Countdown to Alpine Passes

Yes! Finally on the road again. We had a one day rain delay, because who wants to start a tour on the only day of the week it's supposed to pour? Plus, one more day in Zurich is never a bad idea. But, Yes! On the road. And our first objective was to retrace our steps from the first touring summer, two years ago, when we went from Zurich to Brunnen, except that we'd stay west this time and go straight to Luzern after Zug. With that in mind, we headed downtown to the exact spot where we'd made our first wrong turn two years before and proceeded to go in approximately the right direction, but without being able to find the actual signs for the bike route we wanted to take.

Of course, two years ago we started with just the national map of Swiss bike routes - not helpful in the center of Zurich - and this year we did the same...

However, unlike two years ago, we went up and over the first ridge west of Lake Zurich and found ourselves in exactly the place we wanted to be - route 32! And it was lovely. Of course it was. This is Switzerland, and it's a bike route that is well marked and probably was planned by an actual cyclist.

We had one umleitung (detour) but the Swiss are conscientious even in unusual circumstances, so the detour had helpful signs.

Early in the afternoon we reached Luzern, and joined the path just where we had turned, coming in the other direction, two years ago. Things started to look familiar again. This time I got a photo of the tunnel tower.

But that's about it. Luzern is a beautiful little city and it was lovely to ride through again. We only stopped to buy some groceries (same Coop as 2 yrs ago) and then proceeded to our campsite, further down the road at Horw. The bike route goes around the long way, and we'd intended not to do that. We wanted to go directly and get to the campsite early, as well as not ruin our legs on the first day. 60 rather than 75kms for our first day back on the road. Alas, following the signs is so easy. The route is beautiful, with only a couple of tiring climbs, and we made it to our gorgeous campsite with plenty of time to settle in, eat dinner, and gape at Pilatus, the dragon-like peak above Horw.

The next morning we were greeted by Pilatus and a sunny and marvelous day. Bit of wind, but nothing dramatic. We packed up early and in record time. This year we decided we wouldn't have hot tea with breakfast, hoping to kick out lots of kms in the mornings. It seemed to have worked, although on average I think we tend to cycle the same number of kms no matter when we start or end our days.

We could see Pilatus for the first couple of hours, because the route goes around the lake to the south, and then along a valley. We're in Alp country, but this was just a taster. The snow on Pilatus was from two days earlier - when all the passes were closed due to snow down to 1500m. Good thing we took that extra day in Zurich, I suppose.

Coming around the bend and into a new valley, we get our first glimpse of Alps

Gonna be a lot of this

Lunchtime by a stream - time to dry everything out

The morning involved a lot of flat, lovely riding through a beautiful valley with mountains on either side. At one point, the bike path went right across an airport runway. We managed to stay with the path and we saw a very large pond dotted by very large swans. We did start to climb a bit through a very sweet and quiet town, after which we went through a forest, where we found a perfect lunch spot where we could dry our dew soaked tent.

This is the day we were to climb up and over Brunigpass. The pass itself is at just over 1000 meters. Zurich is at about 400+ meters. We'd been going steadily up, but not fast enough to make this particular pass easy and quick. Quite the opposite. The route we took is National Route 9, which is called the Lakes Route, and we'd been meandering alongside lakes since Zug on this route. But for Brunigpass, we had to climb about 500 meters in just over 10kms. One stretch was a 200m climb in just 2kms. The grade averaged 12%. Joshua rode. Ramona walked.

See little Joshua? See how steep the grass part is?

First top!

We were very pleased with ourselves to have made it that far. It was hot and the path was unforgiving. We came from the far end of that little lake you can barely see in the background. We wished each other a happy birthday. Here the path seemed to be done going up, and we could tell that we were at the top, at least the top of that stretch. We were expecting a downhill on the other side. What we got was almost more spectacular. First, a view of some ... well... mountains.

Impressively, we didn't go down at all on the other side, besides the little road you see here. In the valley was a lake. We had climbed up to this notch in the scenery and on the other side was a big lake, way up high. A little stunned, but pleasantly so, we continued on. The path follows the quiet side of the lake and there were other people enjoying a lake-side ride here and there. Once in town on the far end of the lake we had a choice to make. Either we continue on and up and through the next stage of Brunig pass, or we camp there for the night. It was still pretty early. We only had a few, steep kilometers to go. Our next campsite would be in Meiringen, definitely on the other side. We found the local water fountain, refilled our bottles, and continued on up the hill.

