Travelling – Off We Go

High Spirits in Hamburg

October 4, 2017

11:31 pm

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Cap San Diego, Deichstraße, Elbphilharmonie, Fischmarkt, Fish Market, Hamburg, Miniatur-Wunderland, Miniature Wonderland

Hamburg turned out to be the best of all possible last stops.

For one thing, the people seemed more light-hearted and humorous than in many other parts of Germany. The rubbish bins, just like those in Berlin, encouraged passers-by to fling things into them, with speech bubbles like “I have dirty fantasies” or “No matter how full I am, I can stay on my feet.” The postcards and the souvenirs in the shops displayed the same sparky, self-deprecating humour as the bins. Even the stall-holders at the Fish Market were entertaining, irreverent and theatrical. Their patter was the most appealing thing about the market, though I must say that my bread roll with piping hot fried fish also justified my early awakening.

**An escalator like a stairway to heaven**

Another aspect of Hamburg that we adored was its architecture. Crowning the city, soaring above it like waves in the sky, was the Elbphilharmonie, a concert hall that is angular yet curvaceous, airy and translucent yet monumental. It enhanced the whole skyline and, although it was new and modern, its design seemed to blend with the older parts of the city. From a wide platform surrounding the whole building, reached via an escalator that felt like a stairway to heaven, we were able to admire the harbour from above. It was also a pleasure to view the city from the ground, for its bridges, arches, latticed windows and brickwork were varied in style and shape, yet somehow constituted a coherent whole.

**Moni flew over to Hamburg for our last weekend in Europe.**

More important than any feature of the city itself, however, was the sheer joy of welcoming Moni into our band of wanderers. Davey and I had started our whole adventure by visiting her in her little French village, so it was only fitting and somehow symmetrical to have her with us at the end of it all. She flew over from France for the weekend to be our guest and she also became, thanks to her profound knowledge of German culture and language, our guide and consultant. She helped me to understand the complexities of the German election results, rejoiced with me at the signs on the bins and all the other reading material we encountered, and picked up some blunt Australian expressions to add to her courteous and restrained English vocabulary.

So it was that the weekend was packed with diverse outings and winding, absorbing and amusing conversations. We went shopping in the Europa Passage, along the Mönckebergstraße, in the Hanse Viertel and along the Neuer Wall. We ate in a beer hall and also in a French crepe restaurant, thus sampling the gastronomic delights of Moni’s two homelands. During a tour of a former cargo ship called the Cap San Diego, we looked out over the city from the water and saw the Elbphilharmonie from yet another perspective. On our visit to the astonishing and ever-developing Miniature Wonderland, we marvelled at the minute detail in each diorama and at the panoramic views of the world provided within each single room. As Moni pointed out, our three-day weekend gave us at least a week’s worth of memories.


In a German beer hall…	…and a French crêperie

Such weekends, like our trip itself, must come to a end. I am getting better at saying good-bye to Moni now, although I still felt a doleful pang of regret when the time came to bid her farewell at the airport. Later, in the little pub below our apartment, after a simple dinner of soup and stew, Linda and I reflected on the whole adventure. She commented that a trip like this one forces you to get out of your comfort zone and leave your familiar world behind. We were all beginning to get stuck in our reassuring routines; this holiday has given us fresh insight into not just the people and places that we have encountered, but also into the lives to which we shall soon return.

Surprisingly, Hamburg has quite a few Australian elements: waggish humour, changeable weather, friendly people, diverse eateries. After this unforgettable weekend, it really shouldn’t be too hard to go home.

Final Notes

Accommodation: Deichstraße 36, an ideal location in the Old City, booked through Booking.com, terrible wifi but otherwise ideal

Shopping: More expensive overall than Barcelona, but outstanding variety and offerings nonetheless, especially shoes, books, tea, funky gifts and stationery

Miniature Wonderland: A miniature gallery


A tiny Italian villa	A small-scale Elbphilharmonie at night

A mini Neuschwanstein	A down-sized Italian city

A compact city	Minuscule concert-goers

A model garden in daylight…	…and in the deepening dusk

Going Different Ways in Berlin

by Roslyn Green

September 28, 2017

1:09 pm

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Travelling

architecture, Berlin, Hugendubel, Monkey Bar, Stasi-Museum, Trabi

**At a Berlin beer hall… Actually, I’m drinking an apple juice with soda…**

After two days spent uncovering the history of Berlin, more or less in a pack, our group began to fall apart, for various reasons, some connected with external temptations, others with inner compulsions.

