Home via Frankfurt and Boston.

So our summer is over, with an all day jaunt through Europe and 397 or so e-mails awaiting my reply. I close hoping that you have been somewhat entertained by my musings, and that we will soon be talking in person, rather than by the internet. I still don’t understand how the world works, but it seems to have been doing so for a long time, and I long forward to continuing to try to figure it out as I go along.

See you all soon

Our last day in Vienna: Day 12

We had been bad tourists yesterday, all shopping and eating; minimal touring. Today, we meant to learn more about the Empire by visiting Marie Theresa’s summer palace at Schluss Schoenbrunn, see how this played out in Art by visiting the Leopoldmuseum and finish the day with a concert at Musikverein with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra and a major chorus from Spain that was visiting as part of the Spanish Music Festival. Ambitious day, requiring a subway. So off we went on our last day in Vienna.

Schoenbrunn looks like Versailles, but is really not that far outside of Vienna, which I think bespeaks the need of the Hapsbergs to keep a close hand on the levers of power in order to maintain their dynasty over the 400 or 600 years that they owned this town (depending whether you are talking about the Holy Roman Empire or the Austrian empire). Everyone agrees that the empire fell on 11/11/1918 with the treaty of Versailles. Most also seem to agree that the end of the power of the imperium was greatest under the trinity of Empress Marie Therese (mid-1700s), Metterach (a prime minister of extraordinary influence in the early 1800s), and Emperor Franz Joseph (last half of the 1800s). The summer palace served all of them, and the remains of the place give some insight into the kind of governance that Vienna enjoyed in its heyday.

Room after room of gaudy furniture filled the palace. We heard about it all via the recording that they give to you with your admission to help you understand what is going on. But the recording is no help when confronted with hoardes of tourists. Maria Therese and Franz Joseph, however, took little joy in it, other than as a means of manipulating power. Maria Therese’s husband was a kindly emperor, good for the arts, but wisely ceded the political work to his wife, who managed alliances through the marriages of her myriad daughters, encouraged industrialization within the empire and assemled the Baltic kingdoms into a world power. Much of this wheeling and dealing happened at the summer palace. Her rooms were gaudy and baroque, but one got the feeling that she used beauty as a tool of diplomacy- if you are going to be a world power, you need to look like a world power. Her heirs were not so savvy, but they managed to bring aboard Metternach who played the European balance of power like a musical instrument while the aristocrats enjoyed the finer things of life. After the revolution of 1848, came Franz Joseph a workaholic whose rooms showed his Spartan devotion to duty. His death in 1916 clearly contributed to the downfall of the empire after the First World War.

A summer palace wouldn’t be a summer palace without a garden, and this place had several. The kitchen garden was spectacular and the the main garden was big, grand and had a pavilion overlooking it that gave a spectacular view of Vienna. Did I mention again that the weather outside was perfect? So we walked the ground, now a park full of joggers and children, visited the playgrounds full of labyrinths and cools toys, and had lunch at the Gloriette. I had minced meat pancakes and Sturm (fresh wine, not yet aged, apparently a fall tradition in Austria) that were amazing. Julie enjoyed another Eiskaffee with her croissant. Afterwards, we meandered to the kitchen to watch a demonstration of the making of Apfelstrudel- strudel making is an art, and, while we were invited to try it home, I think that I will give it a pass. A long day, but worthwhile. These folks built an empire with what they had, and managed to come back after Napoleon sacked the city (twice). Coming back from the Nazi period is just one more brush with the improbable and unpleasant.

Another subway ride and we were ready for art. The Leopoldmuseum had Klimt and his lesser known kin, who tried to remake the art world in the fin d’siecle by “seceding” from the Academy and creating a more practical art, that was part of everything. The work was at times dark and depressing. But it again showed that cycle of hope, how you can build with what you have and get something better. Their spirit was nowhere better expressed than in Karlsplatz, where were found a kinetic water sculpture spelling words in falling water droplet that are pulled from the news feeds of the internet in a public park. Art can be part of life, and Vienna is still trying to figure out how.

