For the last few weeks before I returned to the US, I worked in Copenhagen (København). I flew there every Monday morning, and home to München every Friday afternoon. This kind of life was no way to say good-bye to Germany… On the Monday of my last week in København, I flew with my bike. After the week’s work, I took a week of holiday to ride home.
147.7 km, 376 m vertical, average 22.3 kph, maximum 46
At midnight I was awaked from a sound sleep by a series of explosions. Fireworks! – and I had the best seat in the house! The little boy in me was thrilled – a great show!
Up at 5:30, got ready to go. Wore the red mock-turtleneck and my Canada jersey, red and white. The right colours for a day in Denmark.
I had it in mind to go to Rødbyhavn, or at least to Rødby. From the map I estimated around 150 km; should be ok. Set off in good form. The easy route is a bike lane by a fairly busy highway. When I saw the sign for National Bike Route 9, I took it – it should be more scenic, probably quieter.
Foof! After an hour of messing around, mostly lost, I got back to the road, closer to København than when I turned off! This time I stayed with the highway all the way to Køge. At this time of year, I can’t afford to throw away daylight. Three members of the Greve Cycling Club passed me: their jackets identified them, in English.
It was a cool gray day, warm enough when I stopped, chilly when I rode; but since I was generating body heat, I didn’t need a jacket. No wind, no rain. Fine with me.
The stretch to Køge is suburban sprawl, not very interesting. I can see why there would be another route for bikes, but… moomph! Turned off at the Centrum sign in Køge. A pleasant enough little town, a few half-timbered buildings, nothing outstanding. Didn’t even see an irresistible opportunity for lunch, so I stopped at a bakery on the way out of town for a really decadent cinnamon roll and milk.
Picked up cycle route 9 again, stayed with it. Yes, much prettier, much quieter. Most of the time I was alone. Many of the roads are so narrow that two cars couldn’t pass without using the shoulder.
Flat country – what that means is that the hills aren’t more than five or ten meters high. Many don’t even register on the altimeter. Gets to be work, even so. Fields, forests – not that different from Germany. Signs on the farmhouses advertising potatoes, tomatoes for sale. Someone had left the day’s collection of eggs by the road; people who wanted eggs could take what they wanted, leave money in a jar with a slotted lid. Nice to be able to trust people.
Thatched roofs are very popular, and many are beautifully manicured. After a few years, they become green with moss. A few were brand new this season, still golden.
This is the Danish idea of a Schloß: Lystrup Slot.
Eventually the going got easier and I deduced that we were dropping back to the shore at Præstø Fjord. The whole world was white, no distinction between sky and water. The bike route went back inland, uphill. Even a short granny grade – who would have believed it in Denmark? Getting tired and sore. Someone at work yesterday asked me if I had trained for this. No – the ride is its own training. By the time I get home, I should be just about in shape for bicycle touring. Meantime, I’ll have to do the best I can.
Saw some birds run across the road. In Nebraska, I would have instantly identified them as pheasants – but do they have pheasants here? Yes! Saw some more later, closer up: long tail feathers, golden bodies, white ring around the neck, dark heads. The females are golden, speckled. They lurk invisibly in the grass until you get close, then fly up with a great flurry. Definitely pheasants.
It was 2:00 by the time I reached the bridge at Vordningborg and left Sjælland. Wind-powered generators at the bridge, idle: I’m glad it’s a quiet day; clearly it isn’t always like this.
This is a long bridge – it was 2:20 by the time I reached the other side. As I rode across, I heard a repetitive metallic swishing sound. Thought it might be something scraping against the bridge, until it came abreast – off to my right, over the water, a pair of swans. Amazing that one could hear their wingstrokes! – and that they would sound metallic!
And I see a sign for Rødby, 60 km to go! The computer says I’ve already done 130. Now, I might push it up to 160, an English century, but 200k is more than I signed up for. I’m not in that kind of shape, and I need to ride again tomorrow. So I decided to go as far as I could, find a place to spend the night, ride on tomorrow. No early-morning ferry for me.
Rode straight across the second island, Falster, rather than taking the roundabout bike route. Stopped for munchies, but I’m clearly about to bonk. Tired, sore, probably a little hypothermal. The information kiosk said there was a hotel at Guldborg, and I decided to stop. This at least gets me onto Lolland, the last of the Danish islands.