I think the Swiss bike route website Veloland.ch recommends that this portion be done by train. Not far up the steep path, it turns to dirt and rock and is almost impossible to ride. Of course, if we had mountain bike tires or perhaps if we were carrying no weight, we might have been doing more pedaling and less pushing. As we were, it was a walk. But beautiful. We wished each other happy birthday again.

At the next "top" we were greeted by a small snack station. There is a special train that goes up to this spot and you can approach it by car from the other side. We decided to have some lunch and catch our breath. Then we continued on. Up, as it turned out. And at a really steep slope again, but this time paved. We emerged onto the main road as it curved around the seemingly final bend, and a sign told us we were at 1007m. Brunig pass. The direction we needed to go was along a road that did go a bit higher, at a really gentle slope, and brought us to an incredible view over the next valley and the town of Meiringen.

We stopped at a really nice little store for supplies, then made our way down the bike path, which is not paved most of the way, similarly steep to the climb on the other side, and gave us our first real hand work-out as we squeezed our brakes for all they were worth.

It was gorgeous. Once in town we toyed with the idea of a hotel, but places were expensive and we found out that there was a mo-ped rally going on so anything reasonable would have been booked anyway. We aimed for the campsite, which was stunning.

Our little tent

We bought a bottle of prosecco, ate a delicious camping dinner, and watched the mo-peds roll in. One friendly guy came by to find out just what we were up to. He also told us about the mo-ped rally. Their plan was to leave at 10am and climb Grimselpass, then go over Furka and loop back around to Gotthard and eventually end up in Meiringen again. Our plan for tomorrow? Grimselpass. Better get up early.

Happy Birthday.

The Plan: Summer 2012

Our plans have changed many times this summer. In many ways we've benefitted from being even more flexible than usual. Joshua now has a shiny residence visa card for Germany (official home = Hamburg), we have a rocking great house sit to look forward to in October, we spent an incredible month east of Dresden, our German is improving, we got to visit our Zurich buddies again, and we're now finally doing a trip that I planned back in May and thought would never happen.

Tomorrow morning we'll hop on the bikes (early) and re-visit the bike routes between Zurich and Zug, which was our day 1 two years ago when this particular adventure started. Then we'll diverge and head toward Lucerne a new way, then south and up and over two passes in the Alps, the second being Grimselpass - kind of a big one. Then west along the Valais and the Rhone River until Martigny. From there we'll go up and over to Chamonix in the French Alps, where we'll take a bus through the Mont Blanc Tunnel so we can bike south through the Val d'Aosta.

By Sept 25th we'll be just outside of Genoa, and on the 26th we take a ferry to Olbia, Sardegna. Then we have a leisurely trip across Sardegna to Porto Torres, where another ferry will take us all the way to Barcelona. After a bit of time with my mom (yay!) in Barcelona, we'll ferry one more time out to Menorca where we'll spend two months house sitting and working again.

Please wish us strength and good weather - or friendly bus and train drivers in the event that we don't get our first two choices.

This map is somewhat accurate, and includes some other routes that will not be explored this summer... another time, we hope.



View Summer Ideas 2012 in a larger map

East of Dresden

For a little over a month we had the great pleasure of tending a farm in a tiny town east of Dresden, Germany. Oh man did we learn a lot. And we got to eat some truly delicious Kartoffelpuffer - or what we'd call latkes or potato pancakes.

They eat them like we do, with sour cream (quark) and apple sauce. Jews and Germans are the same people, turns out. The apple sauce is the freshest I'd ever had - made that day.

We now know why Germany is called Germany in English but Deutschland in German (Deutsch). The various peoples living throughout the area now known as Germany had different names - the Germania peoples were eventually joined together with the Teutonians (the letters D and T in German and English have opposite sounds). The modern name of Deutschland comes from the 1880s. But the old names from prior times were still known by the Brits so we got Germany.

We heard stories of what it was like to grow up behind the Iron Curtain; needing special permission to visit Grandma in the 5km wide border zone; learning all about Native Americans in school and how modern (European) Americans were the invading conquerers; singing Yiddish and Hebrew songs in church because the history of Christians and Christ starts with Judaism and they considered it a shared history.

We learned about the difference between east and west when it comes to first days of school - in the west they call it a Schultüte, or school cone, but in the east they call it like it is, it's a Zuckertüte - sugar cone. And we laughed and laughed and laughed.

Of course we also got to play with the animals. Goats, sheep, ducks, geese, chickens, and a cat. All the water for the animals is pumped out of the ground using a hand pump, or collected as rainwater in barrels. All the hot water for the house is heated by solar panels - solar panels that work even when it's mostly cloudy. The contrast of high tech efficiency and low tech efficiency was incredibly fun.

