A little trip around Dresden

We spent Monday hanging around Dresden. Last time we were here we visited the Kunsthofpassage (Artist Passage) in Neustadt. Armed with a new camera with a wide angle lens, I was able to get a better feel for the space.

The Bees are a Buzzing around Europe

Lately, it seems, everywhere we go there has been this incredible buzzing noise emanating from every nook and cranny around town. It sounds as if killer bees have invaded us from Africa. In fact, they have. They are in every house, pub, and public space. This invasion I’m talking about is the World Cup. For my American friends out there, the World Cup is the World Soccer Championship. This year it is being held in South Africa and every pub in Europe has the game playing, usually outside. So you can’t really go anywhere without the constant drone of the crowd – thousands of people blowing on horns – like an angry swarm of bees. It is quite deafening just walking around. I can’t imagine what it would be like in person.

On Sunday, Germany played their first game in the series. To say that they were excited is an understatement. American football fans do not have anything on Soccer fans. Every bar was packed to the gills and giant outdoor viewing areas where set up to watch the game.

World Cup Public Viewing Area on the Elbe

Along the Elbe, there is a viewing area with a giant outdoor screen that can hold thousands of people. You can always tell the when someone makes a goal by the deafening roar that rises over the entire town. On Saturday we hung out on the bridge and a local biergarten to watch the crowd. On the river, people were launching balloons, drinking beer and having a good old time in preparation for the big game.

A Little Pre-Game Balloon Launch

 

 Eine Luftballon

Stolpen Ride Restart

Last year when I was in Dresden I had an epic ride to Stolpen and then to the Czech border. That ride wasn’t supposed to be epic, but became that way after I tried to follow hi-tech route that I was given by my friend Dave. The route, supposedly entered into a GPS was a complete mess. I got sent all over the German country side looking for non-existent trails. Well it turns out they were not so non-existent and this year Dave and Ingo decided to show me the “correct” route.
As per normal for a ride with Ingo, the weather started out with a bit of a mist in the air. We left Neustadt and headed for the Heide forest. Last year I spent an hour completely lost in this forest, well this time we “found” an old railroad grade and zipped through the majority of it in about 15 minutes. No ravines, no cliffs, just a nice smooth trail along a mellow gradient.
Somewhere in the middle of the forest we met up with Ingo and miraculously the sun came out, peaking her head over the forest canopy. Hmm, maybe we will doge this rain thing after all. Time to put on some sunscreen. Onward we road through the forest, passing hordes of toddlers out for an afternoon stroll.


After we left the Heide we entered the small town of Weissig and started following an old railroad grade through the fields surrounding Dresden. This trail was definitely easier than the up and down route that I had done before!

Notice the FLAT trail

After a couple hours of mostly mellow riding though picturesque farming communities, we stopped in Elbersdorf for a quick bite to eat and a much needed sports drink. As we headed back down to town, Dave’s city bike decided that it had maybe one too many adventures off road and decided to start losing spokes. Now let me tell you, those spokes are there for a reason. They aren’t  there just to look pretty. In fact, if you lose one or two, the wheel gets downright wobbly.

A Bad Case of the Wobblies

After completely failing our MacGyver test, we quickly decided to cut the ride short and head for the closest train station instead of trying to ride all of the way back to town. Lucky we decided to turn around because soon the sky opened up with a deluge of rain.

Crossing the Elbe

We managed to get a bit of relief from the rain when we crossed the Elbe on one of the ferries. Another kilometer or so and we were at the train station. For a supposed mellow ride, this turned out to be quite the adventure. <

Stolpen Start

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More pictures here.

There’s a Little Irish in all of us.

It seems wherever we travel, we end up at an Irish pub. It seems strange that you would visit Germany, Belgium or even Hungary and end up in an Irish pub. Seriously, why not go see some ohmpfa band or something with a bit more local flair. The reason, I think, is that one of the best places to meet locals is an Irish pub. By their very nature, Irish pubs tend to lend themselves to talking and joining in with the band. The local aspect comes into play, because many locals go to Irish pubs to help learn English. So if you happen to speak English, well, there are often locals there that are just jonesing to get some practice. A fine example of this type of pub is the Tir Na N’og pub in Neustadt, Drsden - http://www.tirnanog-pub.de/. 

The Ter No N'og - Complete with local improvements

Here you can listen to some good Irish music, indulge yourself in a pint or two (or three or …) and possible finish off with a “Mini Guiness”.

"Mini Guiness" - Kahlua & Baily's

As you might imagine, we ended up staying there way too late, but then, why else are we here?
Lord preserve us and protect us, We’ve been drinking whisky for breakfast.

