July 27, 2013
Day 9: Drieborg to Knock
Happy fifth birthday, Avi and Violet!!
It turned out to be 7 km to the German border. Not that there was anything at all to mark the border itself. It's only that we began to notice signage in German. It took until the first town, Bunde, to notice the real differences. Germany started off slow, in terms of impressing us in comparison to Netherlands. For starters the houses while nice enough, lacked any flair. Gardens and grounds, while ok, lacked that Walt Disney almost unreal perfection of Netherlands. Finally, in the LIDL, a clerk almost pushed us aside so he could load a cooler, the cashier refused my HSBC card and wanted to search our handlebar bags, failed to print the necessary voucher number for my purchase of Internet time for my SIM, and then did not apologize, though she did look slightly embarrassed. Outside, an older lady brushed by and banged my mirror, without an ëxcuse me". In general the people seemed tense.. Ok, maybe it's because they were all either working or shopping at LIDL!
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As we proceeded from Bunde to Weener, we continued to see that the route we were taking, generally guided by our Bikeline maps, corresponded to signs for the "Dollard Route". Dollard is the name of the large bay into which the Ems River flows. But it was not until now that we picked up a pamphlet that describes the "Internationale Dollard Route" and gives the web address: www.dollard-route.de The pamphlet is now giving us excellent guidance for this region.
Another great map we found is a bike route map for East Friesland - the region we are in. check out www.ostfriesland.de
Of course Europe, and Germany in particular, is riddled with bike routes. So not only are we on the Bikeline route and the Dollard Route, but a pile of others. This includes the 375 km Ems river bikeway. But that ends nearby at Emden. It started way down beyond Munster.
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Taking guidance from all our various maps and routes, we decided to cross the Ems and detour into Leer. Leer is a town of typical Frisian houses, and it and villages in this area date from the 8th century.
As advertised, we found narrow streets and interesting buildings in Leer. The town has put up display panels on some streets that show the same view as what you are looking at, only about 100 years ago. In these views, almost every building is now just as it was.
The thing about Leer, though, is that the busy pedestrian streets are filled with commercial or tourist things, things that don't feel much in keeping with the place. This is only a vague notion and not something we can much quantify, or describe, much less prove. Places we adored - London, Paris, Vienna, Amsterdam, were swarming with tourists and commercial services, and we adored these too. So what's the beef with poor Leer? Maybe we were just still crabby about the LIDL in Bunde!
We backtracked through Leer and recrossed the Ems, heading north toward Emden on the West side of the river. This took us through towns whose names for somme reason end in "um": Bingum, Jemgum, Midlum, Critzum, Harzum, and Ditzum, to name a few. These towns were agricultural, did not offer much in terms of cafes or other excitement, and were quite plainly built of red brick. For a while we followed the river dike, but decided to take the path by the road instead, to absorb whatever the towns had to offer.
At Ditzum was the ferry to Petkum, which is on the way to Emden. As we cycled the last few km to the ferry, thunder put in an appearance. Based on yesterday's performance, Dodie was apprehensive, but I was sure the sky was too clear to cause much trouble. Who are you voting for being right?
Lots of touring cyclists appeared at the ferry, and amicably packed on. It's normal to see a couple of hundred bikes on a ferry in Europe. The ferry set off, and after about 5 minutes the rain decided to pelt down. There was a fair scramble as people tried to reach their bags in the bike herd to pull out raincoats. By the time we landed, it was blasting down. I looked around for the fish and chips restaurant, but yesterday's luck was not repeated today. Instead we jut plowed through it.
I encouraged myselffby remembering the Oregon Coast last year, and the fact that it did not stop us. Actually, a summer rain like this can be an annoyance, but it can never actually kill you, like a winter one can.
A pouring rain in any season is not the best for finding your way in a new city. We felt Emden should have an interesting old quarter, despite war destruction, but though we felt we crossed through the altstadt, we didn't really find it. Shades of Alkmaar. We did find our way through the town and out the other side, but could see that there was no camping immediately around. So we made for the coast, and landed up at a camping at Knock.
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The camping featured mainly trailers, and was having a bit of a festival. This was made u6p of a bratwurst and pommes trailer, a beer trailer, and a loud music live band. A sign on the office door gave a number to phone. OK, if you have a working phone, which we don't. Fortunately a fellow came up, we did not get his name, and helped us out. As we waited for management to come, we learned that our angel was from England, but has lived here 30 years. He is an operator at a gas plant down the road. The plant receives and redistributes Norwegian gas. Our angel, his wife and son are in the photo. I commented that probably the son would be speaking a few languages, but in fact they are sticking to German, since they are completely assimilated into the local culture. An interesting, and to us exotic family.
Looking at the maps, we see that there could be a lot of fairly boring dike riding in our near future. So Dodie is looking at the roads, and trying to plot a way to Williamshaven "cross country". If we do it, we will leave the comfort of Bikeline and Dollard Route and the rest, and just strike off. How lost could we get? Hah, just wait and see!
Today's ride: 81 km (50 miles)
Total: 578 km (359 miles)
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