Prague: Bridges, Lights and Dancing Buildings

Touching this martyr on the Charles Bridge will bring you luck, supposedly

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    Imagine a city where all the buildings are lit up at night, Disneyland, perhaps (never been there...); Prague has that fairytale feel.  Fresh off the train, we make our way to our apartment, a block from the Charles Bridge, dragging our wheelies noisily over the cobblestones.  The street is dizzy with tourists, classic cars offering rides for lots of Krona, and souvenir shops.  This town is in the throes of a tourist boom, and no wonder:  it's inexpensive, beautiful and untouched; the old city hasn't changed for 500 years.

Golden Lane, Prague Castle

     Our apartment is on the 2nd floor of a building which belongs to our host's grandfather.  It boasts 15 foot ceilings, nothing is square and the Ikea furniture is lost in a living room sized for a more opulent, grander era. We love it, except for the noise from Mostecka, the street outside our window, at night; this town stays up late. We wander across the Charles Bridge in the evening, marvelling at the views of Prague castle on the hill overlooking the town, the busy waterfront scene.  Lights everywhere.

Karen's new coxing aids

     We spend our first day on "our" side of the river - Mala Strana - getting to the castle in time to see the changing of the guard, visiting St. Vitus's Cathedral and the Loreto, a former monastery.  The highlight, for us, is visiting Golden Lane, a picturesque area of tiny houses built into the spaces in the north wall of the castle.  Goldsmiths, among other castle servants, may have lived here.  Kafka lived here in # 27 for a while.  And among the arms, Karen finds a collection of instruments she's planning to use in coxing. 

     We wander through the local parks; lots of green on this side of the river.  And in the afternoon, the intrepid three take the funicular up to Petrin Hill and walk back down; I retreat to the apartment and a decent cuppa.  Tonight, the Barbs have goulash for dinner and we are officially done with Czech and German fare, except for pastries.  The iconic one here is Trdelnik (add a vowel; troodelnick), a worm of pastry wound around a circular metal thingie which rotates as it cooks, is covered with sugar and cinnamon and the interior slathered with chocolate or plum jam.  Cheap and yummy.

The Spanish Synagogue, Prague

    The next morning we venture across the bridge to Stare Mesto, the old town, and Josefov, the Jewish quarter.  The Maisel Synagogue has been turned into a memorial for the 180,000 Czech Jews who were the victims of the Holocaust.  Each name is written on a wall, organized by location and family.  Simple and beautiful, terrible and affecting, all at the same time.  Two of my children are Jewish (I know, not technically) on their father's father's side, and I couldn't help but look for their family's name, even though I knew of none in Czechoslovakia.  Then I felt horribly selfish.  I suppose I was trying to personalize the horror of that many people lost.  The adjacent cemetery, with its jumble of gravestones, reminded me that there was no one left, after the war, to tend family graves.

Frank Gehry's "Dancing Building"

     The Spanish Synagogue, in contrast, was built in 1868 on the site of the oldest Jewish house of prayer ("the Old Shul") in Prague. It was designed in a Moorish style with Islamic motifs and is very rich and beautiful.  We hit the Old Town Square just in time to witness Prague's iconic clock, in which the 12 apostles march across two "windows" every hour on the hour.  Scads of tourists.  Wenceslas Square, famous for being the location of the Velvet Revolution in 1989, is otherwise uninspiring, and we head back to the river where we walk by Frank Gehry's "Dancing Building," its waist nipped in to preserve the neighboring views.  Office space for rent inside; Gehry may be architecturally intrepid, but his tenants often don't think much of his buildings, my architect daughter tells me.

Notice I'm skipping the coffee and going straight for the pastry...

 


     Prague: the beer is cheap, the pastries never end, history is palpable, and the lights never go out; a tourist's dream.  We leave in the morning, spend the night in a "themhotel" in Regensberg (easier and less crazy than going back to Munich on the last night of Oktoberfest).  One room is a "Hatterei," and in the other Karen and JT sleep under the Pope - I kid you not.  In the morning we face the endless day: Munich airport, 10+ hours to Vancouver, a mind-numbing 3- hour layover, a quick buzz to Seattle, and we're home. That was the day before yesterday, I think.