The motel was nothing to write home about, but the people were friendly and it was a welcome sight nonetheless. Bath down the hall; but the season is over; if I’m the only guest, and I think I am, it hardly matters. Nap, half an hour. Hot shower, much better. Then out for a little walk to see the town, two blocks wide and about three blocks long.
Took a Blind Vej, one block east to the shore. Everything white, still, vague outlines of the other side. I see the water as a white film on a vast black lake of cocoa, or maybe cappuccino – and floating like puffs of whipped cream, the largest flock of swans I’ve ever seen, easily a hundred birds. Beautiful.
Crossed to the other side of town. Someone had put out plastic bags of apples with a sign asking for 5 kroner. I had a 10, and I had 4,50 in small coins. Had someone been there, I’m sure we could have negotiated something, but as it was, I didn’t get an apple to munch on.
On the other side of the town is a forest, open, deep, quiet. Fallen leaves on the ground, and acorns. There’s a Christmas tree farm, and then the shore of Guldborg Sund, the trail coming out at the top of low cliffs. I must be living right: there was one perfect, ripe, sweet blackberry just waiting for me.
Walked back along the shore, in the woods, in the open. More swans. Only (only!) twenty or so in this flock. And here and there, other separate pairs. It occurs to me that you almost always see swans in pairs – maybe that’s one of the reasons I like them so much. Makes me miss the other half of my own pair – sure would be nice to share this.
The street lights came on: 5:30. At the bridge is a small marina. I wandered in to see the boats. Got to the water, looked in, not expecting to see much of anything. And what to my wondering eyes should appear but a tidal current carrying along thousands of jellyfish! Cups and saucers: they swim by changing from saucers to cups. Transparent, pink (blue in the flash from my camera), with some kind of body structure visible in the center. Some have four rings, some have six, some have just an amorphous thickening. Ausgezeichnet! Who would have thought!
The hotel restaurant was open. “It’s always open, until we go to bed,” said mine host. I declared my famished state and they loaded on so many extra potatoes that I could hardly eat it all (but I did, I did!). A superannuated German shepherd supervised the dining room – when he was awake. One other couple, locals, came to dine. Clearly past the season.
134.9 km, 300 m vertical, average 21.6 kph, maximum 37
Set the alarm for 6:30. No point in getting up early, since breakfast is only available at 7:15. The day was like yesterday, gray and still. Host Arne Kristensen said it was supposed to clear up by afternoon.
It was forty km to the ferry. Not quite as still as yesterday – some of the wind turbines were turning. Yesterday, I found the bike route hard to follow; but one day of practice understanding the sign conventions made it easy, today, to follow the route. I didn’t even have to consciously look for the signs. Left the bike route at Maribo, since it wanders around.
At Rødbyhavn, a sign said Copenhagen was 151 km – by freeway. So my initial estimate wasn’t that bad; I just hadn’t allowed for forty km of messing around on side roads. Well, no one ever said that a bicycle tour was the most efficient way to get from point A to point B.
Thought I might make the 9:30 ferry, but the bike route in Rødbyhavn wasn’t well marked, the side road led to the wrong part of the harbor. Then there was an overcrossing, hard to walk the bike up and down, and I was in the ferry parking lot. I could see the boats, couldn’t see how to reach them.
There was an underpass marked Ferry. No ramp, had to carry the bike down the steps and back up – and I was at the train terminal. Moomph! Asked a railroad worker, who let me cross the tracks, pointed out where to go, ’way beyond the parking lot, onto the road, where I queued with the cars to buy a ticket. Cost 32 kroner for me, 20 more for the bike. That’s about $8.50, pretty reasonable. The ticket seller directed me to a lane of my own; when I reached the front of the lane, the traffic controller stopped the cars and waved me forward onto the boat.
A big boat, quite the largest I’ve ever been on. Busses, tractor-trailers, private cars. The vehicle deck also had three tracks for rail cars, but there were none on this particular trip. Since they run the ferries every half hour, 24 hours a day, I imagine they move most of the rail traffic late at night.
Four staircases up, there were two decks for passengers. Went out on deck to watch the sailing: Auf Wiedersehen, Denmark! – we backed out, made a U-turn at sea, repeated the process on the German side. When we picked up speed and got into the open sea, I went indoors: even the lee side was too windy and chilly.
The ferry lands at Puttgarden, on the little island of Fehmarn. No passport hassle at all. There’s a road straight across the island to the Continent – and bicycles aren’t allowed! Moomph! Went to Puttgarden Bahnhof, which had a more detailed kiosk map – I need to go through Puttgarden itself, then to Burg.
