On to Germany
I tried a few brief conversations in German and was reminded that I had forgotten pretty much all of the German that I had learned 50 years ago.
Crossing the border from Holland into Germany, the most important change noticed was the sudden presence of bakeries with elaborate pastries - fruit tarts and the like. Nothing like it in any of the other countries so far.
Compared to Britain, Belgium, and Holland, the houses are bigger, plenty of new construction of homes, set back from the road, large yards with grass lawns. Larger gardens, and flowers even on the second floors. Bike paths are no more extensive than in Holland, but with more extensive maps and signs. Lots of wind farms and solar farms, as well as solar panels on roofs - rare along the North Sea coast - perhaps because there is so little truly sunny weather there.
Northern Europe continues in a heat wave. Hot and sunny near 80. And steady headwinds the last 2 days and forecast for tomorrow.
Today was a pretty short day - dead flat and only 60 miles, so spent an extra half an hour or more wandering off onto side roads. Found new smooth concrete bike paths in the middle of nowhere - on old farm roads, rabbits with ludicrously long ears, turkeys with blue heads, orchards draped in cheese cloth to keep birds from eating the fruit (looked like a Cristo sculpture), houses with thatched roofs that had been sculpted in swoops and swirls - looked like a Gaudi architectural design, one pack of high school kids on bikes with a peloton of at least 40.
The central pedestrian square in our town tonight (Meppen) was full of families selling usee stuff - kids' clothes, books, CD's, toys, and some adult stuff. Turns out that today is the first day of summer vacation and it is a tradition all over Germany to have a gigantic common garage sale of used stuff each year on the first day of vacation.
Crossing the border from Holland into Germany, the most important change noticed was the sudden presence of bakeries with elaborate pastries - fruit tarts and the like. Nothing like it in any of the other countries so far.
Compared to Britain, Belgium, and Holland, the houses are bigger, plenty of new construction of homes, set back from the road, large yards with grass lawns. Larger gardens, and flowers even on the second floors. Bike paths are no more extensive than in Holland, but with more extensive maps and signs. Lots of wind farms and solar farms, as well as solar panels on roofs - rare along the North Sea coast - perhaps because there is so little truly sunny weather there.
Northern Europe continues in a heat wave. Hot and sunny near 80. And steady headwinds the last 2 days and forecast for tomorrow.
Today was a pretty short day - dead flat and only 60 miles, so spent an extra half an hour or more wandering off onto side roads. Found new smooth concrete bike paths in the middle of nowhere - on old farm roads, rabbits with ludicrously long ears, turkeys with blue heads, orchards draped in cheese cloth to keep birds from eating the fruit (looked like a Cristo sculpture), houses with thatched roofs that had been sculpted in swoops and swirls - looked like a Gaudi architectural design, one pack of high school kids on bikes with a peloton of at least 40.
The central pedestrian square in our town tonight (Meppen) was full of families selling usee stuff - kids' clothes, books, CD's, toys, and some adult stuff. Turns out that today is the first day of summer vacation and it is a tradition all over Germany to have a gigantic common garage sale of used stuff each year on the first day of vacation.
You've got an artist's eye comparing the netted orchards to a Cristo work ;)
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