A subway ride home, a quick change and we were off the Symphony. In honor of the visiting Spanish choir, we had tapas at a nearby Spanish restaurant (surprisingly good). Musikverein is a wonderful hall, shaped rather like Mechanic’s Hall with great acoustics and lousy chairs. The music was operatic. Act 1 was from Spanish operas of which I had not heard; act II was from Verdi, Bizet, Prokokiev and some others. All was of high quality, but as always Carmen and Aida brought the house down. The applause was deafening, and again showed the vibrancy of the cultural of life of post-imperial Vienna. They have 3 or 4 concerts like this going on every night. Just amazing.

We ended the day by sharing a 5 scoop waffle cone by the Canal. Vienna as a tourist is almost as much fun as Vienna as a wanderer.

Conquering Vienna, One Store at a Time- Day 11

We really meant to go to the museums, but the weather was nice, and there are so many pastries and shops…

Today was a day with few things on the schedule, and it really stayed that way. As I stated in yesterday's entry, it was tough to get onto the internet in Vienna. The hotel allegedly has wireless, but no ones laptop, including mine, can find the signal. So, there is a terminal on which you can rent time- but the thing shuts off without warning, and wouldn’t read my flashdrive. Finally, they let me plug into the landline- inconvenient, but it worked. All of this thrashing around kept us in the hotel until 10 AM. We thought to do a bit more of the city walking tour in our guidebook, then go to the Ritter Café on Mariahilferstrasse (recommended by our friend Charley) and then hit the Art Museums, followed by a “nice dinner” somewhere. So we headed out into the day.

The weather had cooled, and the air was crisp and clear, with puffy clouds in the skies, as we set out up toward the old part of the city. The shop windows quickly distracted us from our goal. So much fashion- Julie says that European women where clothing much more adventuresome than that of their American compatriots. I, of course, have no opinion in such matters, as I am morally certain that my wife is always the most well dressed and beautiful woman on the planet. Candy stores were ubiquitous, each with a window display more impressive than the last. We agreed on some supplies for our book group on Sunday. What is local in Vienna is sure to complement our book. Many shops were selling "antiks" (antiques) and "schmuck" (we think that means jewelry, but were not sure). Some of it was nice. We stopped in many stores, and slowly worked our way up the streets. Along the way, we found fabulous architecture (including a public restroom that was listed as a sight to see in our guidebook), some other churches (St. Peter's has a an organ concert every day at 3 PM-perhaps we can come back), ancient ruins of the Roman city preserved as they were found in the middle of a square, street musicians, and just a lot of people from a lot of different countries. Vienna is a very busy place.

After a couple of hours, we found ourselves in the center of the Austrian government, an area full of parks and museums as well as parliament and the chancellors office. Some of the roses in the rose garden were passing their peaks, but still impressive (it is “Herbst” or autumn now). We admired the statues and decided that we should learn more about them. How did this empire of Austria, which held Central Europe for 400 years, work? Why did the people of the first republic think that Anscluss with the Third Reich was such a good idea? How does the experience of empire inform your life as a prosperous democracy? How do you work with the ruins of an empire to create new and vigorous forms of art and music while keeping alive the old traditions? Austria and England are good places to contemplate what happens when empires fall.

We, on the other hand, continued our quest for the perfect coffee shop and art museum. On the far side of the Museum Quarter (a former palace now devoted to art, I think) was Mariashilferstrasse, another street full of shops and the sought after archetypical Vienna coffee shop- Ritters. We walked up the hill, staring in windows and, at each corner, saying, one more corner and we turn around. After about 1 km, we found it, perched on a five-way intersection. My stomach still only permitted tea and soup, but Julie went with the Eiskaffee and crepes with jam that were delicious. By now, it was 2 PM, and we had to decide- art museum or organ concert? We went with the organ concert, and boy was it worth it. I wanted to try taking a streetcar, our mass transit experience in Vienna thus far being limited to the Underground, and thought I had spotted a streetcar on the map. Turned out to be an electric bus, so we headed back to Mariahilferstrasse through an arch and an alley (Rule of thumb in Europe: Interesting stuff lurks in the alleys). While walking through, Julie spotted a leather coat store with a sale sign in the door that had the perfect leather coat and wore to the Symphony the next day. (see tomorrow’s blog for details), and across the way, the perfect necklace and earrings, in a Turkish shop where they opened the window to take them off display for us. After this bout of coffee and shopping, we arrived at St. Peter’s just in time to here the organ, which was mostly Bach and complemented the Baroque interior beautifully. All of this took us to 16:00, at which point we decided that we would go back to the hotel and change for a nice dinner.

