Home comforts

Today I'm writing from the comfort of the home of my friend Arnold, in Amersfoort, Netherlands.  Yesterday we drove down from Groningen along the side of the Ijsselmere and arrived in Amersfoort in time to walk the dogs and enjoy a family meal and a few beers with Arnold, Ineke and family.  Pictures to be posted at some point, especially of the dogs - a pair of splendid Tervuren Belgian Shepherds.

I want to briefly return the tale to Kopenhagen and share a couple of pictures of the crazy church with outside stairs!  It's the Church of Our Saviour / Vor Frelsers Kirke and the top third or so of the steps are around a spiral on the outside.  We were first in the queue to go up it and I enjoyed an interesting solitary experience climbing round the outside at 40/50 metres high in a howling gale.  Quite refreshing.  I didn't take any decent pictures to prove I actually got to the top where the stairs become about a foot wide and it's a bit of a tight squeeze that you have to back down to be able to turn round... you have to take my word.  You get quite a fantastic view over the spires of Copenhagen even from the viewing gallery without going to the top, but it's such a unique idea that I had to post the piccies.  Fran made it to the base of the spiral and was happy enough to hold on tight and then go back down.

I haven't got many pictures to share of the drive down through Denmark and the top of Germany since not a lot happens except fields, wind and straight roads!  Here is the bridge that goes from Korsor to Nyborgin Denmark and costs 220DKK to cross.  We were camped at the eastern end of it the other night.  We then avoided the Hamburg /Bremen motorway chaos by heading around the north via a ferry across the Elbe and tunnel under another bit of water.

We had a lovely couple of hours in Groningen at my cousin Natalies flat on Thursday evening catching up over coffee. 

Yesterday we stopped for lunch in a small fishing town on the Ijsselmere called Urk where the heron was sort of sunbathing on one of the pontoons.

And now we're spending a couple of days with my old boss (from EDS/HP) Arnold in Amersfoort chilling out, putting the world to rights, quaffing a few beers and sleeping in a real bed before driving the short distance down to Calais for return to the home island on Tuesday.

Having a quickie

Just using some internet at the campsite, near Lubeck, Germany...  so thought we'd pass on a few words.  Also using a German keyboard so might write a few sentences the way it wants to type them for your entertainment.

Had a great couple of dazs in Denmark including Kopenhavn which is somewhere we both think deserves a repeat visit and a bit more time.  Driven lots zesterdaz and todaz and covered about 800kms, but planning to be in Groningen bz tomorrow night, so need to get a shift on.  Have left Scandinavia behind todaz, so bought some food now prices are reasonable, and Iäve enjozed a beer for the first time in a couple of weeks ß out of a plastic bottle, but it still tastes good.  Pazed big tolls to cross first from Malmo to Kopenhagen (Sweden to Denmark), then across the one the other side to get to Odense this morning...  but zou donät get to do these things often.

The campsite tonight is the first time that weäve had to trz a bit of the native language for a while, since the guz on reception doesnät seem to do English.  Weäve got bz and I think we know the score.  Got internet anzwaz.

Enough for now since F wants to check email and stuff, so Iäll post again in a couple of dazy.  Hope the text makes sense ß itäs not too different on this kezboard unless zou want a "y", "-", "'" and mazbe a couple of other kezs!!

Great Expectations

Sweden really is a very lovely and intriging place. As Mark has already hinted at we went to an Ikea in Sweden, which was intended to be a bit of treat for me (very sad I know but I am a big fan). Well I don't know what I was expecting but it was a huge disappointment. It was just like the one in Wembley!!!! I somehow expected it to be more Swedish. I guess I thought that the version we got must be a watered down, slightly Anglicised version but alas, we get the real thing. I suppose that should make me really happy and it does but I cannot hide my disappointment that there are no surprises in a Swedish Ikea. Having said that I am quite convinced you cannot buy childrens rocking mooses in England.