      

Vienna: White Horses, Old Churches and Sleeping on the Grass

The Gloriette at the Schonbrunn Palace

Sun. Sept.28 - Tues. Sept. 30

Roof of Stephansdom

   We arrive in Vienna after an easy three-hour train ride from Passau, and make our way to our spacious and well-appointed apartment, a block from the river and the Inner Stadt, and right under a huge bank building with a yellow and black logo; easy to find our way home. Our host tells us it takes a Viennese 15 minutes to walk across the Inner Stadt, the old part of Vienna, and tourists 30.   We spend lots of time getting lost there.

   This first afternoon we make our way to Stephansdom, the Cathedral, ride up a tiny cylindrical elevator to the North Tower from which we have extraordinary views of the city, the roof (tiled in the Hapsburg family crest and colors) and the square below.
   

The Star Portrait of Sisi

     In the afternoon we tour the Imperial Apartments in the Hofburg, the former Imperial Palace, an enormous complex of buildings that dominates the Inner Stadt.  Reams and reams of china and silver, some of the Empress Sisi's dresses and lots of stately rooms.  Interesting woman:  The Emperor, Franz Joseph, fell in love; she was his cousin.  She'd had an idyllic childhood and didn't much care for court life.  She also had an interfering mother-in-law who didn't really approve of Sisi until, after 2 daughters, she finally bore a son, Rudolph. She spent 3 hours a day having her ankle-length hair dressed and lots of time exercising; she was fanatic about her her health and her figure.
    

     Rudolph, the heir apparent, died, at age 30, along with his 17-year-old mistress, in a bizarre murder-suicide at his hunting lodge in Mayerling.  After that, Sisi traveled widely, alone, spending most of her time away from the court and her family; she wore black the rest of her life.  After she was assassinated 9 years after Rudolph's death, however, she was practically deified (think Princess Di); the Austrian people loved her.  Poor, heartbroken woman; all that gold, silver and ermine didn't make her happy.  There's a moral there somewehere...

At the Spanish Riding School

     The next morning we go to see the Lippizaner stallions in the Spanish Riding School (part of the palace).  The breed dates back to the 16th century, when the Hapsbergs brought these Andalusian horses to Slovenia.  8 (that's EIGHT) stallions, and 35 mares, are considered the foundation of their bloodlines.  They are born dark, and become gray by the time they are 10.  At age 4 they are brought from the stud farm at Piber to start training, a process that can take 6-10 years.  The horses didn't perform for us, but we saw 7 or 8 riders work 4 horses each over a two-hour period.  Karen grew up with horses and had plenty to say on the subject.
  
     That evening, we go to tiny, plain St. Ruprecht's church - the oldest church in Vienna and a mere 10-minute walk away - to hear a quartet - Cembalo, Barockcello and two flauto traversos (think big long recorders played like flutes) play late 17th century Italian music.  There was an audience of 30 in a church that might hold 50 at a pinch, the acoustics were divine, as was the music.

We capture the Karen

     Our last day in Vienna, and we take the clean, efficient, fast subway out of the city to Hochberg, the Hapsburgs' summer palace, presided over by Kaiserin (Empress) Maria Theresa.  She bore 16 children, one of whom was Marie Antoinette, and conducted her matriarchy from here.  A band from a Sydney, Australia high school is playing in the courtyard and we wander the extensive gardens and walk up to the Gloriette, built on a hill so you can see the surrounding site; the Hapsburgs probably drove up their in their carriages.  Either way, the views are glorious.

     Ready for a rest after hours of walking, Shane and I opt to lounge on the grass in one of the side gardens, ignoring the signs which appear to grace every greensward in Vienna (No dogs, no balls, no dancing, no playing).  Minutes later we are accosted by a Viennese frau who leaves no doubt as to what she wants us to do.  We make motions as if we are getting up but she keeps looking back at us; she's clearly going to poke us with her umbrella if we don't comply.  So much for sleeping on the grass.

     We're off to Prague by train in the morning; no time to sleep in on this trip!
 

