Germany: Return to Koblenz

        Leaving Paris and traveling to the German city of Koblenz was both a gloomy and welcomed change. One can get used to the active life in such a large city, but being from Windsor, a small town by comparison, one longs to be close to what is familiar. Many people from Windsor can be negative when asked to describe their hometown. However, Windsor is of the best places in the world in our opinion. As Rob likes to say, “Windsor is a geographical anomaly- four hours from everywhere”. (Points to anyone who recognize that reference.) Within a short time one can travel from Windsor to great cities like Toronto, Chicago, and Amherstburg, or beautiful, natural parks, or enjoy the farm and wine country; we have a reasonable cost of living, super restaurants, an expansive waterfront park, and an active downtown music and art scene.

Ted shares a drinks with Rob

   In many ways Koblenz is much like Windsor - it is located near many great European hot spots and offers excellent unique cultural experiences including outdoor ones all of which brought us back for a second visit. Like many Germans, the Rhineland people are proud of their country and are quite willing to share the greatness of their homeland with visiting guests. 

Dog owner at Bahnhof

   Detlef - or Ted - our German host, very much exemplified these characteristics. As always he picked his guests up at the Koblenz hauptbahnhof  (train station), and welcomed them with a beverage such as a cold Koblenz beer, a schnapps, or a coffee with a homemade dessert. Like many Germans, he loves his dog Mason and treated him as a favoured child (Germans appear to be very fond of dogs.  They are well trained and welcomed everywhere including malls, marketplaces, cafés, and even on trains).

Castle tunnel over highway

   Koblenz is located on the confluence of the two great rivers - the middle Rhine and the Mosel. In 2006, the entire area was named a UNESCO world heritage site as both these rivers offer great cultural experiences, scenic architecture history, and excellent outdoor living.  Six years ago during this very week both Beth and Rob hoped that one day they would return to sip the popular Riesling wines, and perhaps pedal the bike trail that meanders along the 160 km Mosel river bank that extends from Trier to Koblenz.

Cochem Town Square

Castle peaked town

   As biking was not feasible with the sudden change in season, renting a car was the best option. To obtain the best rental car price Ted connected with friends in the business while Rob searched popular websites at last locating a Volkswagen Golf with unlimited mileage and a GPS for 48€ 8per day. (Oh joyous GPS!  The extra 4€ per day was worth every penny as it reduced the stress for both Beth - & hence fewer fearful gasps- and Rob as it provided verbal prompts and a clearly outlined map to help him navigate through steep, winding streets and autobans.) 

The town of Kues across from Bernkastle Castle

Castle grounds

Kues riverfront

   Along any given stretch of the Mosel you may find yourself speeding almost limitlessly for a few kilometres through a forested river valley intermittently broken by vineyards of Riesling grapevines terraced on a southern facing slope.  Then, with only a moment’s notice, you must drop to 30km/hr to mosey past a town consisting of  many-century-old half-timbered houses, now occupied by vintners, grocers, bakeries, pubs, and residents that have lived their entire lives within this narrow half kilometre boundary nestled beneath a castle-peaked hill.

   It was in one of these little towns that Rob and Beth stopped at for their evening meal when they found themselves captivated just before receiving the dinner cheque. An elderly German couple, wishing to share a glass of wine and conversation, asked to seat themselves with these strangers to their local haunt.  Neither one spoke a word of English.  Beth and Rob could only use a rudimentary amount of German needed to perform social tasks such as ordering a meal, or in this case, accept the request extended by the couple.  The twenty minute visit consisted of Rob and Beth trying to comprehend the slightest bit from the stories the smiling, happy Germans told while responding with toddler-level German supplemented with abundant charades that helped also to break up the inevitable silences.  At evening’s end Beth and Rob understood that they had always lived in the town, had one child living abroad, and were celebrating their fiftieth anniversary. The evening ended with a celebratory anniversary drink and pleasant goodbyes.

Paris: Today's Muse...

