Meißen – Off We Go

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:


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.