Day 34: Berlin to Werder: Grampies jump out of Berlin and land on their feet

August 21, 2013

Look Amelia, a mermaid at our hotel. (I ACTUALLY HAD A LOT OF CAPTIONS DONE, BUT THEY DISAPPEARED. CHECK BACK FOR CAPTIONS SOON. WITHOUT CAPTIONS, I KNOW, A LOT OF THESE SHOTS MEAN LITTLE!)

As we travel we are of course trying to see and understand the culture of the places we come to. So naturally, we turn on the TV if we get near one, if only for the 5 minutes of spare time these retirees ever have. Normally we look at the kids' channel, but which is over our heads anyway. The kids' stuff is usually US derived, but with local variations. Here is what we saw this time:

Pixar "planes" shoes. We have been away - didn't know they came out with this

Here is Angela Merkel showing she can drink with the best. Or maybe she is just steeling herself for a meeting with Hollande.

Down at the breakfast buffet, there was the same conservative layout of buns, cheese, bread, yogurt, etc. But, the room was big and the staff far away, so we had an easy time off making some extra sandwiches. Why would folks like us, with presumably adequate money, focus so on pilfering some extra sandwiches? Aside from the thrill of it, it is the fact that even though we are in developed countries with no shortage of food, we are often come to village after village with no stores. The culprit is the automobile. People in these places clearly jump iin the car and buzz over 20 km to their favourite outlet. Hmmmpph. Add to this the fact that as cyclists we are always hungry, and you get sandwich pilferers!

As we rode back through the city to intersect our route south towards Leipsig, we had a chance for that sober second look, in the cold light of morning, so to speak. First, although this is surely not a cyclist's paradise type of place, there were quite a few people on their bikes. On the other hand, we had to constantly watch for turning cars, opening doors on parked cars, no bike lane, etc.

Now here were the landmarks that after one whole day I could consider familiar - the Marien church, the Dom, the red Rathaus, the radio tower, the history museum. What did they look like now? Well, they looked obscured. Obscured by uninspired apartment buildings, traffic, and construction. I had actually not quite noticed before the number of uninspired buildings, because of trying to focus on the inspired ones.

The "rotes rathaus" obscured by construction

Twin spires of Berlin's oldest church - obscured by construction

Ok, a good shot of the Dom, with just one crane in the way!

Now finally, to the south a bit, we passed again the Judisches museum. Again, the police, and again, the radically scary metallic annex. Beside it we now noticed the forest of vertical concrete columns - a memorial we had read about. Access is only from inside the scary annex, but we had a peek from outside. Dodie thought the grass growing atop the columns was a "hopeful" symbol. We asked a police officer about how to get in for a look. Did you ever feel guilty at a border crossing, even though not being a smuggler? Talking to the man, I wondered if he wondered what explosives might be in all those bags on our bikes.

Some actual jews, near the jewish museum - telephoto shot.

The monument beside the scary museum annex

The whole thing was a bit disconcerting, and this was just from the outside. How much better this report would be if the foolish travellers had actually gone inside anything!

One more reference view of where the wall was. We are still following it as we head south.

Now we moved into new territory as we swung south and out of the city. Actually, it was 20 km before we passed the south ring road. In that distance there was naturally a lot of stuff, but it was more in the fruit stand, restaurant, car sales, office building class. I kept looking for some kind of neighbourhoods to resolve themselves - immigrant? classy suburb? hip chill out? No, it was just a mix, except for quite a few kebab/donner shops and fruit stores with their stuff outside.

Finally we passed out of the city. Now we had villages that were frankly a bit drab. As usual, some houses were nice, but lots needed work. And of course, "drab" is a relative term. Compared to villages where we come from, these were brilliant.

Also brilliant was the one bakery we found. The "drab" tray of squares actually contained some treasures: poppyseed with gooseberry underneath, and a cheese one as good as ever I have tasted!

We ended up eating our pilfered sandwiches just on the roadside, because of not finding any picnic area. Sometimes you will find in this blog reference to eating in a bus shelter. It's an offshoot of the residential only - desert problem. Places with only residences do have bus service, and therefore bus stops, often with shelters. Most shelters here, though, were exposed looking plexiglass affairs.

Later, the two squares from that bakery served well to keep up our strength, as we pedalled on, facing the next lack - lack of camping. We had spotted one on our maps, but it was quite distant. So on we went.

Near the town of Luckenwalde, we were enjoying the really good condition of the dedicated cycle way.Then, some inline skaters approached. ok. But then more. Seeing them coming, we noticed the great rhythm some had, swinging their legs side to side, like ice speed skaters. But there were also awkward kids, just starting, with moderately skilled parents beside them.

Why suddenly so many skaters? We had stopped briefly to look at trailside maps for any sign of camping. Trailside maps are common everywhere. So these said "Flaming Juterbog - something, something". Thought nothing of it, and still no camping.

We resolved to make a desperate dash for the one camping we had seen on our map - at Oehna, a small place, off route. We dashed past Neuhof, north of Juterbog, and we dashed past Werder. Then we dashed past Neuhof, - waitaminute, weren't we just in Neuhof? Damn, Grampies going in Circles!

With evening approaching, we pulled out the GPS, and followed our progress on it, for a visual on where we had turned wrong. I had my head down, watching the screen, when Dodie (the heads up girl) said "Hey, there is camping!"

The gormless Grampies had stumbled on to:

The fact that Juterbog is Europe's largest centre for inline skating (and maybe ice- speed skating)

Juterbog contains Germany's most modern skating stadium, and 200 km of specially created smooth skate and cycleway, in eight circuits of varying difficulty, including an 83 km cycle circuit through the countryside and including a wildlike park.

A giant free camping area, with picnic tables, food kiosk, and washrooms.

A centre for cyclists, hikers, and horse riders with barns, a huge high quality restaurant, showers, petting zoo, and who knows what else.

All this is directly, yes directly, on the Berlin-Leipzig radweg. Didn't we pass it, why wouldn't we have seen it - the first time? Duh!

There were two other sets of cyclists at the camping site. One family from Zwickau had gone to Dresden, into Poland, to the Baltic, and back through Berlin. The other, Manuela, was from Jena (works at the university). She did 160 km yesterday!

Needless to say we had a lot of fun comparing notes with these crazy guys!

Since the camping price was so good, we went over the restaurant, and had a meal that really could not be beat. I got a steak, smothered - really smothered - in onions, and Dodie's pasta had raisins and almonds in it, and saffron. Uniquely, the waitress took the trouble to translate and explain every item on the extensive menu, though her english was only so so.

So in short, the hapless Grampies landed on their feet, somewhere near Werder, Germany!