Would you be more comfortable or more anxious if you stepped on a busy subway train to find two soldiers in full gear standing on guard carrying automatic assault weapons? Further, when you looked up and down the train you saw there were two soldiers stationed in each car of the train.

Posted with Blogsy

Paris: A Curious Incident with a Car in the Night

A Curious Incident with a Car in the Night

During one of our evening strolls in Paris, we headed off down a quite side street thinking that we would cut across to a more picturesque street. As we walked along we came across a car with a broken window. We surmised that it was a recent break-in as there was glass all around and the window was still wide open - seemingly not yet noticed by its owner. As we walked further along we became aware of several men, dressed casually in jeans and leather jackets, moving urgently around the street and wondered if they were the men who were responsible for the theft.

We shortly came across another man sitting on the curb between two cars trying to look inconspicuous (or so we gathered) with a large grocery bag beside him. Just as we passed him, the men in jeans swarmed him, identified themselves as police, and before we knew it he was pressed up against the wall being frisked and handcuffed.

We just stood and gawked along with the only other pedestrian in the street... what more can one ask for in evening entertainment when travelling?

Paris: Une Journee Typique

Une Journée Typique

Our pattern of daily life in Paris took on a rhythm similar to Saturdays in Windsor with, of course, a European flair. After a breakfast of cheeses, bread, tomatoes, cucumber, and fruit, wheaded off to explore small corners of Paris. Some days we walked a neighbourhood lined with the classic white Paris façade buildings, while on other days we explored one of the multitude of museums, parks, or historic sites.

At some time in the afternoon we would seek out a cafe to enjoy a cappuccino and pastry while reconnecting with the world on the Internet. After our meager, but decadent, lunch we wandered around another neighbourhood taking in the sights while meandering our way home. En route we stopped at specialty stores or market stalls to pick up cheese, olives, bread, wine, wild, seasonal mushrooms, figs, fennel...whatever was local and was inspiring to us.

Back at our room we washed the vegetables (in a plastic tub in the shower stall using a microwave splatter dish as a drying colander) and prepared our evening meal by the window as it provided ventilation. Given our very limited equipment (1 electric frying pan, a few small plates, 1 chipped mug, a couple utensils – including 1 dull knife) the meals were relatively simple (eg., Ceres and chanterelle mushrooms with camembert omelette, rocket and fennel salad sprinkled with herb de Provence, figs and brie cheeses for dessert) and generally very delicious. After dinner it was off again for an evening stroll or, more often, to sit at a cafe around the corner resting our feet and relaxing with a beer during happy hour.

Paris: Rue Des Boulets

Rue des Boulets

“… in our two room flat that had no hot water and inside toilet facilities except an antiseptic portable container that was not uncomfortable to anyone who was used to a Michigan outhouse, but which was a cheerful gay flat with a fine view and a good mattress and springs for a comfortable bed on the floor, well and tastefully covered, and pictures that we liked on the walls, I told my wife about the wonderful place I had found.”  

                        Ernest Hemmingway A Moveable Feast, 1964

  It was to Rob’s great satisfaction that he was able to book online an unbelievably affordable flat located in the centre of Paris ($30 per night). The advertisement’s title indicated “A Lovely Flat in the Heart of Paris”, and was the accompanied by pictures displaying hardwood floors leading to a window opening to “A beautiful vista view of Paris that includes the Eiffel tower”. C’est parfait!

            Getting to the lovely flat from Charles De Gaul International Airport involved obtaining a ticket for the RER B train to Gare De Nord, finagling a phone call to our hostess at a network provider store, and taking two subway trains until we reached the final Metro station Rue Des Boulets.  The metro exit emerged by escalator to the intersection of Avenue Voltaire and Rue des Boulets.  A boulets, one learns from reading A Moveable Feast, is an egg-shaped form of pressed coal dust that in days past was heated in coal stoves or boilers. 

