Our European Bed

On our bicycle trip in Europe Dave and I really loved the bedding in our hotels.  We usually had a king size mattress to share but we didn’t have to share a blanket as each bed was outfitted with a pair of duvets, folded over and placed on their respective sides.  This eliminated any tussling over the same blanket during the night.  We decided we would like to try a similar thing in our condo bedroom. When we got home Dave ordered a pair of goose down duvets and now they’ve arrived.  I had already found matching duvet covers and after slipping our new duvets inside we were ready for our first night at home sleeping European style!

Other posts……….

I Don’t Make My Bed

Quilts Galore

Changing It Up

Last year I solicited opinions from my blog readers to help me choose photos of our trip to Newfoundland to make a  display for a wall in our condo.  On Friday I replaced those Newfoundland photos with pictures from our recent bike trip to Europe.  Here are the nine images I chose for the new display. 

Here are the posts about our bike trip

Reading My Way Through Germany, Switzerland and Austria

Before we left on our cycling trip in Europe I downloaded three books on my Kindle, one for each of the countries we would travel through.

My German book was Those Who Save Us by Jenna Blum. Trudy is a Minneapolis history professor searching for the truth about her childhood. She won’t learn anything from her mother Anna who stubbornly refuses to talk about the past. We find out Trudy’s father was a Jewish doctor captured by the Nazis. Anna becomes the mistress of a German military man in order to save Trudy’s life. After the war an American serviceman marries Anna and brings her and Trudy to the United States. Trudy believes she is the daughter of the SS officer, who she can vaguely remember. This knowledge colors her whole life. Things change when Trudy undertakes a history project interviewing German war survivors living in America. I chose the classic Heidi by Johanna Spyri for my Switzerland book. I had not read it since my childhood. Heidi was written in the 1880s and I wondered if Heidi was the inspiration for female heroines of the early 1900s like Pollyanna in America, Anne of Green Gables in Canada, and Mary Lennox in England’s The Secret Garden. These are plucky, independent young girls who have had difficult lives and yet remain hopeful and are a positive influence on those around them. One thing I had forgotten about the book Heidi was how religious it was and how faith plays such a key role in the lives of Heidi and her embittered grandfather.

In A Whole Life by Robert Seehalter we are provided with a spare, simple, unemotional and honest look at the entire life of an ordinary Austrian man named Egger. He has a horrific childhood, a varied work career where he labours incredibly hard but is always a dedicated employee, a brief time of quiet married joy, a stint in the army that leaves him a prisoner of war, and then a retirement where he guides tourists on treks in the Austrian Alps. Outwardly there would seem to be little that is remarkable about Egger’s life but the fact that he is able to find inner calm amidst the difficulties of day-to-day living and accept his lot in life is remarkable.

From Those Who Save Us I gained an interesting perspective on the holocaust in Germany. From Heidi I enjoyed absolutely beautiful descriptions of the Swiss countryside and In A Whole Life I saw Austrian history and geography through the eyes of an ordinary man.

Other posts about books and travels……….
Eat Pray Love
Images From Ru
Molakai

Bach Stein not Steinbach

Today we hung around in Konstanz, Germany. There is plenty of lovely old architecture left there.  That’s because the city was not bombed by the allies during World War II thanks to geography.  

Standing at the border between Kreuzlingen Switzerland and Konstanz German. 

Konstanz is really a twin city of a Swiss town called Kreuzlingen. Allied bombers left Konstanz alone because they were worried about accidently bombing Kreuzlingen and thus violating Switzerland’s neutrality. Konstanz citizens left all their lights on at night so that allied pilots would not be able to differentiate Konstanz from Kreuzlingen where citizens also left their lights on to alert allied pilots. We learned about this at the Rosgarten Museum in Konstanz which we visited today courtesy of a free coupon from our bike tour company. A display on the top floor told the story of the fate of the Jews in Konstanz during World War II.  They were transported to Gurs, an internment camp in France. Those who didn’t die there were sent to Auschwitz where they were murdered.  We sat in the sunny courtyard of the museum later enjoying the free coffees also provided by our coupon.  Dave read more about Konstanz history in the museum guide. As we walked through the streets of Konstanz my sister pointed out this men’s clothing store.  Kaaren and I grew up in a community called Steinbach. Here was a clothing store with the name of our home town in reverse.  Bach Stein. We ate delicious lamb doner kebabs for supper.  The owner chatted with us as we ate.  He is a Kurdish immigrant and has been quite successful in Germany. He also owns two businesses in Stuttgart.
After supper we had pastries and coffee in the city square and listened to a band covering American music by the likes of Cat Stevens and Elton John.  Then it was off to bed.  Tomorrow we head to Zurich and then on to Iceland for the second leg of our trip. 

