New Wheels

Well, I finally did it. Now that I'm actually contributing to the financial situation of Dan & Beth Inc., I decided to go out and purchase the new bike. And this isn't just any old run-of-the-mill bike that is designed for doing x, y, and z. Nope. This bike is designed purely for x. And x means trekking.

This bike means business. I've loaded it down with rocks and begun training on all my local routes. It handles like a champ, chugging along with far less effort than the extra weight would lead you to believe possible.

The first trip is planned for this fall when I'll throw the bike onto the train down to Middleburg in South Holland and spend three days biking back up to Haarlem. The big trip will be next spring when I'll tackle the Rhine river route from Noordwijk, NL to Basel, Switzerland. If all goes well, and I find myself some extra time on my hands (wink, wink, nudge, nudge), I'd like to try and continue on and cross the Alps to the Mediterranean. Who knows?

There is only one problem with this baby. Because it is so specialized for trekking, I think that I'll have to go out and buy another bike that is specialized for speed. ( Sue - Does that remind you of anyone? ;-)

Horses grazing in front of castle ruins ... does the scenery from the bike get any better?

Denmark

Typically we avoid all travel in the month of August in Europe. It's just such a hassle with all the traffic and overbooked hotels. This year, we just happened to have a reservation for Sage at the dierenpension for a few days and decided to take a short road trip up to Denmark. The roads were jammed (of course), but we ended up having a great time. Not great enough to ever, ever drive again in August unless absolutely necessary, but all-in-all not so bad.



Our first impulse stop was one of our best. The northern German town of Bremen was very cool. It is a great mix of old and new that had a nice, friendly vibe to it.

Hamburg on the other hand was pretty much a bust. New, brash, and lacking any sense of character, this 2nd largest German city did nothing for us. The only site worth mentioning was this bombed out church, left as it was found after an allied air raid as a reminder of the price of war.

The church must have been massive - this surviving bell tower is still one of the tallest buildings in the inner city - I couldn't capture it on camera.

After Hamburg, we made an early start for Puttgarden where we had a ferry reserved for 13.35. At 13.15 the dark clouds came rolling through and we were still stuck 17 kilometers away in standstill traffic jams. I almost turned the car around to go the land route over to Denmark when the traffic finally dispersed at a local village where there was a large festival underway. We broke out of the crowd and raced for the ferry. We were able to drive right onto the 13.55 boat and found ourselves on the open Baltic 10 minutes later.

Unfortunately, the weather just got worse and the ferry pitched and swayed for the entire 40 minute Baltic Sea crossing. It wasn't quite as bad as the ride over to Catalina Island 10 years ago, but it was pretty bad for such a large boat.

We spent two days on the southern islands of Denmark, hopping around small towns and villages. The western most island of Mon was beautiful. It felt like a trip through The Shire and I kept expecting to see Hobbits crossing the road. Maybe Tolkien got some inspiration here.

But once again, discovering the details was the most interesting part...


...only found in an out-of-the-way corner of an old cobbled street.

On the other hand, the chalk cliffs of Mon were spectacular in their grandeur. The Baltic is a pale blue here because of the influence of the cliffs.


This was a great shot that I had to get out on the edge of the cliff to get. After taking the photo, I looked down at my feet only to see directly through the ground to the sea below! I was on a precipice that was only held together by a tangle of roots. Yikes!


Maybe we'll look into a schooner like this one for our next vacation. I wonder if the scenery in Croatia is this nice?

Then it was on to Copenhagen, where there were classic scenes like this market square...

...and cliche scenes like Nyhavn.

There were a lot of cozy cafe's to sit out the rain and surprisingly, the food actually came close to rivaling Northern Italy.

One of our favorite stops in Copenhagen was the freetown enclave of Christiania. An old hippie colony that operates it's own form of government and has survived more than 30 years of ups and downs. Somehow it still has that feeling that must have permeated the summer of love in Haight-Ashbury. Very cool.

There are some really interesting hand built houses...


...and some houses that were rolled in just to keep out the rain.

The nice thing about Christiana is the fact that they have their own business district. This was one of the little pubs...

...where we sat for a cold beer under the shade of the mascot plant above the door.



Why Denmark now? Because we had a free place to crash at the vacation cottage of our good friends Jan and Marjolein (are we the only ones who do this anymore?). The house was set just off a quite beach north of Assens and had an excellent yard where the guys mopped up at obstacle oriented petenque. A great end to a great (little) holiday. Leuk!


EDITOR'S NOTE: Beth insists that I mention that the guys only mopped up on the first game...the girls did better in games two and three.

Summer Medley

One of our favorite little pubs in the area is a place called Het Hemeltje in Bloemendaal. It's about a 20 minute walk from our house that just happens to take us along one of Sage's favorite canal parks. So naturally, she always comes with us. The waitresses are starting to get to know her and have been known to "accidentally" drop a french fry or two near her on their way to serve other tables. Needless to say, she rather enjoys it.

Speaking of canals, our good friends Patrick and Shiela bought a nice little boat recently and took us out for a cruise around Haarlem. It was a relaxed evening with wine, cheese, olives and lots of laughter.

And we got to see some wild animals in the Hemstede wilderness...

...and some wild plants in the Haarlem wilderness ;-).

And I even got to drive the boat...Beth just calls me Cap'n Dan now!