I had spotted a Weinskeller that looked promising, with a Zagat tag and “Bestem im Oesterreich” all over the place. When we walked downstairs, we found a smoky bar with lots of folks drinking and a small buffet for eating. Not what we had in mind. We went with plan B: a somewhat touristy looking place advertising Weinkuche (Viennese cuisine) in a 500-year old building. We were told on entry that we might have to share a table, since they only had a 4-person table available. The wine was excellent, my soup and Julie’ s appetizer passed muster and we were just digging into some goulash and venison when were joined by a young Canadian named Caroline, who had just come from the annual conference at Melk. She was so wired after the experience: one hundred and fifty people in an intimate conference that focused on sustainable change and spiritual growth, highlighted by the Dalai Lama. She is moving from the corporate world to create an entrepreneurial media company that focuses business on sustainability; how does one extract profit while leaving a planet behind for one’s grandchildren. She spoke of speakers describing initiatives all over the world, which would allow sustainable capitalism. Of particular interest was a job creation program in Pittsburgh, founded by an African-American who has forged alliances with business to bring the “people that you give up on” into corporate life. It reinforced our sense that an ancient place like Melk can provide a catalyst for change in a world that sometimes seems to have forgotten its way.

“All that wander are not lost”, the saying goes. We wandered into some wonderful stores, amazing stories and great food amidst the ruins of empire. The key question, seems not to be “How did this happen?”, but “what do we do with it now?”.

Vienna and the Zauberflote- Day 10

Would you believe that Vienna has the worst internet connection that I have encountered during this trip? My apologies for those of you who have been used to my daily posts- I couldn’t make the internet work on Tuesday.
Transfer this time was easy. We were up at 6:30, packed by 7:30, eating breakfast by 8:00 and on the rode for the 1.5 hour trip to Vienna by 8:40. Olga and Jan were driving the bikes back to Cesty Krumlov, and then Jan heads off to Finland for dogsledding, while Olga does another trip. It was great traveling with them. The trip to Vienna was fast, until we got into Vienna. 20 minutes in bumper to bumper traffic and we pulled up to the door. Hotel Stefanie is quite nice, but it is a city hotel in the middle of a New York or London type city. Fast-paced, dirty and noisy. We were happy to see that they had our rooms ready. We are on the 5th floor, looking out over a busy street, just on the far side of the Danube Canal from the old city. We unpacked, bought a camera (nice one) and set out to explore the city.
Unlike Prague, and like Paris, London, Madrid and New York, Vienna was once the seat of an empire. It is big, and spread out. The imperial feel is reflected in the architecture; there are lots of really big buildings here, and the parks are set out to offset the massive buildings. There are statues to great musicians and lots of concerts. There is also an excellent mass transit system- we bought a 3 day pass which has already proven quite valuable. And, as advertised, lots of shopping and coffee shops. It took a little readjustment.
We wandered through the Stadt Park, looking at statues of musicians, and watching guys in wigs hawking their “period instrument” performance of Mozart. One surprise was Shrodinger’s name on the wall- he apparently went to a Gmynasium in Vienna. We identified the Koncert Haus and went to the ticket office to see was was a available on Wednesday and Thursday nights; the very nice ticketseller told us that Wednesday night was a “classical music comedian” in German and Thursday was a “Schubertfest” designed for tourists. She suggested that we walk over to Musikverein, another venue, where the Vienna Symphony would be performing on Thursday. We did so, and got tickets to the Erhoffnuffnungskonzert III. Spanischen Musicfestivals with the Vienna Symphony. Nice program, real music. By then, it had started to rain, so we hopped the subway to the Museum Quarter (yep, a whole block of museums) and holed up in a café for a bit. By this time, I was starting to feel a little queasy (several of our trip companions had a GI ailment; it seemed I was getting a mild form of it) and the rain lifted. We decided to meander back to the hotel.
A few notable sights along the way: the Stephansdom cathedral was a glorious example off Baroque achitecture. Wonderful high tower. Harry Potter VII comes out in German next month and the hype looked familiar. And we found this really cool sculpture on the site of an Operahaus that was bombed out during the war, protesting the futility and waste inherent to the war process.