YVR –> DRS, back in the USSR

Okay, not quite back in the USSR, but back in the former Soviet Republic state of East Germany. It has been a year since I have visited my friends Dave and Lisa in Dresden, Germany and two since Kathy had visited. I figured it was high time to get back on the old airplane and see what was happening over there.

So last Wednesday, we flew from Vancouver International Airport (YVR) on a direct flight to Dusseldorf, Germany and then to Dresden on Air Berlin. 

I hadn’t flown out of Vancouver for a couple of years and was impressed with all of the work that they had put into the airport for last Winter’s Olympics.

 

Inside YVR

I was a little apprehensive about using a discount airline for international travel, but my fears where for nothing. Air Berlin was a nice airline and nothing beats flying directly to Europe instead of the torturous multi-leg hop on domestic carriers. So after a hop over the northern tundra of Canada, we arrived in Europe just nine hours after we had left. Another layover, a quick hop and now our vacation can start, but a first a quick nap.

A Quick Escape to Inati Bay

After a pretty dry winter in Bellingham, May has decided to be extremely wet. I don’t think there has been a weekend without a least a day or two of torrential downpours. So you can imagine that when we had a small weather window last Saturday, we decided to quickly head over to Inati bay. It was sunny and warm, short sleeve weather the whole sail. Of course Sunday, the rain came back, but at least we had one nice day.

Here is a 360 view of Inati I took with my new camera.

Afternoon Mountain Bike Ride on Galbraith

I'm playing around with the Everytrail website again. Here is a trip that Sean and I did today on Galbraith mountain. Finally after a billion years of mountain bike riding, I've taken the plunge and switched to clipless peddles. I started using them last fall, but hadn't done anything technical in them. Well today I had my first incident because of the peddles. I really needed to dab the foot down and, well, I just couldn't dab fast enough. Over I went and managed to get a bit of trail rash. I remember laughing at my friends when they used to fall over like that. Hopefully I will get better.

Galbraith - Keystone, Kaiser, & The Pigs

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BVI to Florida Sail

Well the BVI to Florida trip did finally happen. We ended up sailing from BVI, to the Spanish Virgins, to the Bahamas to Cape Canaveral. I must admit, I am now a bit addicted to offshore sailing. The nighttime watches are something else.

Summer Sailing

As I was cleaning up my office today, I found these photos that someone sent to me this summer. We were sailing from Inati Bay to Bellingham. I think Steve H. took these photos. Thanks, I don’t actually have too many photos of me under sail.

Pre Game Time for the BVIs

For the past couple of weeks several of us have been preparing to move a boat from Tortola to Cape Canaveral. This boat was purchased by a friend of mine about a month ago and we are going to try and bring it back up to the Pacific Northwest via Florida (and stick it on a truck). Planing this event remotely has been kind of a bitch compounded by the fact that each of the four crew live at least on hours drive away from each other. To make things easier, we have been using Google Sites to coordinate all of our trip information - from meal planning to emergency contact information, it is all there.
My task has been setting the communications to the external world so that all of our friends and family can stay in touch.

The first trick is to figure out the medium to get all of those pesky ones and zero from the middle of the Atlantic Ocean to the internet. There are several solutions available, but for us it came down to a Satellite phone or using a Single Side Band (SSB) radio for email. The satellite phone has the advantage that it is easy to set up, you can call people on it, and you can send SMS (text) messages with it. The downside is that it is slow (2400kb) and relatively expensive (~1$/minute - 1$/15k). The SSB, on the other hand, is cheap and already installed on the boat. The disadvantage is that is is even slower (500b), complex to operate, and may not even work on this boat.

Because of the time constraints, we decided on using the satellite phone. I can get this solution working at home, with all of the benefits of the internet. The other good thing about this solution is that it gave us SMS messaging. This allows us to easily post updates to ... twitter. For about seventy cents we can text a message to twitter and easily send status update information to friends and family. Heck you can follow us right now at: http://twitter.com/indigosv.

The second way we are going to push location data out to a server called yotreps. This service was set up to help weather forecasters get a better picture of local sea conditions using boats as mobile weather bouy. You can access yotreps and our boat Indigo here and via google maps at shiptrack. The way yotrpes works is that you send them a rather cryptic email with your local conditions in it. Here is a sample entry.