     

 

    

Donau # 5: Endings, and Beginnings

FISA tour 2014:  12 countries, 66 rowers

Fri. Sept. 26 + Sat. Sept. 27 (Days 7-8):  Deggendorf - Windorf - Passau

Last lock: Karen 2nd from left

     We can smell the barn (an idiom all languages appear to understand).  Last night at dinner Werner instructed the captains that they must cox from now on since we are entering the heavily trafficked section of the river, but by now we're all ready for the big time. We go through our last lock, huge enough to accommodate a double-wide river barge.  After almost 43k, we pull off at Windorf, on an arm of the river, tie up and walk across to our last hotel which boasts an unheated swimming pool; one German, one Norwegian and one Irishman are crazy enough to brave the cold water.

Passau Flooding 2013

     On our last day we row to beautiful, historic Passau (are there any other kinds of towns in Bavaria?), city of 3 rivers.  Here the Danube is joined by the Ilz and the Inn; not only is the current much stronger but there are river boats as well as barges, so we have to watch where we are going.  Passau was deluged in the floods of 2013 and you can see the watermarks on some of the buildings.  We turn right and row on the Inn for about 2k, cheering a bride and groom along the way, and making surprisingly good headway against the current, and then float down to the junction and row up the Danube for the last time to the boat ramp where we load up the boats for transport back to their various homes.

Hauling a church boat out on a trailer

     On our last evening we have a big dinner, lots of speeches, performances by each national group (OMG, you should have heard our rendition of "Rowin' (Rollin') on the River"... ) and give presents to the tour organizers.  I finished the navy and gold socks I was knitting for Werner (having had all that time during the week to knit...) during the dinner.  And we're done; we catch the train to Vienna after saying an enormous round of goodbyes at breakfast the next morning.

 

     Unforgettable as Bavaria is, and no matter how enjoyable our 30+ hours of rowing, the real pleasure of this trip has been in the people we meet. There are 77 people I've never met on this tour and, shy person that I am, I feel quite ill for the first day or so.  So I set myself as a goal to learn everyone's name before the tour ends, and to be able to associate some details with as many of those people as possible.  Here are a few:

Werner's socks; just in time...

 
     From Jan, a cardiologist from Oslo: an old boat which looks as if it's seen better days is known as a Plimsoller; they were sold off to the Norwegians if they weren't seaworthy.  From Detlef, one of our captains: calling someone "bahnhof" in German means "many trains, few getting to the station;" i.e. a bit of a space cadet.  Arie van der Ent, from the Netherlands, and Rachel Creagh, from Australia, are both former women's masters world champions.

Jan and his lederhosen   

    Many people tell me about their rowing tours.  This is a revelation: in Europe and Scandinavia, people tour, in rowing shells, all the time!  Clubs organize tours for their recreational rowers, calling another club to ask if they can borrow/rent their boats for a week or a week/end.  National rowing federations do the same for their member clubs.  Christy, from Limerick, tells me last year, when Ireland hosted the World Rowing tour, they had to borrow touring quads from all over Ireland; this year the Irish Rowing Federation is BUYING two touring quads for EACH rowing club so there will always be boats available for tours.  How about them apples, US Rowing?? Christy also flies reguarly to England, to follow the horses and the greyhounds, and donned a black tie and tails to dance at the Lawyer's Ball in Vienna last February.

     Jens and Marianne, from Oslo, recount a tour they organized along the Norwegian coast above the Arctic Circle, and another on the Nile, between Luxor and Aswan, before the Arab Spring.  We lunched with a rowing couple on our last day who rowed from Amsterdam to the Black Sea, and in Venice, at the carnival, in masks. After our tour, 5 of the Australians - Frances, Suzie, Ainsley, Warwick and Bronwyn - are rowing 5 more days on the Danube, from Linz to Vienna.  John and Caroline Miller, from the UK, formed a separate club, within their rowing club, solely for recreational rowers; they even have their own boats and trailer. 

Oslo Rowklub - can we budget for this?

     Ruth lives in Winnipeg and is starting her own rowing tour company; she ran a pre-tour from Oxford to London on the Thames right before this trip.  Lis, born in Denmark and living in Oslo, is the Concept 2 rep for the entire country; both she and the Norwegian Else are physiotherapists (PTs).  Danish Else, one of many rowers in her 70's, is a retired doctor from Jutland.  The six Swiss from Seeklub Kusnacht, near Zurich - Joop (Yoop) and Anneke, Walter and Heidi and Martin and Stephi - all sit together at mealtimes so they can share a bottle of wine.  Stephi is an agent for opera singers.  The youngest (we think) member of the tour, Rebecca, is from Buffalo and gave up a seat in a Head of the Charles-bound 8 to come on this tour; her teammates said they'd save a space for her next year.