Other posts about our bike trip in Germany

House Barns and Gelato

And just like that our five-day biking trip around Lake Konstanz or the Boden See is over. Our last day of cycling was fairly easy compared to the previous four. The weather was absolutely lovely, sunny and just cool enough to make for pleasant riding. We were biking mostly in Switzerland today and saw house barns along the way. The house was attached right to the barn just like some of the houses in my grandparents’ village of Gnadenthal in southern Manitoba and like the house at the Mennonite Heritage Village Museum in Steinbach.  I had to stop and photograph these terra-cotta warriors around the swimming pool at a luxurious apartment complex overlooking the lake.  Dave and I visited the site of the real terra-cotta warriors in Xian China and so it was somewhat startling to see these giant reproductions in the middle of Germany. 
We decided since it was our last day we should have our photo taken with our bikes beside the beautiful Boden See which we have been travelling around all week. This very polite and kind young man named David who was resting on a park bench agreed to take our photo. He told us he was on one last cycling excursion before starting his university year in Munich where he is studying to be an industrial engineer. He even took a panoramic shot of our group.
We stopped at noon for a drink at a little place along our bike path where we met a couple from Connecticut who have cycled in many different places. They recommended our next trip should be cycling the heel of Italy’s boot.  

Once we arrived back in Konstanz we checked back into the Hotel Halm where we stayed at the start of our journey. Dave has been looking for a gelato place all along our route and he finally found one this afternoon so we had to stop.

Over an excellent dinner at a Singaporean restaurant we reflected on our great bike trip and the good quality of the tour company who organized our route provided our sturdy and reliable bikes, reserved our hotels for each night and ferried our luggage from place to place. We would happily book a tour with them again.  

After a day of rest here in Konstanz we will be off to Iceland for the next stage of our journey. 

All the posts about our bike trip

I Drank a Beer in Austria

I drank a beer in Austria. That may not seem like a big deal but I don’t like the taste of beer and I NEVER DRINK BEER.   It all started when we got a little bit off the prescribed biking route today.  We were seeing some amazing Austrian scenery on our detour but we wondered if maybe we had added an extra twenty or more kilometers to our day.  Then we saw this couple having a beer on an outdoor patio beside the bike path. We asked them if we were on the right road to Rorschach where our hotel for the night was located.  “We live in Rorschach,” the man said. “And this path will take you right there.  It is the best path. The most scenic one.” He also told us we had only gone about 5 kilometers out of our way. We were so happy to hear this we decided to celebrate by having a beer too.  I never drink beer but Dave said he would order me a Raedler which is a grapefruity kind of beer and to make him happy I should try to drink it.  I did and thought it was surprisingly good. 

The sun came out in the early afternoon but it had rained all morning and in my mind I was thanking the young saleswoman at Source for Sports who had encouraged me to spend a little more to get a waterproof jacket rather than just a water resistant one. It kept me completely dry. We passed a gurgling brook and it made me think of my friend Gabe who always reminds me to add sensory details to my writing when I share pieces of mine with our writing group.  I decided that I would try to keep track of all the sounds I heard during the day.  Here are the ones I remember. I heard church bells ringing, cows bellowing, birds tweeting, warbling, chirping and cawing, dogs barking, corn stalks rustling, raindrops pinging on my bike helmet, my bike tires rumpity bumping over the cobblestones, waves washing up on the shore of the lake, people saying Guten Morgen or Guten Tag, the wind rushing in my ears as my bike swooped down a hill, trains whizzing by, cars honking, a lady briskly shaking a rug out her window, my bike bell binging to warn pedestrians I was coming, goats bleating and a small tractor chugging through an apple orchard. We passed these school children building rafts in the rain.  They were going to take them sailing on Lake Constance. The Alps were in view for a time on our journey.  Since we were in Austria Dave thought my sister should sing a couple songs from The Sound of Music because she had the starring role of Maria in that musical when she was in high school.  This very tall corn reminded me of a song from Oklahoma, the musical in which I had the lead role in high school.  The song was O What A Beautiful Morning and the line was ‘the corn is as high as an elephant’s eye.’

We biked 56 kilometers again yesterday and spent the night at the quaint Mozart Hotel in Switzerland, crossing the border from Austria near the end of our biking day.  

Other posts……..