YOTREPS
20/10/2009

                                 | BOAT  | WIND  | SWELL |   |    |    |
No|   CALL |TIME|   POSITION     |Cse|Spd|       |       |Cld|Bar |tend|
  |        | UTC|   Lat. Lng.    | °T|Kts|Dir|Kts|Dir| Ht| % | hPa|    |
---|--------|----|----------------|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|----|----|
 1|WDAL7LO |2215|18 26 N  64 37 W|230|0.0| NE|  3|  N|0.0| 30|1011|   +|

Comments:
Waiting for BJ to Buy Me

A Diversion: BVI-> Florida

For the last couple of months, a friend of mine, BJ, has been searching for a boat to replace his Tayana 37. Finally, he found a Sceptre 41 in good shape down in the British Virgin Islands (BVI). At first this boat didn't look like it would work out because of the difficulties of transporting the boat from the BVIs to Seattle. But after a little noodling we decided that we could sail the boat from the BVIs to Florida. A month later, and a trip to the BVIs to check out the boat, the plan is finally coming to fruition. So, four of us are going to fly down the the Tortola, BVI, get the boat ready and sail her to Cape Canaveral. We have a month to do this (which sound like a lot of time, but is really kind of pressed). Along the way,we plan on visiting the Spanish Virgin Islands (in Puerto Rico) and the Bahamas. This is our planned passage:

BVI to Miami Itinerary at EveryTrail

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I am going to see what I can do about posting photos and whatnot, but in the mean time I have link where you can check out the position of the boat. Shiptrack.org

The Ubuntu Experiment

For the third time since I bought this system, the hard drive has been corrupted to a state where I can not boot the system. This time I decided to take it to the local PC gurus to see if they could find out was wrong. No luck what so ever. However, I was able to use a Ubuntu USB stick to boot the computer and access all of my files.
Windows XP is just seriously broken. If my only solution is to completely reinstall the entire OS every 3 months, then I think it is time to look for a different OS. My only caveat is that I don't really want to buy a new PC at this time. Heck my existing PC is plenty powerful. So, I have decided to go ahead and install Ubuntu on my Dell Inspiron 6000. No PC, No Mac, just pure open source. I wonder how it will go?

A Wompin Bike Ride to Poland

Saturday
This bike riding adventure started near were I finished my last bike ride on the Czech border. For this ride, I had an almost singular goad: head across Bohemian Switzerland in the Czech Republic and bike to Poland. I have got to go to Poland!
Since Dave and Lisa went on the ride, I picked up a rental bike the night before. A kind-of hybrid city/mountain bike that seems to do well on the kind of trails that we would encounter. A new bike, a sketchy route at best, and a bag of food. It was time to go.
We left Dresden for the Czech border around 9 in the morning. It was a cool day with partly cloudy skies. The forecast called for a mostly sunny day, but I still loaded my panniers with a parka. Ya just never know. We boarded the train at Neustadt and by the time we hit the main station, the train was packed with Dresdeners heading for the mountains.
The ride took about an hour with people getting off once we hit the mountains. On the second to the last stop we disembarked and headed up stream to the ferry crossing. We didn't really plan on getting off at the second to the last stop, but somehow we did. Oh well, only another couple of kilometers to add to the trip - a nice warm up.

Hřensko

The ferry crossing starts in Germany and deposits you into the Czech Republic at the town of Hřensko. Hřensko is a classic border town with tons of stalls selling all kinds of nick-knacks. The funny thing is that the vendors aren't even Czech. Heck, the merchandise isn't even Czech. We purchase some water and start the long climb up into České Švýcarsko National Park. This park shares a border with Germany and there are all kinds of trails criss-crossing both sides of the border. Route finding can be quite a chore as the trail marking aren't always what you expect. We had quite a few route finding issues and instead of taking the nice easy trail we end up doing a huge climb up to this small natural arch that looks out over the Czech country side. Poland is looking further away.

On Top of The Stone Arch

A Fall Here Would Really Suck

From the arch it was a major down hill to a muddy intersection somewhere in the park. After a long climb we topped a ridge and saw a small sign pointing to a pension or cabin or something. We didn't really know. It was right in the middle of the woods. So we had to check it out. I guess we could just bail on this whole Poland idea.

Lunch Stop

It turns out it was a little pension with music and food. So we stopped or lunch and ordered a sports drink and goulash.
It was time to figure out were to go next since we were so far off of our original trail. But after about half a sport drink a funny thing happened. We decided that we might be able to make it to Poland after all.
After eating our fill and with our mission firmly in mind, we started following one of the numbered bike trails that led us all over the Czech Republic. Like most bike trails it was a mixture of paved roads, dirt roads, single tracks and some hiking. The scenery was outstanding. It was amazing to glimpse into the back yards of the Bohemian houses in this small corner of the Czech Republic.