My other great mismatch of expectation came in the form of the Viking warship - I mean how interesting can a Viking warship be? Well, it would appear that it was one of the beautiful and biggest man made wooden things I have ever seen. We only went to the museum because we thought we probably should as we were so close but I am so glad we did. Considering what a sad story the ship had to tell and what a failure it was, it was just so lovely. I find it completely unbelievable that people went to such lengths to make such a stunning ship to then send it out to war. I do realise there was a lot of symbolism on the ship that was designed to offend or frighten the opposition but really... the lengths they went to! It sank because they tried to make it too big and too grand!

Mark managed to squeeze in a ride on a roller coaster whilst we were in Stockholm. It was called "Insane". I felt ill just watching him!

Hej Stockholm

Stockholm is a great city.  We camped up and got the T-Bana into town, then we bought a couple of Stockholm cards which pretty much meant we could go anywhere for free for 24 hours.  So getting value for money, we have done lots of things - Boat tour(s), Vasa Museum, Aquarium, Theme Park, Cathedral, Royal Palace state rooms and treasury and a few other bits...

The Vasa is worth commenting on.  It's a boat that they raised from the seabed after 333 years and it's really well preserved.  Ignoramus that I am (in fact WE are, cos Fran didn't know either), we thought it was some small viking vessel or something, nothing too special.  Well, it's about 200 feet long and was a battleship of it's time when Sweden was fighting with Poland.  It sank on it's maiden voyage, 1500 metres from leaving the dock!!  Anyway, it's pretty cool and the museum is well worth it.

We're now heading back down Sweden, on our way to Copenhagen, and tonight we are moored up on the Island of Oland, which is where a lot of the Swedes take their summer holiday.  I have stood in the baltic and waved across towards Riga for Pete, who I realise is not there on a Sunday, and that there's no line of sight either, but the thought counts.

Here's another picture for Lara too - we found one of Rufus' younger sisters today and they shared a photographic moment or two ;-)

There was a storm threatening to blow through but it sort of passed a bit to the north leaving some really impressive skies.  But that's gone now, so I'm going for a run - to leave the laptop for Fran to maybe add some messages?  TTFN.

Welcome to Sweden

It's beginning to sink in quite how much of a journey this really is turning into...  We're over 9000 kms and, depending on what a "country" is, we've seen about 12 in what is now day 38 away from the UK.  Just the last couple of days it's started to be "so what country is this?"  It's still fantastic and when we think back through the last weeks the amount we have seen and done is amazing!  One week ago we were in Bergen, -2 weeks Hamburg, -3 South France / North Italy etc...  And every time we cross an international border we get handy welcome texts to both  phones.  They are the only texts I get!

So, more big scenery from Norway...  We've now been as far north as this trip will take us and it truly feels like we're on our way home, boo hiss ;-(  We went up to Alesund on the west coast and have since headed down the bigger roads via Lillehammer, and returned to Sweden.  Believe it or not we still have norwegian money, either things weren't so expensive or we calculated it wrong.  Hmm, let me think?

Today we crossed sweden from Karlstad to Stockholm (breakfasting in IKEA) and are camped up for the night with plans to have a 2 night stop, yes you heard right!  We will go into the city tomorrow on the underground which stops nearby.

Despite all attempts and a multitude of signs, we haven't seen any moose, or mice!  A fair number of deer, big and small, but no mooses.  We have acquired Horace a new chum in the shape of a magnetic-mini-moose, no name yet - see photo.  Also came across a cat in a wall which ran into the wall when we attempted to befriend it!

Here's a new picture of the van for ny niece Lara, as requested, showing that we too have seen some water from the sky, it's not all shorts and sunbathing you know!  This is where we stayed in Alesund, in a car park on the harbour with only 2 other vans for company.  It looks wetter than I remember, since we went for a good stroll and I climbed the 414+53 (it's what the sign said!) steps up the hill to see the view.

God's Own Country

To steal a title from a friend's mum, this really is God's own country and there are bits where I am totally stunned by the beauty of it all. I have wanted to come to Norway for a while and I was worried that it might be a disappointment but it isn't. There is so much to love about it all. Things we have seen: lots of snow, lots of water and lots of mountains; also 3 magnificent deer, a dolphin (small), three red squirrels, some rain (infact it is pouring down now) and some wonderful sunsets.