 

The street itself was pleasantly lined with tall manicured linden trees, some in full fall canopy while others in slow decay. The shops that occupy the street fronts were typical of most Parisian neighbourhoods - small grocery markets, butcher shops, cafes and restaurants, tobacco shops, and bakeries. The moderate pedestrian traffic included a diverse population comprised largely of Jewish, African, Middle Eastern, and native French or European descent.  Populating the subway entrances and busy storefronts were the gypsy vagrants who held out their hands to passerbys for spare change.

Directly across from the metro stop was our host, Silvana - a four-foot tall, olive skinned woman in her mid-forties. Silvana, as described by past tenants, was both friendly and helpful. With the guidance of a primary teacher, she sequentially walked us through the security features required to enter the seven story, white facade building with iron railed balconies topped by a black metal roof. An embedded security chip opened both the immense, ornate wooden outer doors, and the subsequent, and equally immense, inner door. The marble-floored foyer opened to a staircase and a vintage caged Otis elevator. The oak paneled, coffin-sized elevator, was large enough to carry only a single rider with one suitcase comfortably. Rob carried two.  With one look at the lift Beth readily volunteered to climb the stairs that spiraled around the perimeter of the elevators’ cage with Silvanna.  Beth met Rob at the sixth floor where the elevator terminated and together carried the luggage up the remaining twenty steps to the seventh floor.

The seventh floor was comprised of one long central musty hallway with floors constructed of long, age worn, hardwood planks with the water closet and the cold water faucet that spilled into a vintage basin, calcified and corroded with age, located at the west end which was closest to our room. The brick red, interlocking tiles on the floor of the water closet alluded to a day when the building must have been quite grand. Today, after many years of neglecting cosmetic features, the remains of ancient peeling paint, incomplete patch work plaster repairs, and copper pipes emerging to display upgrades of the building’s old vasculature can be seen. Oddly, the newer and well-maintained toilette appeared out of place, but thankfully made the bathroom area quite functional and acceptable for the residents of the three roof-top apartments.

            Double door security was once again required to enter our rental flat. The outer door, worn with decades of damage, opened to a tiny foyer lined with peeling pink and orange vintage print wallpaper depicting women at a beach with parasols, old model T automobiles and steam ships.  The inner door, which contained a sturdy bolt lock that required a three-dimensional key, opened to a small half-hexagonally-shaped, white-walled room that contained three main fixtures - a bar fridge, a shower stall, and a sofa bed, the latter placed on a taupe shag carpet likely added to protect the worn wooden floors from further damage. Other minor amenities included a modified bar table cut to fit a hexagon corner space, one folding chair, a vacuum cleaner, and a three-level wire rack holding a few cleaning products and some cookware. Although we felt it could use a little cleaning, the room was quite functional for its minute size - measuring a mere 12 feet at its longest point. Beth laughed at the ease with which Rob was able to stick one cold foot into the fridge at one side of the room, reach a hand into the shower at the other end while lying across the sofa. The most redeemable feature of the room was the window, which swung open to reveal a grand view of the district, and, when one peered carefully to the west, the tip of the Eiffel tower could be seen.

 

            After Silvana handed over fresh sheets and towels at the agreed-upon fee of 20€, she inquired if all was in order before leaving until meeting again in one week for the pick up of the room key.

Iceland's countryside

ICELAND'S COUNTRYSIDE

To experience the countryside firsthand and tour the southern parts of the island, Beth and Rob rented a car. This required a re-education of European roads and traffics rules from over five years ago. It also included remembering how to drive the stick shift on the French-made Citreon hatchback.  With helpful navigational assistance from Beth using exclamations such as, “The speed changed to 50!” (there are no warnings for speed changes) or, “Here comes another traffic circle…slow down!”  Rob, with trepidation, was successful in keeping the car in one piece and the passengers on speaking terms. The clock, however, is still running on word from the car rental agency as to whether video radar happened to catch any unintentional violations of Icelandic traffic laws.