After a brief rest, we were ready for the Magic Flute. We took the subway to the Volksoper, a beautiful, but much less ornate place than the National Theatre in Prague. The place was packed mostly with Germans, and there were a large number of young people in the audience. Part of the culture, I guess. The performance was magnificent- in German, no subtitles, but very easy to follow. Mozart’s genius was in enthralling the nobility while telling them that they had not a clue about life. The three boys sang magnificently, and told us that, in simplicity, one can avoid tragedy. Wonderful stuff.
We had a light supper after the opera, and then to bed. Rain should stop by tomorrow, and we have a lot of empire to explore.
New camera works well, doesn’t it?
*****Still don’t have great internet access in Vienna. May have to post the final days when we return.*****

Winding through the Wine Country-Day 9

Wine and monasteries seem connected in Central Europe. We had a great time exploring both.
Throughout this trip, I have been pondering the question of contradictions. The beautiful, fertile land has also been the site of bloody conflict, from the 30 years war and the Counterreformation to the brutality of the Holocaust. The land inspires belief in truth and beauty, a sort of calm and contentment that is stereotyped in the Bavarian gasthaus and Oktoberfest. The various bits of ancient architecture, from the ruins of the castles to the magnificent gothic and romantic cathedrals compliment the landscape and have endured. Yet these people, the height of human civilization, still house that darkness of the human soul so evident recently in Darfur and Sarejevo (just down the Danube). How does this happen? Our last ride presented some insight into that condition.
Another easy ride, they said, and in a sense it was. We had a wonderful breakfast and pedaled west, upstream to Melk. We passed vineyard after vineyard, with grape picking in active progress. Looking up, the hills were terraced with south facing grapes, mostly whites, but some reds, despite rumors that there are no good reds in Austria. We biked through several little wine towns, enjoying the architecture and the cobblestone streets (maybe not so much the bumpiness- cobblestones are quaint, but hardly bicycle friendly). The were occasional war memorials. I saw one to the First World War, and one to the Napoleonic war veterans. In Willendorf, we stopped to contemplate the finding of a 30,000 year old Earth motherish statue, a fertility goddess, that showed that the Wachau Valley has been inhabited for a long time. Finally, we crossed the Danube into Melk, and parked our bikes before learning more about the Benedictine order that build what Jan calls the most elaborate Baroque cathedral in Europe.
The Benedictine order was of the Empire (Roman, Holy Roman and Hapsberg), and the church was drawn into the argument. Benedict argued that his monks needed to fight the battle for spiritual virtue within themselves, and that really required that they withdraw from worldly life into cloisters. Melk was at the border of the Eastern Marches, and for a while served as the capital of the province of Austria. Of course, the purity of purpose soon became entwined in worldly pursuits; the monks owned a lot of land, grew food and grapes, and became a tool of state power. In fact, one wing of the monastery was designed for the Royal family, so that they would have a place to say on the Danube while visiting the area. The whole thing was refocused during the Counter-Reformation, but unlike the Jesuits who fought the Pope’s battles by looking outward, the Benedictine monks turned inward. They accumulated an amazing library, developed a school and built a gorgeous cathedral. After the fall of the empire, the monks diversified their holdings, using tourism and a slick new message about the order: “Hore” or “Listen” is the theme of well-designed museum. The income from the tourists allows 37 monks to continue thier life of contemplative teaching.
We toured the museum and the cathedral, and the buildings were beautiful. I was especially struck by the integration of new and old- frescos done in 1999, showing the four virtues and an annual “lecture” by a Nobel level scholar, whose words are scrolled and preserved in a giant Moebius strip. The message of the place helped me to tie together the contradictions of this beautiful place where so many bad things have happened. The hard part is to maintain that inner contemplation that allows you to understand the virtous life; the Benedictines have been trying to do this for centuries, and have fallen off the path on several occasions. But they still try, and it is in the trying that virtue is found. The war, for the crusader, the jihadi, the Nazi, the Klansman, is not with the infidel, the non-believer, the black, the Jew; it is a war within your soul, and it is a very easy one in which to loose your way.
After an epiphany, lunch. We bought food at several local eateries and packed them on our bicycles for the ride back up the Wachau. The other side of the river had a major hill, and a long stretch on a main road where they are building a new bike path. It will be nice when it is finished. We had a lovely view of the other side of the river, though. Some of our group boated back to Spitz, skipping the construction, and joining us via a ferry boat across a place where the Danube runs strong. It had a cable to keep it from drifting too far downstream. We rode through more vineyards and then took a ferry back to Durstein, now downstream from Weissenkirchen. Durstein has a reputation for good wine, so we stopped there to look for wine, and found apricot liquor- good stuff. We then biked our last 6K back to our hotel, reluctantly turning in our gear and preparing for our last night with the tour group, another dinner with a well connected family in town.
The dinner was bittersweet; we did a “secret Santa” sort of thing where we gave each other little gifts bought for less than 2 Euro. Julie got her initials carved in word- I got chocolate (they know me so well). It is funny for us because we still have three days in Vienna. The vacation isn’t over; just the bicycling. Tomorrow night, the Zauberflote.

