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.