Shannon was enticed by the prospect of hanging out with two young friends, who coincidentally had also arrived in Berlin. She set off to meet them for lunch and this rapidly extended into dinner. In the end, she stayed up till five in the morning and returned to our hotel the following day, having sampled Berlin night life and passively inhaled a dangerous amount of smoke. It was up to her to explore Berlin’s potential for partying and she did her duty with aplomb.

Courtney was seized by the necessity of completing homework. She needed hours rather than minutes to prepare for her Global Politics SAC and she therefore settled down in the hotel to read her beautifully ordered and colour-coordinated notes. In the evening, she realized to her horror that the practice exam for this subject is taking place the day after our midnight return. That’s simply brutal.

In my case, the temptation to experience yet another Hugendubel drew me to the three-storey bookshop (almost a department store) in Wilmersdorfer Straße. I find this chain of bookshops irresistible. We all have our idiosyncrasies, after all: Linda is fixated on Australian Rules Football, Courtney is devoted to Lady Gaga, and Davey is obsessed with maps. My visit to Hugendubel was both satisfying and relaxing: I sat on the red leather couches, read two or three first chapters, and ended up buying a children’s novel called Mein Zuhause für immer (My Home For Ever). That’s going to be for the long plane flight.

During our morning team meeting, Davey and Dwayne mentioned that they would like to go to the Stasi-Museum. I felt a pang of guilt for absenting myself from this excursion, since it involved a history that I felt I ought to explore more thoroughly; but it is also an unremittingly grim and unsettling story, like many aspects of Berlin’s past. As it turned out, the men found the museum riveting. The malicious methods to which the Stasi operatives stooped to spy on people and wreck human lives were almost beyond belief. One woman, even seventeen years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, discovered a former Stasi bug, still embedded in her front door. Twelve years of Nazi Germany, followed by decades of East German dictatorship, must have warped and twisted thousands of lives.


Linda wanted to do something cheerful for her last evening in Berlin, so she took her family to the “Monkey Bar”, where you can sit high above the city…	…and look down on the monkeys and the greenery of the zoo. It was a funky and welcoming place.

Perhaps it was a mistake to come here directly from Barcelona, for after the architectural cohesion of that city, the hotchpotch of Berlin was particularly striking. It was too foggy to climb up the television tower, but we could see well enough to notice that some witless entrepreneur had built a Park Inn Hotel right next door, a box-like, foully ugly building based seemingly on the design principles of a Trabi. There are eyesores blighting the whole Berlin skyline; it is difficult to ascertain how many of them are simply hideous old buildings from East German times and how many can be attributed to unregulated and unbridled capitalism since then. There seem to be cranes on every corner. I could not perceive any sign of concern for maintaining what is old and beautiful and ensuring that new buildings are appropriate, coherent with the rest of the city and appealing to the eye.

Of course, I could make exactly the same complaint about some of the latest additions to the Melbourne skyline, especially those in Box Hill.

In any case, Berlin served us up many temptations, catered to several of our whims, and provided, above all, an education in human cruelty, frailty and resilience.

**Dwayne indulging one of his deepest desires: to eat a pork knuckle roast as only the Germans know how to serve it up…**

**Davey’s desires run more to wine, but he can also drink a beer with the best of them.**

Final Notes

Hotel: Hotel-Pension Bregenz, Bregenzer-Straße 8 – a relatively small family concern

Restaurants: Our hotel was surrounded by restaurants worth visiting, especially the Vietnamese Restaurant, Pho 56.