The World is Flat (on our BikePath, at least)- Day 8

Today, we rode out of the hills on a perfect late summer day. Sun, bicycles, beer and ice cream. I keep saying this, but I am not sure how it can get any better.
Another transfer day. We are getting good at packing up and moving on. Woke at 6:30 today, and we actually had plenty of time before heading to the river to catch our riverboat “Stadt Linz” down the dock. When we got on board, however, it was a bit disconcerting to see some of the passengers quaffing beers at 9 AM. Leaving town afforded us one more view of the little town of Passau, and we went sailing down the Danube, a gradually widening river that is surrounded by steep, forbidding hills on either side. There were little tourist places on either side, as well as a well developed bikepath. I actually felt a little guilty that we were not riding all the way- using the riverboat seemed like cheating. It was a lovely trip. We traversed one of the locks that makes Danube navigation possible, and arrived in Engelhartszell, our drop off point for the day. We saddled up and began our ride.
The trail was right along the Danube, on a paved, slightly curvy path that allowed low energy cycling with plenty of time to admire the scenery. The river Danube is not blue, except when the light catches it at a certain angle. It was mostly brown, with a touch of green, which makes sense given the amount of farm runoff that comes in there. Lots of people on the bike path on this glorious Sunday; families, couples, kids and elders. We were riding on the south side of the river for much of the time, which put us in the shade. But it warm enough that Julie and I could comfortably ride in shorts and tee shirts. The air was crisp and invigorating, and the leaves on either side were just starting to change. That’s how perfect it was.
After 25 km, we came to Scloegen, our lunch place. On the way, we saw a campground which seemed to cater to a fairly stable clientele- many had built elaborate additions to their trailers and had beautiful gardens that must have taken all summer to grow. We saw a few boats working their way up and down the Danube. We saw additional side rivers add to the river’s size and importance. I saw a RESTPLATZ with stone picnic tables. It was a pleasant, flat ride, through a special place.
Lunch was on our our own. Julie, Pam and I didn’t want to eat in a restaurant- too many big meals. We found a bakery open, that would put ham and cheese on bread for us, so we ate sandwiches by the river and spoke of cabbages and kings. The shops in the town of Scloegen were closed (it was Sunday), except for the restaurants. Most were on the main street that ran along side the bikepath, and they had little “biergartens” across the street on the river. I counted five different ice cream places. After a walk around the town, Julie and I got back on the bikes and headed south.
The high cliff topography that we had seen earlier in the ride gave way to an open plain with rolling hills for the remainder of the ride. The route continued to be level, but this stretch was more accessible, and therefore more crowded. Reminded me of the Cape on a not-too-crowded day. After another 6K, we came to a dam, which had a bridge in front of it. Locks, too, but no one was passing through them at that time. We went by a man-made lake that had been designed for crew races- skulling is apparently something beside a collegiate event in Europe. Finally, we came into Ottoschiem, a little town with a well lit town square and a biergarten that served ice cream as well. I had both (not at the same time) and then we boarded a bus to take us 200K downriver to the next ride- the valley of Wachau and the cathedral of Melk.
The Danube may have been the route through which civilization reached Europe; for us it was a reintroduction to the ways in which a civilization can play without a flat screen TV.
The bus got to Weissenkirchen at about 6, and we were again overwhelmed by the accommodations; a house built in 1573 that has grape vines growing all over it. They make wine in the Wachau Valley, you see. We had dinner in a basement antechamber, a fabulous feast of many parts, with locally grown wine. Tomorrow, we ride through vineyards to one of the greatest cathedrals in Europe. With perfect weather focast. I’ll tell you about it later.

