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Trying to Leave Germany

25/7/2019

By Bea
I know what a first world country looks and feels like, I grew up in Australia, the USA is first world. Germany has no right calling itself first world or comparing itself to these countries. It is SO more civilised than those, its off the charts. It has cycle ways and I don’t mean paths I mean complete networks with their own lanes, road signs and traffic lights and not just in the cities but in every village and hamlet as well, and not even just there, they link every village, hamlet and city, its amazing. Its towns, especially in Northern Germany are beautiful.

Arriving from Helsinki we spent the first night in Lübeck expecting to leave early the next morning... we didn’t. We realised this wasn’t a town to be breezed through so we booked an extra night. I commented at the time, ‘no town deserves to be this beautiful’, even when its overcast and cold it was stunning.

From Lübeck we headed to Münster, the closest town to the auto yards, for a totally utilitarian stop. Munster is a wonderfully laid back, 1200 year old, university town, The city centre around Prinzipalmarkt is especially beautiful as is the green park that rings the old town.
Having cycled through the old town and around the parks on our new bikes (oh yes another van essential) we continued our ride along the picturesque Dortmund-Ems canal back to Dülmen where we would pick up our van and head straight to Denmark.

This is when the ‘Sorensen Effect’ started! Mike is an architect friend based in Margaret River- www.sorensenarchitects.com.au, He is also Pete’s snowboard buddy for our trips to Japan.
Mike spent many years in this neck of the woods, and in fact, met his wife Britta here. He has a history here and a deep passion for its towns and villages.
Casual emails became lengthy essays on where and what we should visit and why. ‘You gotta go to Plon it’s a really pretty lake area, oh and from there north west to Bergenhusen, a little village famous for its storks (and I worked there) then on to Flensburg, a wonderful port city on the Danish boarder.. oh and call in to Momo and say hi to Malene...’
Unfortunately Mike was right, every town and village he suggested out shone his waxings.

From Münster we headed north past Hamburg (sorry Mike) to Plon. Which did in fact, turn out to be a ‘really pretty lake area’.

Locals were enjoying their summer, paddling, rowing and swimming in the lake. We selected a campsite on the lake and took the opportunity to test - compact camper life! We spent the next 2 days, walking and cycling from picturesque rural landscapes to off road woody tracks and lakeside paths. Unfortunately in the afternoon, just after buying groceries, it began to rain as we cycled home. I tried to protect the cardboard carton of eggs but needless to say the eggs survived but the carton didn’t!

From Plon it was on to Bergunhusen (as per Mike’s recommendation). We found a campsite in a small town just outside called Suderstapel (also has a population of storks). We were given a fantastic campsite right down on the riverside.

Once set up and again went for a walk around this tiny town, I pointed and laughed saying “look at their ‘sculpture’ to the stork. It is so typical stereo type. A flag pole with a nest on top, with a stork on it...” just as I finished ‘monument’ moved, they were in fact purpose built stork nests. The next morning we visit to Bergunhusen (15 mins down the road). Wow, what a beautiful town. The ‘monuments’ to the storks were everywhere and all had several storks habituating them! They certainly had their fair share of these birds. The town itself was quaint and peaceful.

As we continued on toward to Flensburg, we notice several horse and carriages, then saw more in the yard of an old farm house. We pulled in to ask what was going on and discovered that it was the national championships for horse and buggy teams. Teams had come from all over Germany to compete in time trials through a services of obstacle courses. These teams of 4 horses and 3 riders were amazingly agile through the very complicated courses, it was amazing to watch. Funny what you bump into when you have no plans!!

We arrived in Langballigau, a quaint seaside village just outside Flensburg, in the early evening. After setting up, we had planned to go for a run but instead walked around the boat harbour and along the jetty stopping for local bevies and, being a seaside village,... local seafood snacks.

The next morning we drove into Flensburg, as we reached the centre, we noticed a camper van parking sign. When we pulled up, we realised this was one of those free overnight stops - bonus! We parked the van and went for a walk into town.
As Mike had described, Flensburg is a lovely old port town on the Baltic side. The old town, with its pedestrian streets lined with cafes, gently rolls down to the dock filled with wonderful old sailing vessels, all still in use.

We strolled up to Momo, an organic food purveyor that also does wonderful, and popular organic lunch bowls, to surprise Malene. She couldn’t believe friends of Mike and Britta would just walk through the door, it was great.
We spent the rest of the day exploring the town and its rum history! Then returned to Momo the next morning to stock up with organic produce.

Finally, after more than 2 weeks trying to get out of Germany, we made it to the Danish Boarder.
If we keep finding places like these we may never get to Cape Town!!

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Intermission

22/7/2019

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Act two had always required a camper van. The initial plan was to get hold of one in Helsinki then touring Scandinavia in an anti clockwise direction before heading through the Baltic states, into the Caucuses and beyond. Unfortunately the world is yet to become anarchic and nations still have stupid rules about ownership and registration etc of vehicles so after some intense research we found that the best place to buy a camper van was in Germany where at least one company could also register and insure it for us.
Hence we found ourselves not in Helsinki but in a small town outside Dortmund next to the Dutch border.