And today we are in Hamburg, yesterday Joshua picked up his visa, and tomorrow we head out for our bicycle touring adventures. Looks like more Switzerland, some Italy, maybe lots of Italy, maybe some France, and definitely a bit of Barcelona. As usual, our plans are up in the air. But we do know that in a couple of hours we'll put our computers into boxes and ship them ahead so we can't do any more work for the whole month! Just bikes and tents and adventures!

Below are the pictures of life on the farm... we miss our new friends already.

geese and chickens, ready for supper

The ducks. They inspired me come up with the word: ducksgusting. I'm sure I'm not the first.

The south west corner. Barn with solar panels.

Joshua bringing fresh grass and branches to the goats. This is the main street through town.

The youngest child feeding the shyest goat some potato peels

 

Got a goat by the neck, just for fun

And the goats can get up here!

In my element

Just some more scrambling

historic Zuckertüte

what to expect in school Zuckertüte

hidden among the candy - something useful for the little guy starting school

What's really going on... pumping kids up for school

bye bye!

Ernstes Leben and Kassel Bike Share - A Brief Farm Break

While our lives really have taken a turn for the pastoral, and if I was to write a post about what we're up to on a daily basis it would not involve city bike infrastructure, I cannot resist talking about the fun that is the bike share program in Kassel. We took out a couple of these trusty steeds when we visited my cousins for a few days. My cousin's daughter had her first day of school last week - at the same school my cousin went to all those years ago (ha!).

First day of school in Germany is a big deal. All the kids get a Schultüte, a giant cone full of goodies, when they start school and there was much humorous talk of the beginning of the "ernstes Leben" (serious life). First grade! Serious! So here's a photo of my little cousin Nathalia hiding behind Joshua, who is holding her ginormous Schultüte. Ernstes Leben!

cousin Raimund making cute face at Joshua

she absolutely did not want to take a family photo, but I got one with both Ray and Stephania

somebody has attitude, wonder where she got it

(hint: dad is German and mom is Brazilian)

But back to bikes... we used the Kassel bike share program called Konrad. The word for bicycle in German is Fahrrad, and often words that are related to bikes have the word 'rad' in place of the whole noun. So a Radler is a beer mixed with fizzy lemon-lime soda, and is somehow associated with cycling. Because if you're riding bikes and you want to drink a lot, as you do, it's best to water it down a bit. And so refreshing.

So Konrad is probably a bit of a play on words; unfortunately I don't get it. If it were blended with the Spanish "con" (with), I'd get it - with rad, with bike. This is how many of our German translation attempts go; any language we can pull from gets incorporated and then, well, we don't quite get it. Anyone understand Konrad?

Okay, honestly, who cares about the name!? Look at those hot bikes! 

We were in Paris last year, where Velib is booming and the bikes are everywhere, but we didn't have a card with a chip (US credit cards = behind the times?), so no Velib for us. In Hamburg they also have bike share, but we had our own bikes. You can rent bikes all over Europe with a cell phone and a credit card, but for a long time we had no cell phone. BUT we now have a SIM card and we buy minutes from time to time. And we have German bank accounts, which means German cards, which means chips!

So we rode Konrad.

obligatory photo of my face with Joshua sticking out his tongue in the background

maybe I should be watching the road

And the specs on these babies - wow. Huge tires so you can comfortably cruise down cobblestoned streets and never worry about getting a flat. Totally upright, step through, with quick-release seat posts, chain guard to keep your clean clothes grease free, integrated head and tail lights (dynamo) and - wait for it - hub shifting the likes of which we have never experienced before. Shifts so smooth, you don't even know it's changing gears. No clang, no rub, no drop. It just gets easier or harder, depending on whether you make the little guy go up hills or ride on flat ground.

when the bike riding is easy and you want to go faster, turn the shifter so the man looks like this

when the bike riding gets too hard, turn the shifter until the man looks like this

Fahrradklingel (turn it like the shifter and it brrrrings!)

good questions (Documenta inspired, I'm sure)

rear hub, tire, lights, the doo-hickey that locks it up (computer?), etc etc etc

Indestructible from wheel to wheel. And of course there's a bucket on the rear rack for your scarf, purse, and blazer. This bike has everything you need. We took them to go to the bank, we rode them to the Fridericianum to see the Documenta fun, we rode them home again, we took a couple to the train station as we were leaving town. All in all, for both bikes, it cost us €5. Somebody is getting ripped off and it is not me. Why would I own my own bike when I can use one of these and never worry about it being stolen or broken? I guess if you have style you might have some objections, but I think everybody who rides one of these looks great.

