane Austen book bags that I had seen in Hugendubel in Frankfurt. They featured a print of Austen’s portrait and a quotation by her translated into German. What could be a better gift from one English (or German) teacher to another? Dwayne’s sole aim was to buy a set of nail clippers. He is, after all, an unassuming man with modest requirements – apart from his boat.

It was scarcely to be believed that only a week had passed since the Cats’ losing finals match to the Tigers, which had filled Linda with such woe in Wittenberg. I assumed that she would hunker down in our hotel to watch the match against the Swans, but she decided to watch it instead as we walked around Dresden, her eyes fixed on the tiny screen of Dwayne’s iPhone and her arm linked through mine. My role was to ensure that she didn’t trip over the uneven pavements or cobblestones, run into other pedestrians or get rammed by bikes or trams. At the same time, I had to keep my eye out for promising shops and tourist options and do my best to react sympathetically or encouragingly to her cries of distress and delight.

**Fixated on a game taking place 16,000 kilometres away…**

As it turned out, her reactions were pure and simple delight. By half-time, the Cats were up by 36 points and Linda could breathe calmly for a whole half hour. We spent that blessed period having coffee in the Kunsthofpassage, a lovely set of courtyards with funky architecture and shops brimming with artistic and hippie objects. I found two little pencil cases made out of treated paper, with the word “Schreibkram” (writing stuff) on them. Davey bought a tee-shirt with a bike print on the chest and Dwayne, who had succeeded in finding a set of Zwilling nail clippers, began to try them out, admiring the German workmanship and very nearly sending his clippings into our coffee cups. In the course of Dwayne’s purchase, I learned the German word for “clip off” (abknipsen) and felt unreasonably pleased with myself. Yet another vital gap in my knowledge of German has now been neatly plugged.


Out and about…	…in the…	Kunstofpassage

Although the Cats were so clearly on top, Linda was still in a state of tingling nervous tension. “Imagine being 36 points up and losing from there,” she said. “That would be devastating.” With these words she confirmed her status as a crazed fan.

**Standard fare: Currywurst und Bratkartoffeln – Curried sauages and roast potatoes**

Fortunately for her (and for all of us except David), her team kicked away in the third quarter and gained an unassailable lead by the fourth. At that stage, we were catching a tram into the Old City (Altstadt) to eat at the market and visit the City Museum (Stadtmuseum). There we looked at photos of Dresden in various stages of its history, including under Nazi and Soviet control.

**Ten Thousand Candles for Dresden – Commemorative Poster**

Most importantly, we saw the horrifying pictures of the city after the blanket bombardment by the Allies in February 1945. There were also pictures of several other bombed cities, since the museum curators clearly wanted to demonstrate that Dresden was not the only city to suffer during World War II. In short, the photos formed a gallery displaying man’s inhumanity to man, which seems to know no bounds, as my mother used to say.

In the end, we all had our needs met, even Davey, who, despite bemoaning his team’s loss, was pleased to find a Garmin heart rate monitor in a bike shop. I also found four more Jane Austen bags in the relatively small Hugendubel in the Altstadt Galerie. Dwayne’s nails, by the way, are now as trim as Davey’s beard.

So we are ready for Barcelona and the imminent arrival of Linda’s daughters, our old travelling companions from 2011. They will have different needs from ours and their youthful presence will add a fresh perspective, new energy and extra sparkle to our little band of fellow travellers.

Final Notes

Hotel: We cordially disliked the Park Inn Hotel. The welcome was chilly and the wifi weak and ponderous. The place simply had nothing to recommend it.

Elite Athletes – and Dresden

by Roslyn Green

September 15, 2017

7:51 am

1 Comment on Elite Athletes – and Dresden

Cycling, Travelling

David, Dresden, Dwayne, Elbe, Linda, Meißen, windmill

On the way from Meißen to Dresden, I noticed with some disquiet that the three other members of my cycling team were scooting away from me, despite my superbike. I realised that in the course of our 6-day journey, they had grown fitter and tougher. They had become real elite athletes, while I was lagging behind, softened by my artificial power. Of course, the lack of wind might also have been a factor in their zippy cycling.

**On the Radweg – from Meißen to Dresden**

I didn’t care that I was at the back though. For one thing, I was following team rules. For another, what I love about the Elbe Radweg is the miles of quiet solitude, the chance to contemplate my existence, and the daily meandering, like the river itself, through the landscapes and the villages.