The In(n)s and Outs of Passau-Day 7

Even when it rains a bit, bicycling can make it all better.

So, as I explained in my last posting, the digital camera is dead. Our schedule, however, precluded a trip to a store that sells cameras until after 12 PM. Now, Europe is largely secular and the United States has very strong religious values, right? So someone needs to explain to me why all retail businesses in America are open on Saturdays and Sundays (violating the Sabbath, as best I can tell) while European shops close at noon, and are decidedly not open on Sundays (keeping the Sabbath for the God to whom they feel no particular allegiance). Anyway, the camera stores were closed and I won't have a camera until Monday, at the earliest. We were able to find a disposable camera at a drug store, but I won't be able to get the pictures developed until later. My traveling companions have promised to e-mail pictures, but you will have to rely on my descriptions for now. (Added note: Pictures posted here are courtesy of Ann and Patty.)
Today was almost a day of rest. Well, rest and a 37 km bike loop along the Inn River (hence the pun in the title). The ride was almost due south, along the western bank of the Inn river, heading out (the rest of the pun) of Passau through two little towns and a flea market. As we prepared to bike for the day, we gathered by the bikes in a drizzle, and had a long debate about the merits of a picnic or a pub lunch. We voted for the pub, guaranteeing that the skies would clear by the lunch time. Passau is a city on a peninsula, with three rivers, the Danube, the Inn and the Ils coming together to form the Danube, which, contrary to song and story, is not blue. The Jesuits built a major college and cathedral in the city- the cathedral now has the largest organ in Europe, second only to the one at the Disney Music Hall in LA. And the city floods periodically in bad ways. So we biked up the Inn river to get out of the city, a largely flat journey that required no great effort, but involved a number of "up close and personal" views of this massive and churning river.
Along the way, we made a number of nice stops. First was the obligatory stop at the gardens with the stature near to a really cool walking bridge. The stature is of a man and a woman kissing, so the couples all posed for their picture. In Vornback, we met our van (and snacks) at a fire station (the old fire station featured a knight pouring water on a burning village) and walked to a really nice cathedral, that really made me understand Baroque style (raised to heaven, impress the peasants and make them focus on the heaven ahead rather than the painful existence of the present). The cathedrals are linear (raised to heaven), and the art is pastel (and ubiquitious) and the mood is joyful triumph. Kind of like Bach's music. Jan and I argued about whether Bach was a Baroque or Renaissance composer; I think my classification is more accurate. From there, we climbed one really steep hill (no pain, no gain) and went on to Neuhaus, Germany, past a lovely old monastery and by a Saturday flea market. It was fun to see what people sold, which included old Nazi war medals. We found a few souveniers to buy and Julie replaced her reading glasses. It was fun, and I practiced my rusty German. We then crossed the river into Austria, and stopped in the Austrian city of Scherding, just for a quick walk around. By now the weather was starting to clear. It was 12:45 when we found the camera store, which had closed at 12:30. So we bought a disposable camera, which I have kept busy since, collecting a few pictures for later use. Our route got a little hectic thereafter; they were shooting a film on one of the routes that we tried to take out of the city, and there was some construction on the bicycle path that we took south. Lunch was at an Inn in Wermstien am Inn, on the far side of the cool bridge (a single span suspension- hope the picture comes out). The meal was large and heavy, but tasty. The ride back was mellow- it is good when a 25 km ride seems so short.

They gave us the afternoon free to wander the city, so we did. There were shops, but the most interesting ones were closed at noon, and the “tourist” shops stayed open. Still, I found a bike map of South Bavarian Woods, and a recording of the massive organ in Passau, which we saw but didn't hear. That cathedral was much more Baroque, and really awe inspiring: I think I would come back to hear it played. We got tired about 6, and the sun was out, so we sat by the river and read in the sun for an hour. I listened to Dvorak on my i-pod. Dinner was Italian at a place called Da Vinci’s with Wayne and Ellen from Pennsylvania. We were impressed by the large group of Italian speakers nearby, until we realized that it was a party for a baptism: a really impressive three tier cake maked their celebration.