Chřibská

After the small town of Chřibská we started another big climb until we were high over the country side.

Pilgrimage Site near Jiřetín pod Jedlovou

After that we had a screaming, rocky down hill that deposited us at the base of one of the pilgrimage sites. A little exploring and then it was a fast downhill of cobblestone, single track and bike trails until we crossed back into Germany.
You immediately notice when you cross the border. Everything is neater and more organized. Ironically, the signage was worse, so our route finding became more difficult.
We continued to wind through different towns until we had about an hour to go before our 7:19pm train out of Zittau. We had to make this train, because the next train was almost two hours later. You don't want to hang out in Zittau until 9pm.
But still I had a goal, and that goal was to make it to Poland! So we pushed on and eventually found our way to the border where Germany, The Czech Republic and Poland all meet.

Almost in Poland

As I rode my bike up to the field, I could see flags for both Poland and The Czech Republic (the Germans flag was down for some reason). Almost there. Damn it! Just on the other side of the grass was a river. No playing twister on the border (unless I had a snorkel). So after a quick photo we were off, downstream to find a crossing. Luckily, we found one in a couple of km and crossed over into Poland. I made it.

Final tally: Distance - 68km; Climbed - 2100m; 3 Countries; No flats; 1 Beer.

Finally Made It!

Well, I made it to Poland, but we still had a train to catch in Zittau. It was time to head back to the train station and pick up the 7:19 pm train back to Dresden. We made the train, but one causality was dinner and another sports drink. We would have to make do with our snacks until we got back to Dresden.
Almost 7 hrs of riding (probably half of it was looking at maps) and 65 km and a ton of climbing left us tired out. Time for dinner and a big snooze.

Schona - Czech - Poland - Zittau

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Männertag

Thursday

Holidays in Germany are always accompanied by beer - lot's of beer. And what better way to celebrate the Christian Ascension tradition than for all of the men in Germany to wander through the woods and drink lots of beer? Hence, the German holiday Männertag, or Men's Day.
In most parts of Germany this holiday is the equivalent of our Father's day (Vatertag) and has been since the middle ages. In the 19th century the custom switched gears in Berlin and became more of a man's day out or drinking day (sauftag). Today it seems that the holiday is becoming more family and festival oriented, but you still see groups of people pulling little carts through the woods loaded with all kinds of food and drink.

So with that imagery in mind we headed off to experience this strange custom. We started early with a steamboat ride down the Elba river. But then, as I was writing this article about Männertag, I decided that what happens on Männertag in German Saxony, stays in German Saxony. So if you want more details you will just have to show up next year.

Traditional Father's Day Bubble Maker

A Wompin Ride to the Czech Border

Tuesday

I had such a good time bike riding on Saturday, that I decided I needed to do it again. A while ago Dave did this ride that takes you almost to the Czech border while visiting all kinds of tiny little villages along the while. The route would involve all types of terrain, winding and twisting through the country side. Now Dave is a gadget guy. He has a lot of electronic toys, one of them being a GPS watch that he uses to keep track of his running or his bike rides. Since he had done this ride before, he thought he had the route programmed into the watch, so he loaded it up and headed off for work. This should make route finding a breeze.
After working a bit in the morning I saddled up Lisa's mountain bike. This is slightly small for me and has the added bonus of having almost no rear brakes. What better vehicle for exploring the darkest corners of East Germany? As an extra precaution I stopped by the bike shop and picked up an extra patch case since I had used up the patches from the previous day. Okay, map, patches, watch, food, water. I'm good to do. Dave suggested that I start out by taking one of the trails in the forest just North of Dresden. I thought that would be okay, since I had the watch and it basically told me where the suggested trail was.
So off I set, boldly going through the woods. Except, every now and then I would come to a big ravine that I would have to cross. Or, I would encounter a big log crossing the trail. Or, the damn trail would just disappear. I wasn't exactly lost, but I wasn't making much progress. But, I did have the watch and I was able to zig-zag my way towards the "real" trail.
After about an hour or so lost in the woods, I managed to find the route. Damn, I had only managed to make 1km on my route for an hour of work. Not a good start.
Quickly, I found the route and started heading up stream from Dresden. Now, I wasn't having a good deal of luck following the route. Often I would be hundreds of meters off course for no known reason. Luckily, I had a real map with me (Even though Dave said I didn't need a map!), and I managed to slowly make my way up the valley to the castle at Stolpen.