As we arrived in Dresden, each member of our crack team of cyclists began to reflect on our short tour and anticipate the days ahead. Each of us reacted to our arrival in a way utterly in keeping with our characters. Dwayne announced cockily that he had won the yellow jersey. Linda began to eye shopping opportunities, Davey looked around for bike shops and I wondered if Dresden harboured a Hugendubel.

And all of us looked with fascination at this city that had been rebuilt stone by stone after the unremitting bombing of the Allies in February, 1945.

Soon we shall leave the Elbe River behind us. Rivers have a soul and character of their own – like languages and people. I love the Elbe River, the German language and the members of our cycling team. It will be hard to leave the first two behind.


Arches and towers in Meißen	The view from our hotel window


Our team…	…arrives in Dresden.

Final Notes

Hotel: Park Inn Hotel – sterile and unwelcoming. Linda described the woman who checked us in as a “sour mole” – and she wasn’t exaggerating.

Compliment: Our tour organiser, Augustus Tours, didn’t put a foot wrong. They showed minute attention to detail and everything fell neatly into place.

Dwayne’s Video of the Team in Action:

Internal Contradictions – and Meißen

by Roslyn Green

September 13, 2017

8:52 pm

1 Comment on Internal Contradictions – and Meißen

Cycling, Travelling

cathedral, Dwayne, inconsistencies, internal contradictions, Linda, Meißen, mushrooms, quirks, technology


Riding into Meißen	Linda dressed up for dinner in her funky new jeans

Picturesque buildings around the town square of Meißen	In the town square

“I hate cream,” said Dwayne, as he lifted a small mountain of it off his dessert at Riesa: caramelised pancakes with ice cream.

“Then how come you like eclairs?” countered Linda.

Dwayne was initially stuck for an answer, a rare and noteworthy occurrence, but he finally explained: “In an eclair, the cream is integral to the whole thing; in this dessert, it’s an add-on.”

The rest of us also display these little quirks of taste, judgement and behaviour. For instance, I hate the concept of Facebook with its “like” button, which strikes me as crass and superficial, yet I love blogging, internet surfing and YouTube.

Linda in her turn also has some endearing idiosyncrasies. Despite her Vogue-worthy home and elegance (which she sums up as “being posh”), she is sometimes drawn to items in shops that I never would have contemplated buying for her. In Riesa, a rather sterile town where we stayed in a forgettable hotel (though the breakfast porridge was creamy and irresistible), she insisted on buying two funny little decorative mushrooms, ignoring Dwayne’s groans and my tactless remarks.

Dwayne’s flaming meat at the Riesa Mercure Hotel

We all suffer from these odd little quirks – and whole countries display them as well. For instance, the attitude of some Germans to their perfectly drinkable water is unfathomable. While restaurateurs in Melbourne provide tap water to every diner without a murmur, fresh water is hard to come by in German eateries. It’s even tricky to get a decent swig of water at breakfast, because the glasses that are provided are like sherry glasses. Yet, as Dwayne pointed out over his flaming dinner in Riesa, the beer glasses here are gigantic. Beer is treated as a necessity of life, while water is bought and sold in small bottles and drunk in thimble-sized glasses.

And another thing: we tend to assume that the Germans are technologically advanced and far more innovative than we are. In some respects, this is true. Nevertheless, many of their schools still use blackboards and appear not to provide wifi or digital projectors. In several of the towns we have travelled through, moreover, we have had to pay with cash. PayWave, so widely available at home, is rare here. Visa and MasterCard are often rejected even in cities the size of Meißen.

Of course, the inconsistencies of my own country are often not just baffling but also disturbing. We could learn a lot from the Germans’ decency in their treatment of refugees, for instance, and from their relatively swift legislative decision to permit homosexual marriages.

Final Notes

Hotel in Meißen: Hotel Residenz und Café am Markt – charming, right in the centre of the Old City
Meißen itself: A gem of a city; famous for its pottery; seemingly unspoilt by tourism; compact old inner city with bookshops, restaurants, clothes shops and memorable architecture all within walking distance
Weather: Vicious headwind nearly drove those with ordinary bikes off the cycling path. Elite athlete on superbike completely unaffected (but it was unpleasant at times). Thankfully, the rain stayed away.