Going Batty in Berlin

by Roslyn Green

September 25, 2017

4:53 pm

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Travelling

Albricht, Berlin, J F Kennedy, Monument to the Murdered Jews of Europe, Reagan, rubbish bins, Story of Berlin, Topography of Terror, U-Bahn

Posing with a Trabant at “The Story of Berlin”. “How do you mean, they had to wait 13 years for one?” cried Shannon. “What if something more modern had been designed in the meantime?” There speaks a modern Western teenager who has yet to grasp the sluggish and ponderous nature of the former East German economy.

Berlin is one of the keys to understanding the twentieth century, so we were naturally keen to delve into its history. We hoped, for example, to find the few remaining remnants of the Berlin Wall, denounced as the “Wall of Shame” by the contemptuous and horrified West. At the same time, it was promoted as the “Anti-Fascist Protection Wall” by the Eastern propagandists in an attempt to justify this cruel imposition on the hapless citizens of East Berlin. Some of us were also eager to discover how the National Socialists had established their power here and subjugated the city to their evil will. For these reasons, we began our day with a visit to “The Story of Berlin” and ended it with a harrowing exploration of a museum called the “Topography of Terror”.

**A painting of a Trabi bursting through the wall, based on the famous painting at the Eastside Gallery**

On the way to these educational experiences, we watched some of the participants in the Berlin Marathon, several in bizarre and amusing costumes, as they ran along the Kurfürstendamm, doing their best not to trip over the plastic cups that lined the route and being cheered on in a friendly fashion by the spectators, including us. Even in the drizzling rain, there was a party atmosphere. The city may lack the architectural cohesion and beauty of Barcelona, not to mention the sunlight, but it brims with life, diversity and spirit.

**Davey visits the sparse remnants of the Berlin Wall.**

Despite all of these informative and entertaining experiences, the incident that amused and captivated us most occurred during our numerous journeys in the U-Bahn. When you travel with a group of people for some time, living in each other’s pockets and observing each other’s foibles, you begin to use a set of words that only makes sense to the group, to notice certain repetitive (and irritating) patterns in each other’s behaviour, and to cherish particular moments that provoke laughter, embarrassment or ridicule. We managed to create several of these moments in five minutes of folly and hilarity on the Berlin Underground. If anyone had videotaped us, the resulting film would have gone viral under the heading “Dopey Australians in Europe”. Thank heavens that nobody did.

**The two girls were nearly left behind in a moment of panic on the underground. Here, they are travelling on an S-Bahn (above ground).**

Davey was leading us to our next location when he realized that we had gone one stop too far for our connecting train. So we leapt off that train, saw the train going in the opposite direction on the other platform, and ran across to jump in. At that instant, the doors began closing, with Shannon and Courtney still on the platform. We yelled, we held the door open despite its stubborn desire to separate us, and we hauled the girls in, not without curses, criticisms and attributions of blame. Once we were all in, we tried to act cool and unfazed, but it was clear that the other people in the train carriage were wondering if we were simply unusually clueless tourists or something more sinister.

Our absurd behaviour continued at the next stop, where Davey led us up a set of stairs, from which we turned right, climbed into a lift and descended to exactly the same platform. At this point, the spatially gifted members of the party (as they would consider themselves), Dwayne and David, asserted that in fact we had crossed to a different platform in order to catch a train on a different line. A long, intense discussion ensued and continued as we climbed into the following train. The females of the group, especially Shannon and Courtney, advanced their arguments so convincingly that both Dwayne and David, initially unwilling to accept dissent, ultimately admitted that we had indeed returned to the same platform that we had just left. This admission was a victory of reason and femininity over obstinacy and masculinity; the women of the party touched fists and gloried over our triumph.

**At some of the remains of the Berlin Wall**

Of course, Berlin is rich in memorable moments: John F. Kennedy stating that he was a Berliner; Ronald Reagan’s exhortation, “Mr Gorbachev, tear down this Wall”; perhaps most memorable of all, that night in 1989 when the citizens of the divided city were permitted to encounter each other at last and celebrate after 28 years of inhumanity and separation. There have been deplorable moments too, such as Walter Ulbricht’s infamous lie: “No one has any intention of building a wall.” For us, however, those crazy five minutes, in which all our travelling fatigue and confusion were played out in a kind of spatial farce, will also represent Berlin.