We seem to have this incredible knack of arriving in countries just as they start celebrating and Norway is no exception. Come to think about it I think that mainland Europe does a lot more celebrating and a lot more bank holidays than we do! Today is Constitution day. So far we have established that they dress up in Tradition costume (very ornate floral pattern but mainly black), the children parade through the wet streets accompanied by a big brass band and they tie trees to the bridges. Once again a tradition that involves trees.

It is a huge and magnificent country full of breathtaking views but my favourite was our view from the campsite over the end of the world the other night.

Lots more to see and do. Thanks for all the comments.

PS. The sun has been shining most of the time we have been in Norway!

Couple of catch-ups...

It seems my banking issue has been resolved - the A&L have repaid my money, although I'm sure I will still need to do some confirmations when I get home.

Sad to hear about Edie, and hope the funeral / wake gave her a good send off.

Pete - when we reach the Baltic, we'll be sure to wave across to Talin.  But it's a strech too far to get there and back in our timescale ;-)

Keep up the good work everyone.

£4 a loaf of bread

Sorry about the wait, I know now how much people are eagerly awaiting our every word.  It's not proven that easy to get wifi out here - not because they are low-tech or anything, just circumstance has conspired against us.  Anyway, here now, sat just near the Geirangerfjord in sort of mid-Norway with a view of mountains, snow, waterfalls and a fair chunk of water...
Since we last did this we have marched up through the outskirts of Sweden taking in Gothenburg en-route.

We had a very fleeting visit to Oslo, since it proved hard to park and then they put you in a tunnel which does nothing for spacial awareness and /or my will to stay.  We did have a great couple of hours at the Frognerparken staring at naked forms, but then we headed on into the grander geography areas.  We'll head back through Oslo in a few days and might feel more inspired to stop for a better look.

Then drove up and over to Bergen taking in the Hardangervidda, which is basically a mountaintop plateau covered in snow - really, really wierd and unexpected.  I personally think it's the highlight of the geography so far for me beating the fjords, probably because it was unexpected whereas I knew the fjords were coming.  We've since had nights in another ski resort, overlooking the far Western extremity of Norway into the North Sea, in a car park under a main arterial bridge into Bergen, and the last 2 have been in incredible fjordic scenery.  Last nights sunset over the Sognefjord was incredible (Fran will share piccies) and tonight is a moody view down a very big water filled valley.

I've put this one in because Fran has insisted that we are both in a photo to prove we're on this road-trip togather!

Tomorrow, weather permitting, it's going to be a boat trip on the Geirangerfjord which I'm told is probably the most physically imposing of them all.

Weather has been superb too, with 3 days of glorious sunshine in and around Bergen / west coast where it supposedly rains 275 days a year.  Enjoy the photos, hopefully we'll find more weefee sooner than the last gap, and please keep commenting...

Comments please

Please write comments.  We like your comments.  It's great to catch up on your end of things and it's good to know there's people out there keeping an eye on us.

xxxxxxx

:-)

Lego, Ferraris and Lego Ferraris

The van tyre was sorted by a very nice man.  I said to him "I'm English,  do you speak English?"  And he replied with "I'm German.  Yes I do speak English."  I did insist on saying "Mein reifen hast ein problem mit ein schraube, kanst du haup?"  [My tyre has a problem with a screw, can you help? Or thereabouts!]  Which he thought was amusing but he understood the situation.  15Euro later, which included a test and sticker for german low emissions zones, we were sent on our way with a healthy tyre.  Then we left Germany behind.


Today we have mostly been at Legoland.  I've never been to the one at Windsor but for some reason have always wanted to go to the real one in Denmark.  So we spent 7 hours there...  It's great, even though we kept having to say "I hope the kids are enjoying themselves" (our imaginery ones) as we got strange looks from the happy families out there!  I got Fran on a roller coaster (yes a real one!), we saw a 4D film (in English, which foxed some of the locals), went on 2 water rides, and some sort of laser-quest-ghost-train thing.  