Hunting and Gathering – and Mühlberg

by Roslyn Green

September 12, 2017

3:16 pm

1 Comment on Hunting and Gathering – and Mühlberg

Cycling, Travelling

cycling, gatherers, hunters, Mühlberg, shopping

Linda: My friend, comrade and fellow shopper, not to mention the fashion guru of the Elbe Radweg

As Linda and I headed for the shops in Torgau this morning, I pondered on the whole shopping issue. Why do she and I love window shopping, even when we don’t buy anything? Why do we enjoy searching through shops, even those that seem unlikely to offer us anything we might genuinely need?

And why do Dwayne and David, while reacting to our shopping expeditions with impatience, spend such a long time in their turn searching for the perfect café or restaurant?

My theory is that we are all simply acting out the roles of our evolutionary past, when women had to gather and forage, while men were responsible for hunting. In Linda’s and my case, therefore, we have an inbuilt, pre-wired urge to search through shops, track down the best buys and dig up bargains.

Linda mentioned to the shop assistants in our favourite shop in the town square of Torgau that she is a “dwarf” and finds it difficult to get anything small enough. They all laughed when I translated what she had said. Thereafter, our sales assistant also fell into a pre-programmed search mode and rummaged through the shop for something that would fit Linda’s tiny stature, ultimately finding her a pair of jeans into which I doubt even one of my legs would fit. We left the shop weighed down with useful articles, just as our evolutionary precursors carried baskets of essential foodstuffs back to camp.

Meanwhile, the men had hunted down the best coffee in town, but they were both eager to set off for Mühlberg and frustrated by the delay.

“Mühlberg is a very small town,” said Davey. “No shops.”

“I love it already,” replied Dwayne.

And it turned out to be exactly as Davey had described it, though far livelier and animated than Pretzsch.


Mühlberg Castle	In the courtyard of the Mühlberg Castle

Breakfast at Monika’s pension	Our room in Monika’s pension

The old castle was an imposing building but, like numerous old houses along our route, falling into disrepair. These buildings struck us as sad and forlorn. We couldn’t help thinking that they were once filled with people like us; perhaps they reminded us of our own mortality.

Nevertheless, the grounds around the old castle were adorned by beautiful community gardens, which made the whole place seem far less melancholy.

Linda fondles the new, soft seat cover that we found in the small town of Mühlberg. Both she and I bought one; the increased comfort certainly justified the modest expense.

There was certainly a general dearth of shops in Mühlberg, but we found the best of all shopping treasures in a tiny hardware shop: two soft covers for our bike saddles to protect our sore bottoms.

Yet another gratifying achievement for us gatherers.

Final Notes

Hotel: Wendlands Pension und Speisen-Restaurant – homely and charming. We were greeted by Monika, the owner, with coffee and home-made cakes. The evening meal in the dining room, with beer directly from the barrel, was relaxing and authentic.

Injury Update: My wrist improved dramatically overnight and I was able to resume my cycling with the minimum of klutziness.

Team Update: I am still in the team but generally considered to be the least reliable member and the one requiring the most discipline.

Superpowers – and Torgau

by Roslyn Green

September 11, 2017

5:56 am

2 Comments on Superpowers – and Torgau

Cycling, Travelling

**On the Elbe Radweg between Pretzsch and Torgau**

“Tomorrow, we’re going to have a team meeting,” Dwayne said sternly to me. “You’ve broken the team rules.”

Linda was more sympathetic. “I think it’s great that you can go so fast on your electric bike,” she observed. “But from now on, I think you shouldn’t go out in front.”

“Stay at the back – where you belong,” added Dwayne.

I had mistakenly taken the wrong road to Torgau and Davey had had to pursue me for nearly a kilometre, crying “Rosi” and eventually “Coo-ee!”

It’s tough being an elite athlete. My electric bike gives me superpowers. It has four options: eco, sport, power and ultra. Even climbing a hill presents no difficulties. The only problem is, sometimes I forget that I’m a mere mortal. Yesterday, for instance, I raced on ahead at one stage because I wanted to take some photos of the others riding towards me. It was a good idea, but as I tried to climb off my bike, I got my foot caught and fell heavily on the bitumen. A kind old German woman who was cycling past asked me if I was okay and I assured her that, apart from being a klutz, I was right as rain. We stood talking for ten minutes and I would have liked to go home to her village with her to continue the conversation and have a soothing cup of tea.