Courtney looks at the iconic picture of the Trabi bursting through the Wall at the Eastside Gallery.	Shannon wanders through the haunting Monument to the Murdered Jews of Europe.

Final Notes:

Talking Rubbish Bins: The orange rubbish bins of Berlin are not just pieces of metal, but rather friendly and witty exhortations to cleanliness. They have funny, pithy comments printed on them, like “Gib’s mir!” (Give it to me) or “Bitte füttern” (Please feed me). Here are a couple more examples, with explanations:


This is a play on the word “Potsdamer” – the verb “putzen” means “to clean” in German.	A “Würstchen” is a little sausage, but here the word alludes to what dogs do, while a “Bude” is a stall.	“Kaugummi” is chewing gum in German. “Gib Gummi” means “Give me your gum” or “Put your gum here!”

More Spatial Difficulties: Linda and Dwayne went for a run this morning and managed to get lost. They found their way home in the end by catching a train, making it back just in time for breakfast in the homely breakfast room of Christian’s hotel. At least this small mishap ensured plenty of exercise: by the end of the day they had completed over 25,000 steps.

My Steps: A mere 17,881

From Barcelona to Berlin

by Roslyn Green

September 23, 2017

4:20 pm

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Travelling

apartment in Barcelona, Barcelona, Berlin, Casa Batllo, Felice, Geelong Cats

We regretted having to leave Barcelona, for a number of reasons.

The first, of course, is that it is a unique and beautiful city, abounding in spectacular buildings, stylish shops and unexpected moments of delight and discovery. Yet each of us had other, more personal reasons for feeling wistful.

Courtney mentioned, for instance, that the fast, reliable wifi in our apartment would be a major loss. And it certainly was a pleasure not to have to log in every time our phones locked themselves or wait long periods for a minuscule download.

Linda had enjoyed having a huge Massimo Dutti store right around the corner from our apartment in Carrer de Pau Claris. The stock was constantly changing and the shop itself, quiet and elegant, produced a soothing effect upon her, even after the Geelong Cats’ loss to Adelaide yesterday. As she wrote to me after the one-sided game had finished: “At least my anguish is over.” Massimo Dutti helped her to attain a state of rueful acceptance, while also sending her luggage weight to the maximum and beyond.

**Davey also felt at home in our apartment.**

Davey’s stolid and abiding state of calm makes regret of any kind rare for him, even when he was thwarted in his plan to buy himself a second pair of slippers in the Gothic Quarter. “How many pairs do you actually need?” I asked him. He ignored my rudeness, but fate was nevertheless against him; the tiny shop where he had hoped to add to his stock of slippers had closed for a siesta on the afternoon of our last day. Many shop-owners roll down their shutters or lock up between about 2.30 and 4.30 every day. What a civilised city.

Dwayne, like Davey, is not prone to emotional excess of any kind, but he may drool in memory of the ribs provided at our favourite restaurant, Felice. Since we are flying to Germany, however, where the meat offerings are substantial, if not overwhelming, he should overcome this disappointment.

Shannon seems to be satisfied with very little. Some sight-seeing and a few shopping forays are all she requires. She may be sorry to leave the tiny winding alleyways behind, all the same, since she managed to find any number of small treasures there, such as a gold necklace and a nightie that could double as a little black dress and turn heads at any nightclub.

**My little home away from home in Barcelona**

As for me, I revelled in every aspect of Barcelona and especially in our spacious, tasteful apartment, where, on the first morning, I placed many of my possessions on a little bookcase to make our room feel just like home. Our clothesline was an adventure in itself. I knew that if I was clumsy enough to drop the garment I was pegging out the window, it would plummet 3 floors. It was a pleasure to spread out after a month or so of living out of an increasingly crowded suitcase.

The other thing we shall all miss about Barcelona are the visual details and surprises.

Berlin, however, is no slouch in that respect.