A Manitoba Boy Learns to Brew Beer in Korea

Biking in Bali

56 Kilometers Under Our Tires

 

 

I Got Lost Twice Yesterday

Dave took this picture of me and my sister at breakfast yesterday morning.  The breakfasts at all our hotels have been wonderful. At least a dozen different kinds of fresh bread and buns, all kinds of cold meats, a variety of cheeses,  fresh vegetables and fruits, a yogurt bar with an array of toppings, eggs and bacon and sausages, and a variety of jams and jellies.   One morning there was  even a honey bar complete with a whole comb of honey right from the hive. Near our hotel in Uberlingen was this chapel dedicated to St. Leonard.  Since my church was learning about different saints this summer I checked out what St. Leonard was famous for. Apparently if prisoners prayed to St. Leonard their chains broke and they were free.  That explains why St. Leonard is depicted this way outside his chapel with a barred door and carrying chains. There are more than 20,000 castles in Germany and we have cycled by quite a few of them, including this one. 
Yesterday we cycled by vineyard,after vineyard on steep hills.  Dave figured you would need to be as fit as a mountain goat to work in these vineyards.  Dave tasted some of the grapes and said they were very sweet. Since we had cycled by so many vineyards we thought we should order a local wine for supper in Kressbornn where we spent the night.  So we ordered a Kressbornn red.
I got lost twice yesterday.  Once when Dave was ahead of me I came to a intersection with bike paths both to the left and right.  I couldn’t see him on either path so I chose left.  WRONG!  After going a couple of kilometers and not finding him I went back to the intersection and went right.  Eventually I caught up with my sister.  We waited and waited and finally Dave turned up.  He had gone back an extra five kilometers to look for me. So he got in a bonus 10 kilometers today.  The second time I got lost I was in the lead and Dave turned off our route to go to our hotel.  When he didn’t catch up to me I eventually turned around and went back.  It had started to pour and I took shelter under a restaurant awning till he found me.  By then it was not only raining but hailing so we sheltered under a playground umbrella for a bit before making our way to the hotel.  We were both throughly soaked but luckily our bike rental company provides water proof packs so our stuff was okay. In the future I need to make it a priority to stick closer to my cycling companions. 

I had my photo taken with German Chancellor Angela Merkel today.  She is running for re-election and her campaign slogan is “for a Germany in which we want to live well.”

Other posts……..

Don’t Be A Wine Snob

Thomas Times Two

On The Rock

Scenes From Our Second Day of Biking in Switzerland and Germany

We spent most of our morning cycling in Switzerland. I saw this elderly couple walking hand in hand along a country lane when Dave and I had stopped to wait for our biking partners. At another morning stop Dave and I listened to a cow bell symphony. There were about twenty cows in this field and they were all wearing different sounding cow bells. Apparently Swiss farmers give each of their cows distinct sounding bells so it is easy to find them when they wander off.

Flower lined house in Switzerland.

We passed lots of orchards in Switzerland. Dave stopped to pick some fruit and eat it. I told him it was stealing. He disagreed. He said as a kid when his family would be picking tomatoes on their farm in Leamington tourists passing by would often stop and come into their field and pick tomatoes and eat them. This was the same thing. 

My sister by a beautiful field of carrots in Switzerland.

We crossed the border back into Germany and stopped for lunch on the lake. Delicious borscht and bread for some bratwurst for others. 

 This lovely couple stopped to help us out when we got lost.  While the woman showed my brother-in-law where to go on the map Dave started chatting with her husband in his broken German.  Dave told the man as a child he had spoken German fluently and to prove it Dave launched into one of the speeches he made when he played the role of ‘Der Hund’ (the dog) in his German school’s production of  Die Bremer Stadtmusikanten ( The Bremen Town Musicians.)  Dave memorized his lines so well as a child he has never forgotten them.  The man smiled and listened ever so politely to Dave’s performance.

Duck by the lake

There are political signs everywhere in Germany because this Sunday they elect a new leader.  Current chancellor Angela Merkel is being challenged by Martin Schultz. As I sat on a park bench waiting for a ferry to take us across Lake Constance a German gentleman struck up a conversation with me.  He spoke great English.  I asked him who he thought would win the election.  “Oh Angela Merkel”  he said.  “I don’t like some of her policies and ideas but I am going to vote for her and so will lots of other people.  She is tough and smart and since the Americans have put that idiot into the White House who knows what will happen in the world.  We need someone strong and experienced like Angela Merkel leading us. “

Sea gull on a boat at one of the many marinas we passed today.

 Our 50 kilometer route today was much hillier than yesterday and then our hotel for the night in Uberlingen was at the top of a  very high kilometer long hill.  I admit I had to get off my bike and walk it up that hill. 