After we arrived in Torgau, my wrist stiffened up and began to throb. Yet more proof of my mortality.

Torgau is a lovely city with many tourist attractions: the bears who live in the castle moat, a 500-year tradition; the castle itself with its displays of Nazi, Soviet and East German injustices; the town square with its imposing and well maintained buildings; and the shuttered windows, often with window boxes and flowers.

I enjoyed wandering around the city in the autumn sunshine, despite my throbbing wrist and the rueful recognition that this was presumably my punishment for breaking team rules.


Linda admires the window boxes in Torgau	Another flowery window

Out for dinner	View from our restaurant window

Final Notes

Hotel: Hotel-Pension zum Market – charming, has its own courtyard and flowery balcony
Dinner: Herr Käthe
Most worthwhile tourist option: The Castle with its bears in the moat (who seemed happy and well looked after) and its detailed accounts of past prisons and atrocities
Another thing the Germans do well: Window boxes

Lycra – and Pretzsch

by Roslyn Green

September 9, 2017

4:38 pm

3 Comments on Lycra – and Pretzsch

Cycling, Travelling

bicycles, bikes, cycling, e-bike, Elbe Radweg, gardens, lycra, Pretzsch, sheep, vouchers, Wittenberg

When I knocked on the Sleeps’ door this morning, it was opened by Dwayne, resplendent in his lycra cycling knicks. “Oh Gawd,” I muttered.

“It’s like packing ten pounds of sausages into a five-pound bag,” he said, prancing around the room.

I averted my eyes.

Linda had sent me a warning message, but I had had my phone on aeroplane mode.

Despite this distressing start to the day, we were all happy at the prospect of our first proper cycling stage, for want of a better word.


Starting out in Wittenberg…	…with lycra	…and my superbike

It was distinctly damp as we set off, but our rain protection served us well and the landscapes, the villages and the beautiful gardens made up for the discomfort. That is, except for our bottoms, which felt decidedly tender as we bumped over the cobblestones.


An inviting pension along the way	A garden in Elster

Yet another garden	Sheep – completely unfazed by our presence

Nevertheless, we arrived in Pretzsch intact, with only one oversight: we had accidentally left our accommodation and luggage transfer vouchers in Wittenberg.

Solving this problem could be even more difficult than looking at Dwayne in lycra.

Final Notes:

Positive aspects of Germany continued: The Elbe Radweg – This bike path runs for hundreds of kilometres along the Elbe River.

Hotel in Pretzsch: Parkhotel – large and adequate without being charming. Trabis parked out the back. The kind, overworked woman at reception dealt with our voucher problem with patience and aplomb.

Pretzsch itself: Disturbingly like a ghost town, but our hotel was hopping with two functions.

Problem solved: The kind people at the Parkhotel organised a taxi to bring over all our documents and vouchers from Wittenberg. Thank goodness.

One more disturbing issue: Upon our arrival, Dwayne realised that he hadn’t packed any jocks in his pannier. Since our luggage hadn’t arrived at that stage, he had to don his shorts and let his 5 pounds of sausages (sorry, 10) swing in the breeze. Aagh.

Wittenberg: Varying Dreams

by Roslyn Green

September 8, 2017

3:23 pm

1 Comment on Wittenberg: Varying Dreams

Cycling, Travelling

Augustus Tours, bicycles, Cranach, David, Dwayne, Geelong Cats, Hundertwasserschule, Linda, Luther, Lutherhaus, Wittenberg

We came to Wittenberg with different ambitions.

Davey hoped that his meticulous organisation of our bike tour would turn out exactly as he had planned.

I wanted to encounter some history firsthand and hear it, if possible, in German.

Linda’s aim was to watch the Cats versus the Tigers.

Dwayne mainly wanted to drink German beer, eat a lot of meat and tease me mercilessly.

We all fulfilled our aims. but there were a few twists along the way.

Davey’s Aim: Although Augustus Tours, our bicycle provider, had managed every aspect of the tour with the utmost care, the hotel staff didn’t entirely understand our requests in English. We realised that we needed to find out if the bikes had been delivered and enquire after the materials that we had been promised by our tour operators. For once, my attempts at communication in German turned out to be quite useful, because after I had explained the situation, the young man at reception located both our bikes and, later in the day, the posted packet of information that was missing. Relieved and excited by our new freedom of movement, we went for a short ride to the Hundertwasserschule, during which I discovered that the extra electric oomph of my bike makes me feel like a superwoman.

