Taking a break from burning those wine calories

Carly and I just completed a week long bike trip through France & Germany, with the Backroads tour company.  Over the course of 6 days, we covered about 250km on our bikes, ate lots of food and drank lots of wine!

The Backroads tour was a gift from Carly’s family for our wedding, but we weren’t able to travel to Europe until this fall (almost a year after being married).  Well, it was worth the wait – what an experience!  The hotels were great, the food was great, and the guides were great.  Each day we would bike between 30-70km and explore a little bit of the area.

We started in southern France and biked through the foothills and vineyards.  We tried many local white wines (Riesling, Muscat, and Gewurztraminer) and visited quite a few towns along each route.

We really enjoyed small towns like this

Similar to our experience in the Netherlands, the small towns are really where we enjoy spending time and experiencing local culture.  We enjoyed this area of France much more than our earlier stop in Paris.

The second part of our trip took us through Germany’s Black Forest.  We ate Black Forest cake, and saw the traditional way of preparing Black Forest ham.  Carly and I had some trouble deciphering the menus, but still ended up eating some great food (she mostly ate spaetzle, and I tired wiener schnitzel for the first time).

To be honest, it is tough to summarize this trip into a post (there were a lot of little things that made it very memorable, like stopping for a picnic next to an old monastery) – we do want to let the others from the trip know that we really enjoyed their company, and a big thanks to Ingo & Philip!

Carly is still trying to wake up after a night of cocktails

Located on the Vltava river, Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Before our visit, all I really knew of Prague was that it is a tourist destination with cheap beer and historic buildings. I had actually mentally categorized it as ‘Eastern Europe’ along with images from the movie Borat – boy was I surprised when we arrived in a beautiful city with a very sophisticated society.

Our trip to Prague was a mini adventure in itself… Here’s our initial plan:

• Walk to the ferry
• Ride the ferry to the train station
• Take the train to the airport
• Take the plane to Prague
• Take a bus (from the airport) to the train station
• Take the train to a stop near our hotel
• Walk to the hotel

That’s a little complicated on it’s own, but add-in two wrong stations, a wrong train, and then some bad walking directions – you’d be as surprised as we were to finally make it to the hotel. Probably the best part was us wandering the streets near our hotel (looking for the hotel) and being asked by three other couples for directions. Ultimately we arrived at the hotel to find that our room had been mistakingly double booked, and were transferred to a sister hotel. This was just the start of the trip!

Tower on the Charles Bridge

Our first full day in Prague was dedicated to exploring the city. We marked out a walking path that would pass near Prague Castle, the Charles Bridge, and into the ‘Old Town’. The Lobkowicz Palace (at the Prague Castle) had an audio tour for about $30 per person, and I’d consider it a ‘must-do’ for Prague. The Lobkowicz family presents an endearing tale of their family history – having twice lost and regained their properties, first after confiscation by the Nazi party, and then later by the Communist Regime – ultimately returning to their homeland after more than 40 years of Communist rule. It looks like the museum has only been in place since 2007 (so this in some ways includes current events) and reaches as far back to 16th century. There were rooms with paintings, rifles, musical instruments, and various other artifacts from the intervening years. Apparently the 7th Prince Lobkowicz was a patron of the arts and Beethoven’s most generous benefactor.

The schedule for our second day in Prague was a bit of an unknown until Carly spotted an advertisement for a ‘Communism & Nuclear Bunker Tour’ – yes! We met up with a university student that apparently has done his homework. Since we were the only two in this particular tour group, we got to ask lots of questions and learned a ton about what I probably should have listened to in history class ten years ago (actually, I doubt much of what we learned this weekend is covered in any American history class).

Carly in a 1950's gas mask

Czechoslovakia is a relatively new nation in the 20th century – born in 1918 out of the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (WW1). What happens next I don’t really understand, but through a combination of WW2, the population seeking change, and pressure from the Soviet Union, Prague ultimately ends up under the thumb of the Communist party. By 1968, the population again seeks change (the Communism deal isn’t working out), so the Soviet Union invades Czechoslovakia with tanks and soldiers. The university gets shut down and ‘free thinkers’ are starting to disappear from the streets. There were some pretty horrific demonstrations (university students setting themselves on fire) among other drama that filled the following two decades. Basically Czech wants to go it’s own way, but the Soviets are not going to budge. Finally with the weakening of the Soviet Union and the ‘Velvet Revolution’ (velvet referring to the smooth and peaceful transition to modern Czech), Czechoslovakia is able to go on it’s happy way – peacefully separating into two new nations, the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic.