Burg is quite a good-sized town, very busy. Lots of people on the street. Restaurants and (believe it or not: Sunday!) clothing stores, sidewalk sales. If I were finished with the day’s travel, I could easily mellow out here, have a great day. But I need to keep moving. I would like to get to Lübeck today.
I was hoping to use only two large-scale maps, one each of north and south Germany, to minimize weight and space. But the road signs pointed to towns not shown on the map. Very frustrating. Walked through Burg looking for a place that might sell maps. I could have bought a street plan of Burg, but that’s about all. Moomph! Nothing for it but to guess my way along. Not at all satisfactory.
At Blieschendorf was another opportunity to get onto main road 207, and there was no bicycle prohibition. Great shoulder lane, easily two meters wide, sometimes three. Why couldn’t they have done this at the beginning?
Finally reached the Continent about 12:30. Stopped at a gas station for calories and a map of Schleswig-Holstein. I don’t know which is Schleswig and which is Holstein, but this part of the country, along with its cattle, is Holstein. The land is flat and open, one or two kilometers of very gentle climb, followed by an equal descent.
All the wind turbines were running by now. A crossing headwind from the left. A good thing about riding a busy highway: strings of cars broke up the wind, let me gear up half a step. When a bus led the string, I could gear up a whole step.
I liked the farm advertising the sale of eggs from happy hens.
As we got further from the point, it got hillier, though still ‘flat’ – like Denmark. Glad to get into some bushes and trees to break the wind.
Bundesstraße 207 becomes Autobahn at Oldenburg, bikes not allowed. Took the side roads to Neustadt, where I had to find water. The big old church in the center of town didn’t have a cemetery, which is my usual source of water, but there were public WCs on the town square with running water. Much better.
Then down along the coast. Bathing beach, tourist country. Reminds me of …what? the New Jersey beaches? But not as tacky.
Getting tired and sore. I’m in triple digit kilometers – but when I convert to miles, it’s embarrassing how few I’ve done. I really am out of shape. Lübeck should be interesting and worth seeing, and it’s only another 20 km or thereabouts, 15 km, 10 km… but it’s 4:00 and I’m tired. Cold, too – the sun made a valiant effort, but you had to use real imagination to see shadows today.
At Pansdorf, I picked up 207 again. And bonked. In a matter of about five seconds, my legs turned to jelly. Stopped immediately for food, of course, but too late. Now, if I were ten km from home, I’d just ride the distance on the bonk, and think no more about it. But I can imagine riding into Lübeck, in the dark, getting lost in a strange city, having to search for a place to stay, stupid with fatigue, hunger and cold. Maybe I’ll save Lübeck for the morrow.
As I passed Ratekau, I saw a hotel-restaurant. The restaurant was Korean – this is better and better! But the hotel, when I checked it out, was clearly out of business. Moomph.
However, a hundred meters down the bike path was a Zimmer Frei sign. Maybe I’m living right after all. I stopped. Clearly the wife’s business, Frau Hildegard Schließer – Herr Schließer, a perpetual do-it-yourselfer interrupted by the doorbell, handed me over to her and went back to his current project. I did the whole thing auf Deutsch – good for me!
A small basement room, pine panels. Just fine. And cheap, DM 42. The bathroom had a tile floor with embedded hot water pipes, pretty decadent! The hot and cold plumbing was backward – the bane of the do-it-yourselfer, worldwide. And I found that I’m expected to have my own soap. Well, today’s shower will have to be soapless. Rinse off the soluble part, towel off the gritty part. Adequate.
When I asked about dinner, my hostess pointed in both directions. So I walked on down the path where I hadn’t been before, just to see what there was to see. No doubt whether I’d come back: a Korean restaurant is a rare prize in Germany.
What I found was a rest stop with a Biergarten and Pizzeria. Deep, dark forest, open, very little vegetation at ground level, fallen yellow leaves everywhere. Beautiful. Also found microscopic trail signs marking bike route 4 to Alt Lübeck. Can I see them well enough to follow them tomorrow? [Answer: no. It sure is a shame to invest considerable time and money in route planning and marking, and blow the human factors so badly that the route is useless.]
The Korean restaurant was paneled with dark lacquered richly-grained hardwood. Heavy silk curtains complemented dusty-blue-gray ceramics at the windows. And they had Weizenbier – it’s sure nice to be back in Germany!