Tomorrow we sail the Danube, for Schlogen, Aschach, Ottenscheim and Weissenkirchen in the wine country of Wachau. Overall, my impression of Bavaria is that it is a pleasant place, well recovered from the Second War, and much more affluent than the Czech Republic. Somehow, I like Czech Republic better; it seems a bit more wild and uncontrolled. I wonder what I will think of the wine country of Austria.

Crossing Borders-Day 6

The weather remains perfect. And today we crossed many borders.

Today's trip began in Cesty Krumlov on the Vlata River in Czech Republic, and ended on the Danube River in Passau Germany. 73 km, by bicycle. In so doing , we rode over the continental divide of Europe (the Vlata flows north to the North Sea, the Danube south to the Black Sea), the border between the old and the new European Union (Czech Republic still has its own currency- Germany and Austria are part of Euro-land) and what was once the front line in the Cold War (20 years ago, only military personnel were permitted into the area in which we rode). Pretty cool.

We were up early, because we were leaving Cesty Krumlov by train and didn't want to be late. It was a little chilly in town, and the mist on the river was kind of cool to watch. The van and bicycles were to meet us in Nova Pec, at the the entrance of the "Narodni park Sumova", a well-preserved part of the old forest that once serve as the natural border between Czech and Germany. The "Nationalpark Bayerischer Wald" lies on the far side of the border. According to Jan, the area is relatively well preserved because it was depopulated after WWII (the Czechs sent all German-speakers back to Germany) and then fortified the area to prevent invasion during the Cold War. Unlike the rest of the Czech Republic, some trees are still standing, and we would be bicycling through a pine forest, perfectly flat, on a recently paved path. We were cautioned to have our passports ready at the border. All this was just a 1 hour train ride away.

They promised us an authentic Czech train ride, and apparently we had one. The train broke down just outside of Cesty Krumlov, and was about 1.5 hours late into the station. Fortunately, our guides are good at filling the time with briefings of history and natural history. And wandering around the station, I found a bicycle map of the area that I bought as a souvenier. We were very glad when the train arrived. One remarkable thing that we noticed immediately was the bicycle car. Jan said that it was very common for people in the cities to take a train to the country with their bicycle, bicycle around and catch another train home. What an excellent way to promote bicycle tourism.

The train got us to Nova Pec, and we rode down a beautiful new bicycle path, through fields and by rivers to the Czech border. There were some hills to the West, but we were assured that the gentle rising slope would take us to a "gap" through which we would enter Bavaria. It was a lovely ride- no cars, a few houses, people cycling or walking, blue skies. Julie was taken with some of the fields, as the grasses had a wild, Von Goghish quality to them. I was mostly enjoying the sensation of car free biking on an "Indian Summer" day (do they call it that here?) Eventually we got the border- a gate, a house, no guards and no one to check my passport. No way to know that, 20 years ago, this was one of the most heavily defended borders in the world. No evidence of the armed forces on either side that went into defending it. The fact of the border was almost an afterthought. Welcome to the European Union. What Napolean and Hitler tried to create by force, Adenauer, Monnet and company were able to bring about by diplomacy, and Eastern Europe is clearly chomping at the bit to be part of it. Anyway, crossing the old Iron Curtain is now just that easy. Kind of gives you hope.

Bavaria is, if anything, prettier that Czech Republic, in a picture postcard sort of way. The farms are just perfect. The clusters of towns in the countryside are placed like an artist was trying to make them fit on a postcard. The crops are health and wholesome. The weather is warmer. And of course the signs are in German. The bike path was an old rail line, and gravel, but wonderfully downhill. We rode another ten kilometers, and stopped at a roadside pub for a wonderful buffet lunch (these organized tours are worth the effort, sometimes). After lunch, we rode 18 kilometers downhill to a well manicured park where the van offered us a ride to Passau, but most of us elected to ride the additional 25 kilometers into Passau, over some fantastic hills, and great views. We had an unbelievable ride down the steep streets of Passau to a tunnel and when we emerged from the tunnel, there it was - the Danube! We arrived at the hotel, on the other bank of the Danube, at about 6pm, in time to shower and join the rest of the group for a wonderful dinner (grilled trout with no bones!) at the hotel restaurant. (Unfortunately, my camera seems to have broken after lunch- none of the images are showing up).

Today, we will find out more about this town. For now, to sleep.