Final Details:

Our Apartment in Barcelona: 176 Carrer de Pau Claris, booked on Airbnb
Taxi to the Airport: Our giant taxi took all 6 of us plus our luggage (for 30€). It was booked through AMB – Àrea Metropolitana de Barcelona.
Weather Change: Maximum temperature in Barcelona, a balmy 24 degrees; in Berlin, 16 degrees with steady rain from dinner onwards

Suffering Feet in Barcelona

by Roslyn Green

September 21, 2017

9:06 pm

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Travelling

Barcelona, Catalonia, demonstrators, Gaudi, Gothic Quarter, Parc Güell

**Parc Güell and the views it provides of the city and the sea**

As I plodded up the hill towards Parc Güell, I noticed that I was steadily falling further behind all the other team members. My legs were still obeying my commands, but sluggishly.

Dwayne had a few choice words to offer on the matter. At our first gathering point, he pointed out: “Since you’ve given up your electric bike, you don’t break team rules any more. You’re always at the back.”

I would have liked to respond with a witty, crushing remark, but lack of oxygen had turned my brain to mush.

Our Spanish guide at the Park was modest, knowledgeable and, regrettably, fast-walking. He furnished us all with tiny radio earphones, which allowed us to hear him from a distance of 50 metres, even when he spoke softly. The advantage was that we could roam freely within that radius without losing track of what he was saying. So it was that we discovered, as we wandered blithely around the park, that Gaudi considered trees to be his model, that he hoped to blend natural and human-made beauty, and that he loved asymmetry, favouring the curved and the irregular over the standard 90-degree corners and straight lines of most urban environments.


Curving asymmetry	Listening to our guide

↑ Curving symmetry	↑Moulded mosaic seats↓

Having seen the world through Gaudi’s eyes for an evening at the Sagrada Familia and a morning at Parc Güell, we set off to admire the rest of Barcelona, especially its alleyways and its shops. Despite my stiffening hips, aching knees and tender feet, I consider Barcelona to be the ideal city for the dedicated walker. There are simply so many details to absorb, so many eye-catching people milling around, so much food, wine and art. The beauty of the city is original and quirky, yet also classical and timeless. Even if you don’t buy anything or go to a specific tourist attraction, you feel as though you are soaking in the whole experience simply by rambling along the narrow streets.

Evidently the sheer visual delight of looking at Barcelona has a financial value. Yesterday at the square where we had lunch, we observed that we had to pay more in order to sit outside and watch the passing parade. Today at lunch, we sat just inside a lovely little pizza restaurant with tapas as a side offering; we felt as though we were outside, yet without the extra outlay. The sun streamed through the window and even the untalented busker outside could not spoil the moment.


Out walking in the Gothic Quarter	Walking with a more serious purpose: young Catalonians protesting their rights to vote for independence

Surprisingly and reassuringly, I find that, even on the days when I walk more than 15,000 steps, the ordeal is manageable so long as I can sit down now and then and give my feet a rest. Nevertheless, last evening, I had reached the stage where I could not bear the thought of going out for dinner. I had collapsed on the bed and, when Davey told me that we were about to start walking again, I began to emit feeble groans. Despite the struggle to get vertical, the dinner, in a little restaurant that Maureen Keogh had recommended, turned out to be the best of the whole trip. The wine flowed and the tapas were delicious. Our waitress was a young woman from Poland who meticulously explained all the details of each course and charmed us with her warmth and friendliness.

At the end of the meal, all of my joints were creaking like unoiled hinges and I walked home in a gingerly fashion. For this reason, Dwayne took it upon himself this morning to give me some advice: “Just put one foot before the other,” he said. “It’s called a walking motion.”

Barcelona certainly gives us the best possible reasons to follow that simple advice.

Final Notes

Dinner: Felice Bar, Carrer de Francisco Giner 22, 08012 Barcelona
Lunch: Via Margutta, Fonollar 2, 08003 Barcelona
Step Count: 19 Sept – 23, 327 | 20 Sept – 19,812 | 21 Sept – 14,631

Awe and Disappointment in Barcelona

by Roslyn Green

September 19, 2017

8:16 pm

2 Comments on Awe and Disappointment in Barcelona

Travelling

Barcelona, Courtney, Gaudi, Lady Gaga, Mercado de la Boqueria, Poble Espanyol, Sagrada Familia, Shannon, Spanish Village

With my honorary niece at the Spanish Village (Poble Espagnol) – we were both resting our weary legs.