     Norske Studenters Rowklub, in addition to the murals and chandeliers in its boathouse dining room, owns 4 cabins in the woods which can be rented (for 10 Euros/day) by its members for winter skiing or summer lazing.  Jacob, a grizzled Norwegian, started his career as a merchant seaman and remembers going to LA and Seattle with bananas from Central America.  Now he tends both his, and his rowing club's garden, and rows.  Vaclav (Vatzlav) lives in Toronto, and is in the same rowing club as Gudrun, who was born in Germany.  And Frances, who is married to a Japanese, is German by birth and emigrated to Australia as a child, so she speaks like an Auzzie and translates German for us.  Stories abound of people rowing into their 80's and 90's.
 

    My two Irish rowing pals:  Christy and Michael         

     So now we are connected to the world of tour rowing.  If I go to Denmark or Norway or Ireland or Switzerland or Australia, I can find out when and where there are rowing tours.  I can see fellow rowers on future World Rowing tours. When I see those enormous river cruisers in Passau, I look at their deckchairs and staterooms and think how much more fun we're having rowing down the river than watching it through a  window.  Tour rowing is a great way to meet other rowers and see the world from the seat of a boat.  What could possibly be more enjoyable?

P.S.  Wonderful photos of our trip, which really give a sense of the boats, and the landscape, can be seen at www.worldrowing.com/photos-videos/galleries/2014-world-rowing-tour-bavaria-germany#gallery





 

Donau # 4: Boathouses, Pilgrim Churches and Musical Evenings

Wed. Sept. 24 - Fri. Sept. 26 (Days 4-6): Donaustauf-Straubing-Boggenberg-Deggendorf

Battery-operated bailer invented by Thomas

    Wednesday, our fourth day on the water, and we are getting better.  Better at efficiently getting the boats ready, and getting into them.  Faster at getting out.  Better at listening and following commands, although many of them would be unfamiliar to American rowers' ears:  "come forward," instead of "at the catch;" "take the run off" instead of "check it down;" and "easy all" instead of "weigh enough," a term singular, apparently, to American rowing.  Since church boats are also considerably longer than sweep 8's, we often we can't hear the captain's commands, (and we chat a lot),  but we are better, now, at following the stroke.  We're better at rowing these beasts, and better at rowing together.  
 

Pilgrim Church at Bogendorf

     During this tour we take advantage of the hospitality of several local rowing clubs as places to tie up and leave our boats overnight and/or as places where we eat a sumptuous, cooked, multi-course lunch:  Donaustauf, where we start our row today; Regensburg, where we not only have lunch, are addressed by both the club president and the mayor, but are interviewed and have our photos taken for the local paper; Wilshofen, whose size is similar to BIR's; Deggendorf, where we only tie up; and Kanu Club Passau, a kayak and canoe club, our lunch location on our last day of rowing.

Grave Markers, Bogendorf

     Since we are a club whose boatyard is a tennis court, we have a particular interest in these clubs' facilities:  Even the lowliest have fully equipped kitchens, and seating capacity for 70+ diners.  All have locker rooms, but not all have lockers; rowers in some clubs may not leave their clothes or gear.  All had ergs, some in the same room where tables and chairs were set up, some in a separate room or floor.  Regensburg had tons of boats in a huge boathouse; Vilshofen about the same number as we have.   An entire section of my photographs has been dictated by Karen:  kitchens, dining rooms, fittings, slides, brackets, oar wells, you name it; lots of good ideas I'm sure she will be building them all.

Bavarian Bagpipe

     Today after rowing we visit the Pilgrim church at Bogensburg, perched on a hilltop above the Danube, the second oldest pilgrimage site in Bavaria.  For the past 500 years, at Whitsuntide, pilgrims carry 13m candles (wood core, wrapped in wax, 50kg) from Holzkirchen to the church.  It is also notable because it houses a sculpture of a visibly pregnant Mary, with a window in the womb through which you can see the baby Jesus (apparently not only the conception but the pregnancy was immaculate...) A lovely end to our rowing day.