Some other interesting tidbits: our tour guide Jan tells us that for much of the 20th century, Czech students were taught Russian as part of their standard curriculum. This was replaced with English in the 90’s and now much of the population speaks English as well as Czech. He also helped us play a bit of ‘connect the dots’ between various Slavic languages.

Best of all, the tour concluded 50 feet underground in a nuclear bunker (stocked with beer). It was pretty intense – corridors and rooms all encased with cold concrete. There were over 300 of these constructed by the Czech government, and it really drives home some emotions of that era (and I suppose a reminder of the danger that all nations face to some degree from this point on).

SAIL Amsterdam sailboat

It’s been a busy few weeks, between a crazy work schedule and our move from Leiden to Amsterdam. However, we found some time this past weekend to take a 3 day sailing lesson here in Holland! And to put this adventure over the top, it’s SAIL 2010 here in the city – a unique event repeated only every 5 years that brings sailors from around the world to Amsterdam for the weekend. Hundreds of ships congregate in and around the IJ harbor, including some amazing historic replicas of massive sailing ships. The river is packed with boats of all sizes – including the locals in their various dinghies, rafts, buckets, and pretty much anything else that floats. We even saw a little boat made out of soda cans and plastic wrap.

Just taking the ferry here was an adventure – the ferry captain dodging between the hundreds of vessels just to make the short trip across the river (it’s probably less than 100 meters wide). Anyway, this weekend was definitely about sailing in a number of ways.

We started out by meeting Jim, our sail instructor from Waypoint Amsterdam, and our classmates (a local couple who were also new to sailing) at the actual boat – it had a name that sounded awfully close to ‘Ship Wreck’, although Jim convinced us that it meant ship’s luck in Dutch.

Isaac the sailor

The evening began with us motoring out into the river chaos that was SAIL 2010, and making our way to the lock that connects the river with the inner bay. Isaac got a crash course on how to steer the boat, and with him at the helm, we were off!

The first night consisted of a lesson in night sailing and navigation. We raised our sails and learned a bunch of new terms for parts of a boat (and then promptly forgot about half of them). We docked and slept under the shadow of Muiderslot Castle (pretty cool huh?) and then woke early the next morning for a long day of sailing.

Day two, we learned all sorts of stuff – how to raise the mainsail and the jib, how to tack and jibe, all the different points of sail, motoring maneuvers, how to make tea on a boat, many more names for parts of a boat, and probably a dozen other things that I can’t remember specifically. Overall, there is a lot to learn and we were just getting started, but it was a lot of fun! We docked in a new town for the evening and had some conversation over beers.

Day three, we ate breakfast on the boat and then started to make our way back towards Amsterdam. Along the way we stopped in Volendam for lunch and really enjoyed our quick walk through the town. Hopefully we will make our way back to Volendam by bike later this month for a bit more of exploration. Ultimately, Jim got us back through the lock and back through SAIL to end our journey.

SAIL chaos

Carly and I are definitely sailing newbies – this was pretty much our first time ever on a sailboat (let alone sailing ourselves), and it was a blast. I didn’t realize how effective sailboats are in pretty much any direction relative to the wind. It seems that some boats and sail configurations are better than others in certain angles to the wind (and also have their own dead zones), but it was neat to be able to sail pretty much into the wind (close to the wind) and be sailing almost at our top speed.

The sleeping accommodations were also quite comfortable – Carly and I slept in the aft berth, which has foam padding along the walls as well as the bottom of the ‘bed’. The toilet had a manual water pump that emptied directly out to the water (which meant there was no bad smell), and there seemed to be a lot of space for storage of personal items and groceries.

In general, this experience has fueled our interest in sailing (and maybe someday living on a sailing cruiser) and we hope to start our own mini sailing blog to cover topics specific to our sailing research. Next up, we’re going to look into sailing in Ohrid or nearby Croatia (while living in Macedonia). In the mean-time, be sure to check out Waypoint Amsterdam if you are looking for sailing lessons in The Netherlands.

The experience was top-notch and I believe they are one of only two RYA courses in the area.
http://www.waypointamsterdam.com/