Oh, and there was some lego.  And as luck would have it, for one weekend only, there was a Ferrari exhibition.  So we went to that too.  The red car picture is for Simon, who will at least appreciate and share in my knowledge of what it is ;-)  The F1 car is a life size lego model, which was pretty cool.

And tonight I am writing to you from a ferry terminal as we sit and wait to board a big boat to take us across the Kattegat to Sweden.  Goteborg tomorrow, a city I know reasonably well, so looking forward to returning there and showing Fran the old haunts / drinking dens.  She's catching some zzz's now, so you will get her take in the next few days.

Thieving feckers

Those cheeky Thai's!  Not so cheeky, more like thieving bastards.  My card has been cloned again and I'm apparently spending PHI in Thailand.  Or not!

As luck would have it I found out quite quickly, since we have internet at the campsite and prudence had me check the bank.  So a panicked phone call to A&L later and hopefully this extravagent spending will stop.  It would appear they only got about £700, aaarrrgghhhh.  It's not like I have mortgage which "puts my house at risk should I fail to make payments" coming out of the account or anything!

Whine over.  Hopefully.  Let's put some faith in the British Banking System.

Colourful Trees

As Mark said I might have something to say about the gardens, I thought I better be "obedient" and write something about the gardens!!!!!! They were fantastic. I didn't really know what it was I was going to and I certainly did not understand the size or number of flowers that we would see. It is all spring bulbs and plants and it is really amazing. There are so many different colours and types of flowers, including some displays of orchids and lillies inside greenhouses. So much colour everywhere and some lovely fragrances. We managed to combine the beautiful flowers with a bird of prey talk. All in Dutch but then the birds don't talk so it was great fun just watching them.
We went to Keukenhof on Liberation day. A national holiday every fifth year in Holland. As we drove there down many residential streets I was surprised at how many of the houses had a flag pole and a flag proudly flying. I some streets it was all the houses but in most streets it was at least half of the houses. A very different approach to celebrating than the one we might take.

The day before is Memorial day, on this day you fly your flag at half mast and at 8pm everything stops for 2 minutes. It was really nice to be here at this time of year and see some of the celebrations.

Not long before we had been driving through Germany just after May Day.  Apparently, the villages in Germany all cut a tall tree down and decorate it with ribbon and then put it up really high in the village, this is to stop the other villages from stealing their tree. They then go out and try and steal trees from other villages, it all sounds very strange, but it looks really lovely.

Bloomin' Marvelous

Keukenhof, ok I suppose.  Fran'll go on about it to be sure, so I'll say what else has been happenning instead.

Drove up the coast of the Netherlands and stayed up near Den Helder after seeing all the flowers.  It's quite windy here and my evening run was much easier on the way back than the way out (by design).  Next we drove over the Afsluitdijk, which is about 30km long with the North Sea on one side and a whopping great inland sea on the other.  Stopped at a monument thing in the middle and had coffee, and were treated to a really good little cafe with all sorts of character and historical pictures etc on the walls/ceiling, well worth a stop.

More coastal meanderings, and a swift in/out of Groningen and then the Autobahn to Bremen.  When you're sat at 90kph or thereabouts and someone tanks past at 180+, you certainly feel the air move...

Before we left home originally I had had a look at some bits of the route we were likely to take and the Bremen to Hamburg motorway was an area to avoid due to roadworks.  So when the satnav told me we had 46mininutes delay just before Bremen, we though a quick detour would sort it.  Oh, no.  A couple of hours later having had a not so scenic tour round the outskirts of Bremen we found a campsite.  It was called "Paradis" somethingorother, which it wasn't, but we were grateful for the stop.

Today, we've been into Hamburg and seen the Minitur Wunderland, which is mainly a trainset, but has all sorts of scenery and other activities going on.  It is brilliant... even though I like this kind of modelling very much and have seen a few of these villages, this one rates very highly up there.  It's massive, but all done at the small matchbox toy kind of scale.  Look it up on the web...  It's done with a very germanic sense of humour too, which is equally entertaining.  I loved it, and if anyone is anywhere near Hamburg I'd recommend looking it up.