Had chicken with eight kinds of vegetable. The menu said it was scharf, but that was only true after I amended it from the chili sauce thoughtfully provided at the table. Not bad, not bad at all.
Familie Schließer had gone out for the evening; the house was dead quiet. Nice.
157.1 km, 392 m vertical, average 19.5 kph, maximum 38.5
Ok, what do we know about Ratekau? Well, the bumpf says Napoleon resoundingly defeated Blücher here in 1806.
The 6:30 breakfast offered the usual too-much-fat-and-protein. Here, as in the US, the hardest part about bicycle touring is trying to eat healthy. And the egg was hard-boiled: first time I’ve seen that. A mistake? But there was a lot of bread, and some semi-sweet jam, so I skipped some of the meat and cheese. Paid the bill, said my good-byes, hit the road by 7. Another cool, cloudy day, low ground fog. So where’s this static high with all the good weather?
A short ride into Lübeck. Easy to get into these towns: just follow the Centrum signs (not Zentrum as you would see in Bayern). Lübeck is a nice enough town, but the fog was so dense that I didn’t take many pictures.
The Holstenor Tor
Explored a little, but the cobbles jarred my fillings loose and I didn’t last long.
Highway 75 became an Autobahn. Side roads to Bad Oldesloe, where I stopped for a snack. I remembered to call it a Brötchen rather than a Semmel. Doing pretty good: I haven’t yet said, “Grüß Gott” to anyone, nor Du’d them.
The fog turned into mist, the mist to light rain. Hard to know whether to cover up and overheat, or stay light and risk hypothermia. Compromised by donning jacket and tights. Fortunately the rain didn’t settle in for the day. It had stopped by the time I reached Ahrensburg, which has an attractive Schloß.
On the way into Ahrensburg, three kids were cluttering up the bike path. When I’m loaded for touring, the damn bike is a battleship, and the sailboats had better stay out of the way. They may sprint to stay ahead for a little ways, but there’s no doubt where the power lies, and who’s going to get there first.
And then there was the old fellow on a bike. Although I clicked my brakes before passing, when I came alongside, he exclaimed, “Gar Nichts hörte ich!” Interesting sentence structure, and clearly the way his thinking worked; it was completely spontaneous. Will I ever learn German?
Hamburg was next. The entrance to the city was a long, long, urban stretch, the road so narrow and busy that I had to use the bike path. And the bike path was abominable: every property had a driveway that interrupted the smooth flow of the path. Down, bump over a little curb, across, bump over another little curb, up, over and over again. Commercial, busy, goes on forever, reminds me of Bloor or Queen streets in Toronto. Nice enough, but not a good place to ride. No idea where I was: highway 75, following the Centrum signs.
The bumpf says a canal was built between the north and east seas (Hamburg and Lübeck) as early as 1398! Pretty impressive.
And the sun came out. Just like that! Raised my opinion of Hamburg a notch. The Centrum is a surprisingly small Fußgängerzone. Walked the bike: a busy, active, nice enough city – but where are the picturesque parts? The prettiest church was, of course, covered with scaffolding.
The kiosk map indicated the old city wall, but there was nothing to see at the part I walked to, across from the Hauptbahnhof. Tried the harbour. Here at last is the pretty part, the different part – canals and inlets, overlooked by houses. The same idea carries into the goods harbour, warehouses directly over the ships; but it isn’t as photogenic.
Ok, enough of all this. Time to be moving on. But the map shows nothing but Autobahnen crossing the Elbe. Foof! Do I have to detour off to the east just to get across the stupid water?
While I was studying the map, a bicycle messenger stopped, asked if he could help. After a few seconds of my Deutsch, he hauled out his Englisch, which was hardly any better. He advised me to go to St Pauli, where I could take a ferry.
So I did. Go to St Pauli, that is. Didn’t see the ferry terminal right off, so I stopped at the tourist information office, where I found that there’s a tunnel right next door, and it’s open to bicycles.
Not an Autobahn tunnel. This one was built a hundred years ago. It’s a vast vertical cylinder, straight down into the ground. Several openwork elevators side by side, one of them for pedestrians and cyclists. Down, down, down…
At the bottom, two white-tile tubes crossing under the water. I’m reminded of New York, the Hudson river, in miniature. One narrow auto lane in each tube; on either side of each auto lane, a sidewalk for the muscle-powered traffic. Not heavily used: one car came through while I was there, and one motorcycle. Another lift at the other end – rode up with the car, the motorcycle and a pedestrian. No charge for me, nor I think for the motor vehicles either. Seems to be just a working historical monument. Great!