Documenta was cool too. We only saw what was in the Fridericianum, which was a lot. Joshua was terrified and claims art is dangerous, but I convinced him that it would be criminal not to take the risk and see this once-every-ten-years art event. His favorite piece was the big white room that had lovely cool air blowing through it, the art being the air that gently encourages the viewer to move through the gallery. He said, "I can understand that! I get the meaning - and I will remember it!" So there you go - meaningful, memorable art: a breeze blowing through a room. I liked the giant door mats with Italian phrases on them. You could walk all over them! Good art. And we both absolutely tripped out on some paintings viewed in dark rooms that had incredible perspective due to the 3D aspects and some very clever, skilled painting. They gave me vertigo, as did the giant canvasses painted in lines made out of tiny dots - Australian aboriginal art - and when you look at them sideways they also looked 3 dimensional.

Of course, the real pleasure was seeing Nathalia goofing off on her first day of school. There was a show that all parents, grandparents, neighbors, cousins were also invited to see. The teacher in charge of the new class welcomed them and then welcomed all the families - then honored the grandma of one of the new students by pointing her out and saying that she had graduated from that school in 1938.

The new 1st graders sat at the front just below the stage and the 2nd graders sang songs and acted out plays about what it meant to start their ernstes Leben. Big sister couldn't prepare the girl starting her first day of school, mom couldn't prepare her, dad couldn't prepare her, but then she went to school and did all the cool stuff - raising hands when the teacher asks a question, reading, writing, math, eating snacks and lunch. Everybody watching was crying. Then the bigger kids sang "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" and we snuck out to go catch our train back to the farm.

German Farm Life

From Hamburg and our adventures setting ourselves up with residency, we took a train to Dresden and then to a tiny little town that is more like a cluster of small farms. We are very close to the Polish border to the east and to the south lies the Czech Republic. Deep in former East Germany. Before we get into that, check out the bike seatbelt and space on the tiny local train that took us out here to the boondocks.

Pretty sweet, right? Can you see the sticker on the bottom of the seat that shows how you're supposed to secure your bike? Just don't let your bike block the pathway to the bathroom, okay?

We were warmly welcomed into a very busy household. This family numbers 6, plus they had a guy helping out through Workaway International. Big busy meals, kids running around all the time, and plenty of noise. The kids are 4, 6, 8, and 10. And they are laughing all the time. In fact, it feels like people here are laughing more often than anywhere we've ever been. Life is joyous, I suppose. 

The house and the coming thunderstorm, day 1

The farm also has a number of ducks, geese, and chickens as well as a handful of sheep and 11 goats.  The garden loves weeding and bean picking, there's land to be cleared, and there's grass and stinging nettles to scythe and feed to the goats. 

The kids stayed with their grandparents for the first couple of nights, so we adults finished the roof on the new goat barn and busted off for a swim before the thunderstorm came. There's so much water around here. And in some spots that means wonderful lakes.

Just before they left us to handle things on our own, we had a Sunday funday that included a 2km bike ride to the next town over, then a 5k walk to the next town from there - where we ate big ol'ice creams - then the 5k walk and 2k ride back home.

Bike team

First town, where we ditched the bikes

Down to the river

Joshua in the tree with a couple other monkeys

The littlest wanted to go, too, so mama had to adventure along

Joshua cooling his feet. It was hot and mosquito-filled on the way there.

Great bridge over the river

Town hall

Just after turning around to head back, it started to rain a bit. And then we got soaked by a big, fast summer storm. It was dramatic with thunder and lightning, and incredibly wet. Joshua and I ran back most of the way with the two boys. It feels good to be able to just run for 10 minutes if we want to. There are fields and woods to run through around here, so we've been working towards 10k, in between feeding animals, carrying water buckets, weeding the garden, picking blackberries, and eating as many eggs as we can. There is no way we'll keep up with these chickens... 9 eggs a day. And they are such good eggs. Somebody around here needs to learn how to bake cakes like the Germans do. This family eats cake... often. And definitely on Sundays.

Now the family is on vacation, they drove up to Sweden and then will rent a cabin for a week. Afterwards they'll all go bike riding around together. All of them. They'll be gone for about 3 weeks altogether. 

Already, the grandparents came by on Saturday to bring us some cake, lest we go without one on Sunday.