After our first ecstatic day in this glorious city, we were brought back to earth with a thud yesterday. Courtney’s hopes for Barcelona and the whole trip were cruelly dashed when she read that her musical goddess, Lady Gaga, had cancelled the European leg of her world tour. The official term was “postponed”, but when you have travelled 16,000 kilometres in the happy expectation of experiencing a musical extravaganza of startling dimensions, you read the word “postponed” as “cancelled”.

This distressing piece of news coloured our whole day. Even Linda found it difficult to concentrate in her favourite shop, Massimo Dutti. Courtney was cast down and so, presumably, were the fans who had begun to sleep outside the concert venue in the hope of gaining a ticket for the mosh pit.

Rich red colours at the Mercado de la Boqueria

While Linda and the girls continued to shop, Davey, Dwayne and I set off for the food market, Mercado de la Boqueria, which turned out to be crowded, colourful and captivating. The sole disappointment was the bread. After France and Germany, where the bread is varied and tasty, as well as soft and crusty in all the right places, the Spanish bread that we have sampled so far, including the loaves we bought at the market, has been rather insipid and cardboard-like. In our quest to find some decent bread, in fact, we have bought about eight loaves; Dwayne stipulated in a team meeting yesterday evening that we are not allowed to buy any more. In contrast, the offerings of Spanish proscuitto-like ham (jamon iberico), fish and empanados (like mini pasties) at the market were matchless.

The other disappointments occurred this morning and were caused by lapses of memory and a lack of thorough googling. Arriving at the Sagrada Familia early, we discovered that our tickets were actually for yesterday. Our hearts sank. The patient and kindly doorkeepers promised us a refund, but we had to rebook for the evening at 6 o’clock and were lucky to be able to gain entry to the tower, which is usually booked out days ahead.

It was necessary to rejig our day completely. We decided to visit the Montjuïc Fountain, only to find it still and quiet, with a worker in hip-high gumboots carrying out maintenance. For a while there, we began to think that there was some kind of jinx on us.

After we had waited for quite a while, the fountain began to froth and sparkle in the sunlight.

Fortunately, an old man nearby assured me that the fountain would start functioning at 11 o’clock, so we walked up the steps and escalators to the National Museum of Catalonian Art and waited, looking out at the far-reaching view. “This city is so colour-coordinated,” Courtney commented. “A bit like Florence.”

The many facets of Shannon

Shannon gives her feet a break and her thumbs a workout.	High on the mountain after our ride up on the gondola	Playing peekaboo during one of our numerous escalator rides

From that point on, our day began to fall into place. The fountain was worth waiting for, a man was singing Spanish songs, and the sunshine cheered us all, although the walks to the funicular railway and the Poble Espanyol (Spanish Village) were strenuous, and the village, while picturesque, was overly expensive and filled with shops sporting signs like “Don’t touch” and “No photography”. So we neither touched nor bought.

**The golden light of evening flows into the Basilica.**

At the end of the day, as the evening sun streamed through the stained-glass windows of the Sagrada Familia, we entered the Cathedral at last, craning our necks to appreciate the light filtering through the flowing stone, admiring the angles, the curves and the sublime beauty of Gaudi’s design.

We finished the day with a sense of awe that outweighed all previous disappointments (except perhaps Courtney’s). Barcelona does that for you.


Warm colours	Cool colours

Four hundred steps (thankfully only downwards)…	…on a spiral staircase that reminded me of a seashell

Final Notes

Step Count for Today: 23,327
Sweetest comment: Despite her devastation yesterday and the various ups and downs of our day today, Courtney said to me: “I hope that when I grow up and have children, there will be another family with whom we can go travelling. We’re lucky, aren’t we?”
Compensation: The evening light in the Sagrada Familia made up for our early morning letdown.

The heaven is in the detail…

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.


Linda and Shannon at the beach	Boats, blue skies and the sea

Is it a home or a castle?	Courtney looks forward to seeing her goddess