The south side is industrial, railroad sidings and main-lines, warehouses, piers, a customs zone, and trucks coming and going constantly – this is a workday, after all. And no road going south. I could see where I wanted to go: apartments, shops, grass, trees: and between us was: here, chainlink fence, there, railroad tracks, there, Autobahn, there, water. Argh!
I’ve always read in adventure books about staying away from the Hamburg docks. Today I understand why. I messed around for over an hour! before I finally saw another cyclist, followed him to a completely invisible bike tunnel under the tracks, came out in Wilhelmsburg and started the exit from metropolitan Hamburg.
The old bridge over the south Elbe,
now only part of the recreation trails
It’s easy to get in: just follow the Centrum signs. Almost impossible to get out! Even here, I tracked and backtracked, checked the map and the terrain, navigated by the sun and by the compass, guessed, finally made it to Harburg, then to Tötensen; and by now I was at least following a real road (75 again) that went somewhere – Bremen. Once I get away from the conurbation, I need to do a map check, see whether this is a completely wrong direction. But the first priority is to get the hell out of here.
Am I so harassed that I’m not even taking time to enjoy the good parts? Yes!! Argh!
Well, to be more precise… if the little boy in me was so frustrated he was ready to cry, the adult was watching, taking in the sights, enjoying. This is ok – green, and autumn, and sunlight, hazy but real.
Great to get back into the countryside. This is why bicycle tourists avoid large metropolitan areas. Doubtless Hamburg is a fine city, but it is not to be explored in an hour by bike.
Highway 75 goes through fairly sparsely settled country, as does route 3, where I turned off. Good bike path, away from the road, and I don’t even object to it – there’s lots of traffic over there. My wheels snap, crackle and pop as I ride through the debris on the path, especially the oakorns.
Flat country – the map marks a mountain, 129 meters high!
I have heard of the Lüneberg Heath since I was a kid, though nothing more than just the name. Here it is. From what I saw, just a flat plain. Not sure what makes it different or special. We’ll see more of it tomorrow.
The sun was out intermittently. I figured I’d have a slightly later dusk tonight. Not many km on the computer – all that messing around wasted a lot of time. 4:15 and only 130 km. Stopped at a gas station for water and a calorie fix, enough to keep me going for another hour or so. Decided to hammer on until I reached 140 km or until 4:30. Felt good!
The towns are far apart, but I was rather counting on finding a rural roadside hotel-restaurant somewhere. About the time the sun disappeared, and the day turned cold, I found one. Montag Ruhetag. Oh - oh! I was only a few kilometers from Schneverdingen, but only the crows could get there via the short route.
A few kilometers further on, a Zimmer Frei sign. Half a kilometer down a lane to a farm. Thousands of kittens, a girl and a horse. She thought my Deutsch was funny – well, she’s right of course. We’ll do this in English if you’d prefer… No?
Her mother showed me to an upstairs room, large and comfortable. I peeked into the WC: a bar of soap! Good.
Now, what to eat? No restaurants, and my hostess showed no enthusiasm when I asked if she could feed me tonight. Dropped off the panniers, went back out. On south, two kilometers, found a Gaststätte, hotel, closed at 2:30 on Mondays. That’s no help!
Rode a couple kilometers the other direction. Small grocery store. Good enough! Loaded up; headed back in a twilight as late as I would have wanted to ride in.
No silverware in my room, but there was a bottle opener, more-or-less spoon shaped. Washed it off, used it on the yogurt. Too clumsy to stir, so I just ate it like it was: yogurt first, then the fruit. If you care, you’re not hungry.
Then I opened the liter of milk, the munchie crackers and the nice stinky Tilsit cheese I’d bought. Apples for later, peanuts maybe for tomorrow… While I was eating, the hostess came in to make up the bed. She guessed I might be Engländer or Holländer (several people asked me if I was English – not sure why). “San Francisco!” she said, “High society!”
Hot shower – with soap – and I feel pretty spoiled yet once again. After all, if there were no hassles, you wouldn’t appreciate these little nice things as much.
How’m I doing? I’ve been afraid of falling behind the curve, having to spend next Sunday on the train, or getting home Monday – not that either of those outcomes would be a catastrophe. But it still looks as if Sunday is a reasonable estimate to finish.