With - or without- the hat?

     Our hotel is in the town square at Deggendorf,  and we are entertained this evening by traditional Bavarian music.  One of the instruments is a Bavarian bagpipe, closer to the Irish than to the Scottish; the bellows are filled with the elbow rather than through a mouthpiece.  It is also decorated with an elaborately carved goatshead (ramshead?), a horn and skin.  The band also features an accordion, a tuba and a fiddle and we sing ridiculous German songs to an oom-pah-pah beat.  The most memorable part of the evening, though, is when Martin and Stephi, a Swiss rowing couple who have been dancing for 20 years, grace us with a waltz.  Another favorite memory.

     Cardiologist Jan from Oslo (to distinguish him from the other Jan from Oslo and the two other Jans on the trip) has a son who wants a pair of lederhosen.  So Jan purchases him a pair in Deggendorf.  And I have to ham it up, in my BIR rowing hat, with a dirndl.









    

Donau # 3: ...Studies

Mon. Sept. 22, Tues. Sept. 23 (Days 3 + 4): Bad Abbach-Regensburg-Donaustauf-Valhalla

The River:

Our route:  Vienna is 280k east of Passau

High water at Weltenburg

  
     Perhaps I should introduce you.  The Danube is the second longest river in Europe, winding through 10 countries for about 2800 k before merging into the Black Sea.  Our week-long row is less than a tenth of this - about 260k.  From the 1st to the 5th centuries, it was the Romans' northern boundary.  In modern times, it is most notable because of the frequency with which it floods:  the Danube has flooded in six years since 2002, and in 2013, many of the towns we rowed  through were under water. 

Bavaria:

11th century Stone Bridge, Regensburg

      The last time I was in Germany was 1967 and I have never been to  Bavaria before.  On the way to Weltenburg I was struck by how verdant it is; we saw feed corn and other crops, grazing land, tidy houses and meticulous gardens.  After a couple of days I was wondering where the messes were; no dumps, no trash tucked into  corners, no debris anywhere.  Every village has a steeple, and many churches have the squat onion dome shape we associate with Russian churches; it was apparently a popular fashion in the 17th century. The Danube has a bike trail for its entire length, and every day, in every town, we saw people walking their dogs, bicycling, fishing right next to the river.

The Salt Warehouse 

 Regensburg:
     We end our second day of rowing at Regensburg, our 2nd UNESCO World Heritage Site.  In 179, Marcus Aurelius built a fort, Castra Regina (fort on the Regen River), here on the most northern point of the Danube.  You can still see the 10m. square outlines of the fortress's walls inside the Old City.  We returned the next morning and had a guided tour: because its star waned after a few hundred years when it was filled with wealthy merchants each of whom constructed a taller tower to show his importance (no comment...) it had no money to "restore" its buildings. It also avoided damage in WWII and so still boasts its Gothic cathedral, the Dom, its stone bridge, originally constructed in the 12th century and currently being rebuilt with its original stones, and its 17th century Salt Warehouse.  Incredibly picturesque. Now it's enjoying an economic boom:  the BMW 3 series is made here, there's a Siemens plant and a university with 20K students. So the city is in good shape; it boasts an unemployment rate of less than 3.5%.

Valhalla:

All 70 of us soaking up the sun

     In 1807 Crown Prince Ludwig of Bavaria had this idea that he would honor important Germans.  He created a building, modeled on the Parthenon, to house a collection of busts he'd commissioned of Germans famous in the arts and sciences (and politics), above the Danube between Regensburg and Donaustauf, where we ended our row on day 3.  The sun was glorious, the interior only mildly interesting and we were tired enough to enjoy sitting on the steps of Valhalla, completely content just to bask in the balmy evening sun. This has to be one of my favorite memories of the trip.

Bodily Functions:

Shane zoning above the Danube      

     On average, we row 6-7 hours per day, with a scheduled stop for lunch.  Almost no one in the boat can make it that long, however, without needing to deal with the other end of all the caffeine we imbibed at breakfast.  So we stop, usually at least twice a day, or whenever anyone asks, for a Pee-Shtop; sometimes we are lucky and find a small dock, concrete steps, or a gravel bar near the shore.  Barring that, we get as close to the rocky edge as possible and tie up to a bush,  a tree or a clump of grass.  Then everyone hopa out, men in one direction and women in the other, and we do our business behind whatever cover is available.  Good to avoid paths with people and dogs. Cornfields make the best traveling bathrooms; walk in just a couple of rows and you have complete privay, except for other rowers.