My Aim: The Lutherhaus Museum was interesting without being inspiring. While I enjoyed the German audio tour on the whole, I was disappointed by the lack of imagination shown in the Museum Shop. On the other hand, judging from some of the kitsch souvenirs available in the town, perhaps it was just as well that the Museum’s offerings were rather sparse. One magnet in a particularly unattractive shop, instead of providing the standard translation of Luther’s words, “A mighty fortress is our God”, displayed the sentence: “A firm castle is our God”. I pictured God doing pushups or showing off his six-pack.

Linda’s Aim: Although Linda did indeed get to see the football game, the Tigers outplayed the Cats in the last quarter and she was sufficiently cast down to seek retail therapy immediately afterwards.

Dwayne’s Aims: Dwayne fulfilled all his hopes, which, as he would say, is the main thing.

Final Notes

Our hotel: Best Western, perfectly adequate but somehow not as homely and pleasant as the Concorde in Frankfurt. No brothels in the neighbourhood though, which is a plus.

Additions to our list of Germany’s most impressive aspects: Widespread bike infrastructure; courtesy of drivers towards cyclists

Heard around the traps: Dwayne to Davey: “I have some good news. The shops are shutting.”

Dressing for the Occasion

by Roslyn Green

June 1, 2012

10:34 am

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Cycling

headwind, Lenzen, Schackenburg, Sophie, warm clothing

From Lenzen to Schnackenburg

Barry in the deserted main street of Lenzen, where nearly every second house or shop was empty and dilapidated

Our hotel room in Lenzen

Sign referring to the division of Europe and Germany in the past

A chill wind blew over the steppes.

Whoops, that’s the start of my Russian novel.

“You might need to wear something warmer,” I told Sophie.

She scorned the idea.

As usual she had dressed herself in her tiny thigh-hugging shorts and thin tee-shirt. Tossing her hair, she trotted down to breakfast.

Later, as we cycled into the bitter wind of late spring in Germany, her little face began to look pinched and pained. When we realized that we had in fact ridden 3 kilometres in the wrong direction, she was desperate for any extra garment. “Have you got any socks?” she asked me.

I had nothing to offer her, but Davey gave her his shorts. Not his lycra knicks, of course. He would never surrender those. Sophie pulled on his ordinary shorts and her own raincoat and we set off in the right direction, with the wind behind us.

Sophie dressed for survival
It made a surprising difference, having that icy wind behind us rather than in front. Suddenly it had become our friend, pushing us kindly along the Elbe dyke path towards our next refuge. The people passing us in the opposite direction, however, were obviously still suffering.

Barry cycles along the dyke path

“No point greeting them cheerily,” said Barry after a while. “For some reason they don’t seem to be as happy as we are.”

And indeed, their faces looked ruddy and their eyes bloodshot. Much as Sophie had looked half an hour before, although of course these people were more sensibly dressed.

By the time we were just north of Schnackenburg, all the same, I was beginning to wish that I had taken my own advice and worn more clothes. The mere thought of socks almost brought tears to my eyes. Especially when a farmer told Barry that we would have to ride back into the wind to find a bridge over the Elbe. Luckily there was a ferry with a ferryman who patiently waited for Barry to take a photograph or two before we left the northern bank.

We found our pension in Schnackenburg, our lugagge arrived just after we did and I rooted through my bag for socks and a thermal. I have rarely been happier. Sophie put on her beloved ugg boots and her jeans and looked much more contented with her lot. After goulash soup and other delicacies in the little cafe downstairs, we were all toasty warm and ready for our afternoon nap.

Sophie in closer fitting and warmer gear
Sophie had thawed out completely – enough to make a little speech.

“Mummy,” she said, “I am sorry that I didn’t listen to your sage advice this morning. From this moment on, I shall always listen to what you say.”

Oh sorry, that last bit is part of my Russian novel too.

Love from Rosi

Old sign in the Schnackenburg Museum, referring to the former border between West and East Germany. The Elbe River formed part of that border, as the old watch towers along the dyke path reminded us.

Patrick rides in the quiet streets of Schnackenburg, where our guesthouse was also a restaurant and a kiosk. The only other signs of commercial life were a hairdresser and the tiny but fascinating museum.