 

            Highway 1, commonly referred to as the ring road, circumnavigates Iceland. This highway allows people to get to the four corners of the island on well maintained roads. Given the time we had, we chose to travel “The Golden Circle” which is the popular southern route near Reykjavik.  Beth wanted to visit any active volcanoes in the area, which are in abundance in the southern part of the island. In fact, Iceland’s fault line position makes it the most volcanically active area in the world. One may recall the eruption of Mount  Eyjafjallajokull which interrupted air travel to Europe in 2010. Truth be told, Beth was a little disappointed that no volcano erupted while we were touring.

      The Golden Circle includes some on the most geologically active areas in Iceland. Despite this, the majority of the 350 thousand people in Iceland live in this unstable terrain as they always have. Reykjavik translates into ‘Place of Smoke’, and appropriately describes the hot springs and places that billow steam from the Earth around the Golden Circle. Cheap electricity and hot water are a couple of the benefits Icelanders gain from living in the south.  However, these benefits come with a heavy price as, sadly volcanic eruptions on Iceland have throughout history ended in catastrophe. 

Noteworthy activities we experienced included bathing in Blue Lagoon hot springs, witnessing Strokker an active geyser erupt, climbing between the fault lines in the earth preserved at Þingvellir (Thingvellir) national park, hiking up of an active mountain to see boiling mud that reach temperatures of 200°C on the very unstable abandoned farmland Krysuvik, and walking to several beautiful waterfalls that carry fresh melt water away from Iceland’s glaciers. 

 


One of the more curious observations noted by Beth was that although Icelandic horses, sheep and cats were shorter and stockier than what they are familiar with (which is likely an adaptation to the climate), Icelandic people, with their Nordic heritage, are generally tall, making Beth and Rob fit right in.  However, despite the Icelanders present day height, the historical homes scattered throughout the countryside suggested very short people.

Iceland

Iceland

   Although our original plans of travel did not include Iceland, it was fortuitous that Icelandair offered the most affordable ticket across the pond to Europe. So like the Vikings that traversed the Atlantic to Canada, we chose the same route a millennium later leaving from Toronto to Iceland’s capital Reykjavik (pronounced Ray-kya-vic). It is a very clever marketing strategy of Icelandair to offer up to a one week layover at no additional charge to encourage tourists to experience what this little island, formed by geologic events along the mid-Atlantic rift, has to offer. Considering its unique climate and the fact that it is situated amidst plates of the Earth’s crust that are drifting apart, Iceland offers a variety of outdoor activities and sites for the geology enthusiast.

The Hallgrimskirkja

Day one in Iceland began with a 6:30 AM arrival into Kelavik International Airport, followed by a forty-five minute shuttle bus to Reykjavik.  Our hostess, of French origin, informed us that our room would not be ready until 11 am. However, she graciously fed her tired and disheveled guests, with no additional charge, a breakfast that included Icelandic greenhouse grown vegetables, cheeses, meats, hard boiled eggs, and local breads with preserves.

Madame subsequently sent us out with a guide map in hand, to experience the unique features of the city. Reykjavik is very much like many European cities with the usual cafes, bistros, and bakeries. However, the cool brisk morning streets were calm and with few people milling around the corrugated metal-sided houses and buildings, with the exception of the ones that frequented the morning coffee shops. Most businesses opened after eleven, which may be due to Reykjavik’s active nightlife that begins well after 10 pm and continues to early morning. Because beer and wine are so expensive in Iceland, most locals drink at home first before heading out for the evening.  However many establishments offer “Happy Hour” to try to lure people in. The “Appy Hour” app on the iPad is very useful for locating the best of these deals!

The Sea Baron 

Some of the most noteworthy places to see in town include the dominant central church, Hallgrimskirkja, which lacks ornate details seen in other European Churches, the modern   award winning designed Centre of the Arts building or Harpa, and the old fishing docks with seafood restaurants that serve locally caught seafood including minke whale. We had our first paid meal in the founding establishment along the docks called “The Sea Baron”. This locally popular seafood “shack” lacks the refinement of newer establishments. With its cluttered seafarer paraphernalia, storage canisters seating, and vintage sailing and fisherman pictures, the delicious lobster chowder felt all the more authentically Icelandic.