Bicycling around Cesty Krumlov-Day 5

Today, the clouds lifted, the sun appeared and we biked 42 km (30 mi) through the Czech countryside. It really doesn’t get much better than this.

I was so excited by the prospects afforded by a bicycle that I didn’t mention that we are staying in a very cool former Jesuit seminary in the Cesty Krumlov. I would say that it is on the river, but the way that the river winds through the town leaves little room for anyone not to be on the river. In this case, however, our room is perched above the river, and one can hear the river babbling as it goes by, which is a very nice, non-city like sound with which to wake up in the morning. The décor is very medieval, which is a little strange since the seminary was built in the Counter-Reformation, sort of between the Renaissance and the Baroque periods. After breakfast, we got our route map and our directions for the day. Yesterday, our loop went west, following one of the creeks that feeds the Vlata. Today, we headed north, along what was described as the hilliest route we are likely to get this week, ending up in the little town of Borsa na Vlata for a “real Czech lunch”, according to Olga and Jan. Sounded really nice. We went.

Riding out of town, our route took us through the Soviet-era apartments that were ubiquitous throughout Eastern Europe. A word of history will make some of this make sense. Cesty Krumlov began as a Czech town with Hapsberg rulers under Catholic rule. Then the Hussites blew threw town, followed by the Jesuits (who built what is now our hotel) and finally some very shrewd nobles named the Rosenbergs, who made a fortune in trade, beer and carp (yep, they started fish-farming around here 400 years ago). The Rosenbergs brought in Germans from Bavaria and Austria, and there were the usual Jews and Roma and Italian- court followers- by 1600, Cesty Krumlov was a happening place.

Over the next 300 years, the town gradually fell into disrepair. The carp and beer business lost their vigor, the Rosenbergs died out and the Schwarzenburgs, their successors, had nothing going for them other than their connection to the Hapsberg empire, which finally collapsed in 1918. In 1938, the Nazis moved in and the Jews were sent away. In 1945, a newly independent Czechoslovakia sent the Germans (by now, 80% of the town) packing. The Communists build apartments and tried to promote industry, encouraging people to move back into the town now half-vacant after the Germans moved out. And during the 40 years of Communist rule, the town had nothing much going for it. Just a bunch of old buildings on a gorgeous river with the largest and most beautiful Baroque castle in Czech. Come 1989, and the velvet revolution, and the entrepreneurs realized that they had a tourist attraction to rival King Ludwig’s Castle. So the town rebuilt itself as the perfect example of Baroque Europe.

Riding through the Soviet era apartments and into the countryside let us see that Communism had not, despite its best efforts, ruined the countryside. It also let us see where a lot of Czechs live. The newly entrepreneurial Czechs are trying to spruce up the apartments, to make them more colorful and less like cinder block, and it is sort of working. But the countryside, just beyond the ring of “suburban apartments” is glorious. And the network of bicycle paths is extraordinary. Once we left the industrial lands, we saw farms and woods and villages of extraordinary beauty. There were a couple of interesting hills, including one up a ravine in the woods that left Julie and I breathless, but these were countered by gentle wafting breezes and the ultimate emergence of the sun. In the farms, there were frequently shrines, a tribute to the days when the farmers held more with religion than is not the case (only 30% of Europe expresses a religious affiliation at present, a legacy of years of religious strife, I suspect).

The lunch was great, as advertised. I had baked pork and rice, Julie had fruit dumplings; both were great. And the ride home took us through some of the developing suburbs, with housing ascending in value and tastelessness as you ascend the hill. Capitalism will do that for you. Olga says that many Czechs are not sure how to deal with poor taste and bizarre aesthetics of some of nouveau riche. I assured her that the US, with it McMansions and suburban sprall, hadn’t figured that out either. We also saw a riverside campground, where Czechs camp while canoeing down the Vlata. Old fashioned camping this was- fire pits and tents. It was a glorious 42 km ride- rumour has it that we do 70 km tomorrow and I can’t wait.

We were back in town by 3 and Vermont Bicycle Tours had arranged two hours of city touring for us after that, which was probably more than we needed. Great stuff, though. We saw under the stage of one the last Baroque theatres in Europe, and got the chance to piece together the history I related above. Wonderful stuff.

As you can imagine, after our dinner at “The Two Virgins” (long story, don’t ask), we were ready for bed. Tomorrow, into Germany!