Donau # 2: and Motion

                               Church boat Vikinger - Katherine is in 2 seat, starboard side                               

 Sun. Sept. 21 (Day 2) - Vohburg-Bad Abbach

      Today we get in the boats, and on the water.  We have 4 Finnish kirkkovene (churchboats),  used to transport people - to church, among other places.  Sometimes different families owned each set of oars, and all had to contribute to maintenance. In addition to 14 rowers (7 rows, 2 abreast), there is a cox who steers with a real rudder, and room for a kielschwein.  We never did get a good explanation of this word which has something to do with pigs, but basically it means an extra person at the back of the boat.
 
      One of our churchboats is 6 weeks old - the Dorsch - and one is very old and Finnish-built - the Bergknappe.  The others are the Salier, named after one of the tribes which inhabited Bavaria, and the Vikinger, old and bright yellow.  There are only a few in Germany and these come from all over; one is on loan from a club in Berlin.  In addition, there are two touring quads, so named because the back is square, they are broader in the beam than racing quads, and have a tiller; easier to set and far more stable.  The FISA organizers have wisely mixed us up - in theory, we each get a day in each boat.  Over daily distances up to 40 k and up, you spend a lot of time with your seat partner, and have an ample chance to get acquainted.
 

Nothing but the best for these rowers!

 
        We launch upriver, at Vohberg, where we are heralded into the water by a brass band! - and row back down to the Abbey, where we have an enormous lunch, then row downriver to Bad Abbach - almost 41 k, a typical day.  These boats are wide and roomy - we each have at least one dry bag, and water, with us, to carry rain gear, extra clothes, chocolate...

Leaving beautiful Weltenburg Abbey

     Rowing a church boat isn't sweep rowing as we know it:  the rate is 16-20, we cannot feather the oars because they are wooden and very heavy, and do not need to because the boats are broad of beam and set is not an issue.  It's really endurance rowing, especially in some boats.  As I found out on that first day, the Salier is the worst - after about 3 hours I was seriously wondering if I had made a mistake coming on this trip.  In contrast, the Bergknappe, that good old boat in which the oars are hooked into the oarlocks, some with plastic fittings and some with bits of string, and in which the foot stretchers are late add-ons and look jerry-rigged, is so well-designed and engineered that you can practically row with one finger, and the hours go by almost effortlessly.

              Thomas Haarhoff             

     Our boats' "captains" are the German organizers of this trip - Thomas, Detlef, Gisela, Werner and Jens, head of FISA tour rowing. How do you explain Jens?  Picture a tiny, chuckling Norwegian gnome, who never gets in a boat without his Oktoberfest hat, has a big heart and a bigger voice.  You have to, he explains, when you are the admiral.  Thomas, a civil engineer who works on water issues, is a red-bearded Germanic sage, wears a straw hat and blazer on land and never gives you a short answer; ask him a question and you get a lecture.  Gisela, a retired maths teacher who is also in charge of transportaion, runs the bus, and her ship, exactly the way she must have run her classroom;

       Jens Kohlberg               

you do not speak when she is speaking and if you are late for the bus you will be left behind!  Detlef, the youngest, loves his crew, lets us take turns coxing and constantly compliments us.

 
     And Werner, dear Werner.  He is our maestro, the organizer, planner and leader of this trip, and feels responsible for every person in every boat every step  of the way.  His tireless and long-suffering wife, Renate, cannot row with us because she broke ribs a few weeks ago when she fell off a ladder while she was washing windows (there's a moral here...).  I spend the entire trip hoping he wouldn't have a heart attack before we finished.

