April 27, 2022
Day 15: Duhnen-Cuxhaven to Nordenham
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Unlike the varius configurations you find in North America, every single hotel or guesthouse in Germany uses a fluffy quilt on the bed. These are always folded in thirds and placed on the bed sideways. A double bed only means that there will be two singles, placed like this. Of course the fluffy quilts can vary in quality, with the best being thick down.
Last night's guesthouse had the thick down, and not to mention a soft and comfortable bed. I appreciated this a lot, since my fluffy quilt at home is pretty much the most restorative thing I have (other than a freezer full of bagels!). As a bonus Dodie made an error in setting the alarm, so we slept in for almost an hour. Today is my birthday, and a sleep in and a good quilt made a great present. In fact, I am putting the fluffy quilt in as my Favourite Thing for today.
Now, Dodie sleeps warm and really in not too keen on thick quilts. So she is not endorsing this Favourite Thing nomination. Instead she is nominating today as her favourite thing, Me! Good choice, Dodie.
In the cold light of morning, Duhnen actually looked a bit more attractive than last evening. And unlike Cuxhaven itself, it does have some attractive buildings.
Our enjoyment of Duhnen was limited, as we quickly entered a forest. A forest is ok, but this one had a too bumpy road.
We came out of the forest into an area of regular houses facing the dike. There was not much exciting about these, but we did like these narcissus.
Having completed the Elbe yesterday, we were now firmly on the Weser. As usual in Germany, you are often on more than one route at any given time. They all have their own logos and share the great bicycle direction signage.
The Weser Radweg is shown below as the fourth from the left. I just noticed it somewhat resembles the Ukrainian flag!
For the next several hours, until we would reach Bremerhaven, our world returned to riding below the dike, which would be the North Sea dike and evolving to the Weser dike.
Our first indication of reaching the Bremerhaven area was the appearance of a lot of crane or lift type structures by the water. These seemed like they could be automated, though there could well have been human operators. Whichever, dozens of devices on elevated tracks were buzzing around, seemingly grabbing shipping containers and dropping them onto waiting ships. We were riding at a bit of a distance from them and could not see exactly what their game was, but it still looked impressive.
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2 years ago
2 years ago
As we drew closer to the city, things got exciting in an unaccustomed way. all around us was evidence of pure economic muscle. This included hundreds of big trucks, trains carrying cars, multilevel storage facilities containng cars, and very giant container ships. Through all the activity, in typical German style, our bike path wound. It was fun, as we crossed side roads, to have the giant trucks come to a stop for us.
I dawned on me that to move the cars around, each would have to have the keys inside. So I wondered aloud if they would miss just one. I spotted a really sweet Volkswagen Transporter. But Dodie successfully pointed out that I would not want to be driving in Europe, and therby thwarted any further thoughts of van larceny.
We needed to cross a canal to get further into the town, but found the bridge blocked by a crew of some sort. We approached and asked if we could cross, but the answer was a very firm no. We would have to backtrack and go around, said the man who had come forward to fend us off. "Ok, come shw me on my map where we have to go", said Dodie. "No, no" said the man. This was probably a bit of a miscommunication, for Dodie had advanced forward off a ramp where we had stopped, so she could look at maps without sliding. Maybe the man though she was making a run for it, while we thought he was refusing to help. This all got sorted out, as Dodie used her charm, and they ended as buddies, as you can see from the photo.
Bremerhaven was a major submarine base during WWII, and consequently got itself obliterate by bombing. So there were not really any old buildings to look at. But the inner harbour does have a couple of iconic new buildings.
The harbour also has an assortment of interesting boats, like this sailing one:
One very interesting boat stored in the harbour is a WWII U-Boat, in this case one named the Wilhelm Bauer. It currently functions as a museum. You should be able to read its story from the photo of the nearby signboard. The boat was somehow bigger and sleeker than I imagined, but there it was. This was a fascinating brush with such an important piece of history.
We did not spot a traditional city centre in Bremerhaven, the kind with cafes and the walk among retail stores. But a man who struck up a conversation on the ferry we next took, over to the Nordenham side of the river, assured us that it does exist.
As we noodled along the Nordenham side on the way to our guest house, we stumbled on a bike shop. We took the opportunity to buy a bunch more brake pads, and did so despite the shop's unfortunate name: Trumpf.
The guest house, called Gastehaus Marek, is run by a very old couple. They were really nice to us, and the place is absolutely immaculate. We are so impressed when we see the results of people's obvious hard work and diligence, and of course they will find it tomrrow in exactly the same condition as when we came.
So here we are, set for what is logically the next stage of our tour - ascending the Weser. Tomorrow we should be in Bremen, but beyond that we have no knowledge or experience with what we will find.
Side note: we made it to Cuxhaven in exactly the number of days we had figured/budgeted back home.
Today's ride: 65 km (40 miles)
Total: 770 km (478 miles)
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2 years ago
2 years ago
Enjoy all the wonderful Grimms sights onthe Weser - our blog. Three Reasons for Riding through Europe
2 years ago
My brother lives in Nordenham - when I visited there last year, I took a harbor tour of Bremerhaven and clearly remember our tiny tourist boat cruising past the big car carriers. It was though not only their size that kept me from averting my eyes, but also their blatant ugliness which ist yet to be matched amongst the colorful bouquet of ship species.
While I'm pretty sure an old town no longer exists in Bremerhaven, what does exist is the Deutsches Auswandererhaus, a museum dedicated to migration (focusing on European emigration to the New World in the 19th century), and it is really worth a visit. You can even do research there and find out if any of your family members' names was listed on one of the many emigrant ships that left Bremerhaven.
2 years ago
2 years ago
In fact, about one million people have been emigrating from Germany every year since 2014. This is less than the number of immigrants, but still quite a large number, more than 1 % of the population. It's interesting to note that migratory movements from/to most Schengen countries such as Poland (128.000 to Germany vs. 126.000 back to Poland in 2019) or Bulgaria are quite balanced.
2 years ago
We are finding not enough time in our days to try for any computer repairs. So we are carrying on with this android tablet. We do know that we will have to stop to get our chains swapped out. They already have 11,000 km on them!
2 years ago
2 years ago