We left St Petersburg on the overnight ferry bound for Helsinki. Our ferry experiences amount to the Rottnest Islander or the ones that cross the English Channel. The ferry we found ourselves on this time was more like a cruise liner (not that we’ve been on one of those yet) it had three bars including a sundeck bar* three restaurants, a cafe and an evening cabaret show.
* with howling arctic gales it was more of a freeze deck, but that didn’t stop us rugging up for an Aperol spritz!!

We treated ourselves to dinner at the ‘fine dining’ restaurant. A buffet dinner, with screaming kids didn’t appeal. We booked early and got a window table and enjoyed a relaxing steak dinner for not much more than the buffet.
Having never ‘cruised’ before we adjourned to the cabaret lounge for cocktails and a rather splendid(ish) floorshow!!

We arrived in Helsinki early the next morning and were transferring to another ferry, late afternoon, for our onward voyage to Germany. Helsinki has numerous ports, so, after passing through immigration, it was a tram, train and bus ride to the other side of town and the port we were leaving from.
The port itself was in the middle of nowhere but the bus had passed through, what looked like, a rather pretty seaside suburb. With time to kill, we caught the bus back, bought some picnic food for the voyage and strolled back through the suburb, along its beachside promenade, past its quaint boat club, up its well manicured stream, past its challenging links golf course, through a small logistics zone and finally to the ferry terminal in time to board a much more utilitarian ferry to Germany.

We arrived in Travemunde late evening and as there was no accomodation available there, we caught the bus to a town down the road called Lübeck. We woke the next morning to realise that Lübeck deserved more than a transit stop... but more on that in the next blog... We headed to the station to enquire about tickets for our onward journey...damn its expensive! It was actually cheaper to hire a car, so that’s what we did. For the first time in months I got behind the wheel, for the first time in years it was on the wrong side of the car!! Tentatively at first, ie why turn left when you can make three right hand turns, we headed toward Münster in northwest Germany.

We knew of a dealership that could assist with the purchase of the camper van but felt it prudent to check around first. The first place had a couple of options- a 1980’s brick that would have been fine for the antiques road show but not for us! The second place had an ok van, not really what we were after but adequate, unfortunately even if we bought it that day it was 7 week delivery...no chance!! We finally went to our original dealership and OMG they had the exact van at the exact price, perfect, and they could register and insure it so we bought it. It’s 10 years old, white and the paint work needs attention but it’s only got 76,000kms on the clock and seems to run ok.

The van was unregistered, so while the dealership arranged that and the insurance we had few days to busy ourselves with fitting it out with the essentials: bed linen, towels, cutlery, crockery, photo frames, BBQs, toaster ovens, outdoor furniture, decorative solar outdoor lights, French press coffee pots and a well stocked bar. Just over the boarder in the Netherlands is a a store called oberlink.... it is caravaners version of Hamely’s... thousands of sqm of everything for camping and caravanning, we visited it more than once!!

Ten days after leaving St Petersburg. We now had the van and it was kitted out all we needed to do now was leave Germany and head straight to Scandinavia!

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St Petersburg

8/7/2019

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By Pete
25-29/06/2019
Sorry for the delay in transmission, but as the stage is reset for act 2, we have realised we never finished the final dramatic scene of act 1- St Petersburg!
St Petersburg, what can I say but... awesome. It’s a grand, self confident, port town.

The majestic mansions that line the canals reflect it’s status as a significant centre of commerce and trade.
The abundance of theatres, there is one almost every block, some grand like the Marinski and the Alexandrinsky others more contemporary, resonate its cultural heritage.
And then there’s the magnificent Hermitage and Petergof, the seats of royalty and power.
Despite this grandeur it is essentially still a port town, it is more relaxed, accessible and at more intimate scale than the overwhelming Moscow.

You do not have to scratch too deep, however, to discover bohemian layers.
During “white nights”*, while world renowned operas and ballets are being performed in the establishment theatres, busking bands draw crowds of locals to the main drag and the surrounding bars. Older canal side buildings have been converted to vibrant creative communities with studios galleries, bars and venues.

*White nights is two month festivities in St Petersburg coinciding with the summer solstice. It’s a great time of year as it never really gets dark so the local get out and enjoy the sunshine, long days and endless evenings. Every where you turn there are beer gardens or bars spilling onto the streets, busking bands and gatherings in parks. I got serious FOMO walking past watching them celebrating life ;-)

The food scene reflects its confident, relaxed vibe with a good selection of quality casual bars, cafes, restaurants pumping out delicious innovative locally influenced dishes. We could only sample a couple but our meals at Hamlet and Jacks, Tartar Bar, Birch and Smoke BBQ were fantastic - others such as harvest and Repa have similar reputations.

There are some places that are a must see sites of course the Hermitage being one. Wow! This is the one place in St Petersburg that just makes you feel small. It commanding presence in the palace square is quite humbling (pretty sure that is the intent). You can’t help but be in awe.
They say you can spend several days inside especially if you are an absolute art buff. The museum itself houses several exhibitions including fine art galleries from French, Russian, German and Dutch artists, historical antique collections from Rome and Egypt as well as a series of replica period interiors from the grandeur Russian periods.