             Werner Rudolph             

 
 
      We arrive back from Bad Abbach very tired and facing a typical rowing evening - off the water about 5, a guided tour of the Abbey Church - plain on the outside, high Baroque on the inside - at 6:30, drinks at 7:30, dinner at 8, bed - if we're lucky or skip dessert - 10 ish, and up at 6:30 the next morning for a 7:45 departure.  I hope you understand now why this blog is a week behind, but at least now we are in motion.  For each kilometer we travel we row about 75 strokes:  3000 today, almost 20,000 by the end of the week.  Today, and for the rest of the week we are now, definitely, on the Donau, and in motion.

Donau, # 1: Time

Sat. Sept 20 (Day 1):  Munich to Kloster Weltenberg

Weltenburg Abbey

...is not on your side.  Neither is there time to spare.  When we have no time we want it; when we have time we use it up.  Either way there is never enough.  I've been particularly conscious of this truism on this rowing tour; we're literally busy from morning to night, with never a minute to spare.  And this is supposed to be a vacation!  But perhaps I should start at the beginning.

     True to form, it took me as long to get from London to Munich as it took my four fellow rowers to get there from Seattle.  The flight from London to Brussels was an hour late and as a result I spent a very long day in Brussels airport while my friends spent theirs drinking good German beer and watching the Oktoberfest activities in Marienplatz.  About 10 p.m. I emerged from the S-bahn at Truderingstrasse in the pitch dark, gamely hoping I was dragging my suitcase in the right direction.  What a relief to get to the hotel, tea and bed.

Oktoberfest in Munich

     The next morning we enjoyed a long, gargantuan breakfast (I can see already that I am going to run out of adjectives to describe the vast quantities of food we've encountered here), and made our way back to the Munich hauptbahnhof, where we found our bus, dropped off our suitcases and had time to take a quick look at the festivities (lederhosen and dirndls everywhere!) and enjoy our first German cafe.  (I really regret not being able to drink coffee here - such a waste!)

Stone Carving at Abusina

    On the way to Weltenberg we stopped at Abusina, a UNESCO World Heritage site where the ruins of a Roman fort have been excavated.  The ruins are significant because the Danube was the northernmost point of the Roman incursion into southern Germany; the fort prevented the Germanic tribes invading from the North.  The Romans decamped from this area in the 5th century A.D. after Rome burned, and were replaced by the tribes whose names eventually led the region to be known as Bavaria.

The Danube from our window

     Kloster Weltenburg (Weltenburg Abbey); founded in 620, is the oldest abbey in Bavaria; now it is proud home to 7 Benedictine monks. A biergarten fills the monastery courtyard; founded in 1050, the abbey's brewery is the world's oldest and its Dunkel beer has won the World Beer Cup several times.  The monastery also has a Gasthof (guesthouse), which was remodeled last year after the disastrous floods of 2013, and which operates almost like a hotel.  The walls are 3 feet thick and the rooms are beautiful and spare; all the building's huge timbers are exposed, and our room looks right out over the river.  The Abbey is situated on a peninsula called the Danube Gorge where enormous crags tower over this narrow area of the river, also a nature reserve.

The Bainbridge 5, ready for action   

      The evening was filled with introductions, information and - being Bavaria - enormous quantities of creamy food; after two days I learned to eat sparely to preserve my digestive system!  After the meal, there was a memorial ceremony on the beach in memory of an Austrian rower, known to many on this tour, who drowned in the Danube a few weeks ago.  A circle of candles next to the water glowed as one of the monks intoned a prayer and all of us threw a flower into the flowing river.

     There is little time, all week, to reflect, take a walk, write a blog post, email or catch up on the news.  Particularly on this first day, though, surrounded by almost 70 strangers, bombarded with instructions and never having seen a churchboat, an hour to reflect would have felt even more luxurious than our surroundings.  Hence my writing this a week later.  Nonetheless, we are happy to be here and look forward, with not enough time even for trepidation, to tomorrow's adventures. 

Devon

North Devon - looking West along the Southwest Coast Path from Westward Ho!

London.  Wed. Sept. 18

Southwest Coast Path through Devon and Cornwall

     Ifracombe, Barnstaple, Clovelly, Bideford; these seaside towns in Devon (the foot of England) were where my family went on summer holidays when I was a child.   I remember holiday camps (think England, 1950's), riding ponies on the moors, picnics, sailing.  So it was with considerable interest that I ventured back to this territory, 50 years on, for a weekend away to celebrate Bridget's 30th birthday.