Other posts……..

The Pink Jeep

Supporting Each Other

Dave Driedger Bird Detective

 

 

 

56 Kilometers Under Our Tires

Is a swan more beautiful from the front or back?  I didn’t know till I took these two photos of a swan on Lake Constance.  I think the swan is actually more lovely from the rear. We are biking around Lake Constance or as it is known in Germany The Bodensee.   Today we drove the north and west shoreline of the upper part of the lake. 56 kilometres in all.  My husband Dave and brother-in-law Ken acted as our navigators.  We had a little trouble getting out of Konstanz,  the German city where we had spent the night.  This friendly elderly gentleman stopped to give us directions and ended up driving part of the way with us and setting us on the right road. The weather was quite cool when we started out but that was great for biking.  

My sister Kaaren was easy to spot on the road in her bright red vest.

Our navigators led us astray once but it meant that we had the chance to bike this lovely avenue of poplars.And see fields full of luscious cauliflower, lettuce, turnips and other vegetables. We stopped to take photos of this field of 300 origami cellophane cranes.  They formed an interesting art installation by Hadmut Bittiger called Beating of Wings.  Cranes are standing ready to begin their worldwide migration.  On each one’s wings is inscribed a message in a different language to help people around the globe build bridges between one another. 

We took a break for refreshments around noon.  It was still chilly but about an hour later the sun burst out and we ended up taking off our jackets and enjoying the warm afternoon. I stopped to take a picture of this wildflower fence and in the process I lost the rest of the group.  Thankfully my sister had waited for me up ahead and it didn’t take long for the guys to realize we were missing and my brother-in-law headed back to find us. Dave reminded me that if I got lost all I had to was keep the lake on my left and I’d arrive at our destination for the night……the Chlosterhof  Hotel in Stein am Rhein. It is a city in Switzerland.  Our bike route around Lake Constance is going to take us through three countries, Germany, Austria and Switzerland. 

After checking into our hotel we strolled the streets of Stein am Rhein a well-preserved town with medieval buildings.  We looked at the beautiful murals painted on all the shops. The town is called Stein Am Rhein because it is at a point where Lake Constance becomes the Rhine River. 

Written on the wall beside our bed in our hotel in Stein Am Rhein is this reminder.

The laughter you send out comes right back to you.

A good thing to keep in mind on a bike trip or on our journey through life. 

Other posts………..

The World is Full Of Interesting People

Beer and Pretzels

Travel Alphabet

 

 

A Start to Our Trip That Was A Little Too Exciting!

“This is the last boarding call for Iceland Air’s flight to Rejivak.  All passengers should now be on board. ”  Yesterday we were flying to Zurich via Toronto and Rejivak.  Our plane was late leaving Winnipeg and as we stepped into the Pearson Airport in Toronto we heard the boarding call for our flight to Rejivak.  Our flight was already at the ‘last call’  stage and we still had more than a kilometre of the airport to traverse in order to get our gate.  So we ran!  My husband and my brother-in-law raced ahead hoping to get to the gate on time so they could ask the attendents to wait for their wives.  My sister and I saw the escalators were jammed with passengers. Taking them would slow us down too much, so instead we climbed up stairs and down stairs, through tunnels, up more stairs, down more stairs, weaving in and out of crowds of people, moving  just as fast as we could.  I could hear my phone dinging. I was getting text messages from the airline that we needed to board.  Finally my sister and I heard our names over the airport speakers warning us that the doors to our plane were closing.  We pulled up to our gate just on time, panting and exhausted.  Our husbands were there waiting for us. The attendants had held the doors open for us.  We had made our flight!!!   We wondered with such a short turn around time in Toronto whether our luggage would have made it!  When we got to Zurich we discovered it had!!!  

From Zurich we took a train to Konstanz, Germany where our week long bike trip begins today.  We  checked into the elegant Hotel Halm built in 1874 and had a drink and a snack on a patio in the shadow of the beautiful Konstanz train station.  Then we were off to pick up our bicycles.I had worried about getting a bike that would be right for me but the rental shop we went to had thousands of bikes to choose from. This friendly guy explained how everything on the bike worked and made all the adjustments we required. We cycled back to the hotel on the city of Konstanz’ beautiful bike paths and over supper looked at the maps we had been given to figure out our route for the next morning. After a rather exciting start to our trip we are ready to hit the road!

Other posts…….

The Driedgers Bike Boblo Island

A Bike Ride in Toronto

Biking the Beach in Costa Rica