Tonight, just leaving a supermarket, we had a strange tk, tk, tk, tk as we drove away.  Only to stop and check to find a handy extra screw embedded in the tyre!  The brand new one that I put on just before we left.  It seems to be holding it's own for now, but we've found out where a repair place is for the morning to have it looked at - first thing to go wrong in a mechanical sense after 6000km's though.  Not bad.  Hopefully not the start of anything either.  Starting the trek into the uncharted North tomorrow, so wish us luck - I can't work out whether the roads will be clear of snow or not?

Nasal Tourism

So what do I mean by that. Well, isn't the sense of smell a funny one, or mine is certainly. I can still vividly remember the perfume that my fourth year junior school teacher wore 23 years ago (Oh now that is a scary thought!). In fact if I smell the perfume again now I am taken back immediately to those days. With that in mind I have been loving Italy. The smells, some good some bad are just so exciting. We stayed in a "traditional" Italian campsite that had a certain something about it, and as we got out the van there was the most beautiful fragrance of freshias. It took me straight back to a wonderful holiday we shared with Mark's parents in Italy some years ago where although the flower was different, it was the same sweet and "hot" smell. The campsite turned out to be quaint but functional. I thought is was probably the worst we would stay on until last night. We had a long day driving and we were slightly bermused when the campsite that we had aimed for did not open until May 1st and this was the 30th April. So we drove on and on until on our fifth attempt to find somewhere to stay we picked a field in somebody's front garden. It was the campsite eqivalent of Faulty Towers. There were comings and goings and much loud discussion (arguement) about the quality of the cement being mixed for a job on site. And then there were the facilties! - two showers of dubious quality and no hot water and a toilet that did not really meet my English standards. "Oh well" we thought and made the best of it. Well, this morning as I walked around the building in the other direction I discovered the rest of the facilities 3 sinks for washing up, 2 basins and 2 more convention toilets. It just proves I should use my eyes more.
We have seen some beautiful sights over the last few weeks, some highlights so far include snow topped mountains peaking out of the clouds, bright yellow rape fields, terracotta houses in the Mediterranean and blue, blue skies. Talking of blue skies, where did they go today, we saw our first real rain in 19 days. That brought with that lovely just rained smell.

One last thought, we were receivers of two lovely acts of human kindness today. Whilst in Geneva this morning we were looking at a parking meter with some dismay and a very kind man stopped his car and gave us full instructions in how to use it in English. Secondly, this evening we have stopped at a lovely small French campsite for which we are paying 11 Euros. We saw it had a washing machine and decided it would be a great time to catch up on washing so we asked at reception about using the machine and paid for a wash and a turn on the drier. As, I staggered down the path with two full bags of the washing the lady met me and helped me to load up two washing machines, one being her own personal machine. During the course of the evening she has then been taking it all out and putting it in the drier and removing the dry stuff and folding it for us. All of this without a single word of English spoken, much bad French on our account and much smiling, what a lovely lady! (We have been trying to do it ourselves but every time we turned our backs she is there)

Vorsprung durch technic?

Annecy camping was choice and a bit basic, but near the lake for a nice long run.  Then Geneva for another lakeside stroll and coffee before returning to France.  Stayed in a wonderful little site in Plombieres where all the washing was done (I'm sure Fran will explain!).  Cross country through some great views, hills and valleys up to Metz - we followed some roads marked as green (sightseeing routes) on the map.

Luxembourg, with cheap fuel was next, where we stopped and took mass in a Catholic Abbey with the Gregorian monks, in French ;-o  Tried to see the "Family of Man" photo exhibition, but it doesn't do Mondays...  that's why F looks glum in the photo - nothing I'd done, promise.

And since then it's been Germany and cathedral after cathedral!  Well, Koln and Aachen.  Both well worth a visit.  Also managed to park happily without fuss right in the centre of both cities - thumbs up for that.

We're currently driving up through Netherlands aiming for the bulb fields tomorrow which should still be in bloom.  Then it's off to the Arctic wastes of scandinavia - had a taste of this as we woke up this morning in 4 degrees.  So we've had the heating on a bit in the van.  Toasty, since Fran does like it hotter than me.