     We left central London on Friday at 6 p.m.; from Paddington it takes less than three hours by train to Exeter, and from there a local train took us to Barnstaple, and a bus to Upper Yelland Farm, where we stayed for two nights.  We considered renting a car, but short of going out to one of the airports (an hour on the tube) it's hard to return a car in central London on a Sunday night.  Not horribly expensive - 85 GBP for the weekend, but that much again in petrol; it worked out about the same price as the train in the end.

Upper Yelland Farm - our B&B

     Our B&B was everything a B&B should be - 300 years old with tons of character and a lovely garden, comfortable beds, and a breakfast that knocks your socks off and lasts all day.  It was divine - homemade bread, jams and marmalade, eggs from local chickens, lashings of streaky bacon, good hearty English sausages and fried tomatoes (I skipped the baked beans).  The farm is dog-friendly and everyone staying there, except us, had dogs; always a good sign.  All in all, we couldn't have been happier with our choice of accommodation.

   
     On Saturday, gasping for air after downing an entire day's worth of food at breakfast, we set off by bus to walk a section of the Southwest Coast Path (SCP), Britain's longest long-distance walk; 650 miles, from Minehead in the north, around Land's End to Poole, in the South.  The bus took us to Westward Ho! (yes, it actually has an exclamation point in the name) on the coast south of the River Taw estuary, where, in addition to sailors, kayakers, swimmers and surfers also recreate; there's a surf school nearby -I kid you not.  The path was just yards from the bus stop.

Start of SCP in Westward Ho!

     I got the cliffs and dramatic scenery I'd wanted, plus a lot of up and down, mostly on stairs cut into the hills; our calf muscles were screaming.  Besides the sea vistas there were steep pebbly beaches, fields and woodlands.  We passed lots of hikers going from Clovelly to Westward Ho! - both lifeboat stations -in support of the Lifeboats; a 16-mile journey.  We hadn't planned how far we intended to go; we had to work around the bus schedule and got off the path at Buck's Mill, about 7 1/2 miles from our starting point, plenty tired.  From there it turned out to be another mile to the main road and the bus stop and we had to dash to catch the only bus for 4 hours.  We stopped in Bideford for a well-earned Devonshire Cream Tea (tea, plus scones with clotted cream and strawberry jam - yum!), and loaded up with fish and chips to take home for dinner.


     On Sunday morning we shared a table at breakfast with a couple in their mid-70's.  They moved to Cornwall from outside London 5 years ago, and over a two-year period had walked the entire 350 miles of the Cornwall section of the Southwest Coast Path.  Now they, and their yellow lab Tessa, were doing some of the Devon bits.  They also proudly recounted how, on their 50th wedding anniversary the previous year, they had gone our body-boarding on the Cornwall coast near their home (in wetsuits) with 12 of their 13 children and grandchildren, in the pouring rain!

Crow Point, Braunton Barrows

     Peter, our host,  had bicycles for rent, so after breakfast we started our ride on the 30-mile long Tarka Trail, one of Britain's longest continuous traffic-free walking and cycling paths, which happens to run right next to the farm.  We rode back towards Barnstaple along the River Taw, crossed the river, and headed west to Crow Point on the Braunton Barrows, part of a UNESCO Biosphere preserve.  Here it was flat, grassy and sandy, with many grazing cows and sheep, in stark contrast to the previous day's landscape, and it was lovely not to worry about cars and traffic.  We stopped for a pub lunch and made it back to Upper Yelland Farm, our B&B, after a very decent 24 miles in the saddle, in good time to catch a bus back  to Barnstaple and from there trains back to Exeter and London. 

Bideford, on the River Taw

    Having had a little taste of the SCP, I definitely want to come back for more.  The SCP Association has an itinerary which invites walkers to cover the entire 650 miles over 8 6-day weeks of walking.  I'm thinking I could walk a week or two a year...  It's something I could plan as part of each trip back here.  There are sections in Cornwall, from Penzance to St. Ives, which are more bouldering than walking, apparently; the trail guide describes them as "extreme."  But our breakfast companion, who had done many British long-distance walks, including several in the Scottish highlands, was of the opinion that the SCP was the most beautiful walk in the world.  A good reason to return to Devon, again.  And I won't wait 50 years this time.