A Not Very Useful Sign Post Along the Way

At Durrosdorf I hit the edge of my map and had to guess my way towards Stolpen. I was a good 1km off the track at this point, but found a bike trail that went to Helmsdorf, which was the next town on the way to Stolpen.

Bird House Outside Helmsdorf

Finally, I saw. A majestic spire rising high above the country side. Uh-oh, castles are built on tall, knobby, hills. So, I put the bike in low gear and slogged up to the castle. After about twenty minutes of climbing, I made it. Time for a sports drink and lunch.

Lunch Break Next to the Castle

Stolpen

A Beer, Spargel Creme Soupe, The GPS Watch,
& The Blackberry

After a refreshing lunch it was time to figure out how to get back down the river. This was supposed to be one of the better parts of the trail. I had a fairly descent map of the trail near the Elbe river and a basic idea of how to get there by kind-of following the GPS track. By this time I had come to understand that the track was just a suggestion. It was really telling me that, "Hey, why don't you go this way for a while?" So I would, and then it would say, "Forget i t, I really mean go this way."

After Lunch View of Stolpen
Only 1k Off "Route"

After many false turns, I managed to find the National Park trail that would lead me back down to the Elbe. This was probably the best part of the trail. A nice forested downhill ride through a nice gorge with a babbling brook nearby.

The Final Part of the Trail

This trail took me to Bad Schandau which is one of the last towns before you get to the Czech Republic. From there it was just a quick and easy train ride back to Dresden and another hot meal. Well it wasn't that easy, in order to get a ticket, you have to use these automated machines. The machines are electronic and have a large British flag so that you can get instructions in English. Except that it doesn't do anything. I could figure out how to get back, but you also have to get a ticket for your bike. Now I figure that that ditching Lisa's bike would probably be good for her, but it might make her a bit pissed off at me. So I asked a train conductor how to use the machine. She couldn't barely get it to work. After five tries she was able to spit out a ticket for me and my bike.
The finally tally: 7 hrs of riding, one lunch break, one train ride, 65.7 km of trails, stairs, roads, and gullys.

Dresden to Stolpen to Bad Schandau

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Out and about in Dresden

Monday
I had to work this morning but I finally was able to get out for a bit. I had a nice lunch in front of the church in the main plaza and wandered around a bit. Mostly a mellow day.

Local Art in Dresden



Near the Train Station

A Much Mellower Ride Along the Elbe

Sunday

Today's ride was much more mellow than Saturday's ride. Today we took the path upstream along the Elbe river. Nice and flat and sunny. Mostly Just Pictures Today.

Almost like Holland



Along The Elbe



A Quick Stop for Lunch and a Sports Drink



Dresden



The Beach

A Wompin Bike Ride Through Former East Gemany

Saturday
The day started out grey and rainy with the promise of better things to come. The decision was made to delay the start from 9:00 to around 10:30. With a slight mist in the air (your basic Bellingham day), we headed off on a bicycle tour of the surrounding country side.
We started off crossing the Elbe and heading out through an old industrial part of town.

Ingo & Dave

The paths that we took were a combination of bike paths, roads, single track, stairs, rocky ledges, and everything in between. The first 100m climb was to an overlook of the Weiseritz river outside of Dresden.

Old Factory

After wandering around some more small towns we ended up in Rabenau. From there we took a dirt path that followed an old narrow gauge steam line that followed the river. Sometime the trail would get really steep and we would have to do a bit of hiking.

The grade continued for quite a while and deposited us high over Dresden in these gorgeous hills.

Soon after this we had a couple of big hill climbs and then a big rocky downhill that resulted in a big old flat tire for me. Luckily, we had all of the goodies required to fix the flat and soon we were bumping along down the road. This was especially challenging since I really didn't have brakes. It made the downhills really interesting. After a couple of more hill climbs (about 3000' total by now) we ended up at a little Biergarten for lunch. From here it was all down hill to the next stop. After a quick 5k downhill run on the road we ended up at the Weesenstein castle.

It had a nice little beer cellar that had been renovated to look like it dig back in 1860. This, of course, required another stop for a sports drink. Biking is hard work.

Feeling refreshed we headed out for the final 25k back to Dresden. It was late and we were nourished so we were moving fast. But the adventure wasn't over. We had to cross the river on a local ferry.

Then it was only another 15km or so back to the flat. A quick shower and then a quick dinner at a nice little Italian place.
It was a gorgeous, so we walked to Neustadt to grab a late night beer at a Munich styled beer hall. We were able to sit outside and watch all of the people wander by.

More Photos

Dresden to Rabanau to Maxen

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