Pete was mainly interested in the actual palace interiors and the replicas so we spent a good few hours wandering through the various halls admiring the grandiose interior design. You can see why the peasants revolted that’s for sure!!

Another must see is Petergof, the grand summer palace of Peter the Great. There are various sections in the palace, the Upper Garden, the Lower Garden and the Palace (museum).

Unfortunately the Palace museum was closed so we spent a few hours wandering the leafy oasis of the lower garden admiring it’s magnificent collection of fountains. I have not seen so many in the one place. Each one having a special theme. I visited SP a few years ago in winter and I was brought here, however at that stage it was all covered in snow. Whilst it was a beautiful sight, you could not go around the gardens. So it was such a pleasure to see these fountains in summer.

After a couple of people had recommended we should do a canal boat tour, we found one that had English commentary. This tour lasted 1.5 hours and I was amazed at how many canals SP had. It was a great way to see the city and get some insight into the various buildings.

The boat tour finished just outside the Faberge museum. This is the restored Shuvalovsky Palace and is magnificent. It houses the worlds largest collection of Feberge eggs and a collection of household wares of the Royal family and aristocracy.

The other aspect of St Petersburg that just blew us away was the incredible foodie scene. We were fortunate to have some good (well informed) foodie friends in Bangkok that gave us the tips of must visit places. We almost conquered them... we will just have to come back!

One of the first places we ticked off was Smoke BBQ. We were hanging for some good smoked bbq food and it didn’t disappoint. They served your usual bbq fare of ribs, brisket etc but they upped it with their starters and the presentation and taste was up there with any degustation restaurant. We had a delicious dish of smoked beetroot, beetroot purée and a sour cream foam.

Hamlet & Jacks is a modern, casual restaurant that has a degustation menu (tasting plate menu) called “10,000kms”.focussed on all local ingredients from along the trans-Siberian. Quite fitting we thought! The meal was accompanied by a Russian wine pairing, it was an exceptional menu. Some of the dishes being marbled beef tartare with mushroom broth, goat cheese and cow berries or a cornmeal porridge with smoked wolffish, crab bisque and porcini mushrooms.

Birch was another on our hit list. Unfortunately by now, we just could not fit in another tasting plate menu. Shame as it looked amazing. We were seated at the bar in the open kitchen and it was a hard decision but we opted to share Kamchatka crab and zucchini, red caviar and tomatoes and marbled beef tataki, pickled beetroot, truffle pesto and ponzu. Followed for mains of veal, morels and caramelised onions (this was to die for!) and veal cheeks, mashed potatoes and pickled vegetables. Absolutely sensational.

We found a quirky bar to have some after dinner drinks. Run by 2 young locals and only sitting about 10 people. There were several people sitting around the bar and they encouraged to come in and sit down. It was a fun night laughing and chatting and people buying us drinks!

Tartar Bar was booked for lunch for our last day (the only time left). I just love tartar so I was looking forward to this. Again, it was a casual setting, modern and funky design. The highlight dishes, obviously, were their contemporary riffs on tartar. Again another hard decision on the menu but we shared a venison tartar and an in-house special of beef with Parmesan for starters, then for main another hard decision but we shared venison fillet with couscous & carrot cream and grilled monkfish with fried spinach and tomato salsa.

St Petersburg is an incredible city. One on the top of our list. It was a great way to finish our Russian expedition. You could easily do the sites of its tourist attractions in a couple of days but to really experience St Petersburg you need to immerse your self in it, especially during white nights. We will definitely be back for some more immersions therapy.

Boarding the overnight ferry to Helsinki drew the curtains on ‘Act one’ of our adventure -Asia.
Act two awaits!!

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Moscow

2/7/2019

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By Bea
21-25/06/2019
I spy with my little eye, something beginning with “T”..... yup trees! Trees, trees, trees and more trees. I don’t know I expected of the Siberian landscape, it certainly wasn’t thick forrest that’s for sure! Occasionally a small village would quickly appear, seconds later more trees. Luckily the spring wildflowers had bloomed adding a lovely, refreshing, splash of colour to the green hues.
Although Siberia is known for its bears, beavers, deer and elk - no wildlife was to be seen. I intently looked out the window hoping to get a glance at something but all I saw was a fox, a few eagles and a variety of smaller birds.

The Perm to Moscow leg was our final journey together, our posse would separate in Moscow, Karen flying back to Bangkok while Pete and I complete the last of the Trans-Siberian route to St Petersburg.
This was a 24 hour journey and I wanted to make an effort. Opting out of the dining car, we took along a picnic dinner of traditional Russian goodies: rye bread, smoked salmon, cream cheese, red caviar, pickled herring, beetroot salad, a herring salad a bear pate (which we forgot to open) and vodka. Washed down with individual bottles of bubbles and gin & tonics. On the iPad we watched “To Russia with Love”... Party time!

Travelling by slow train gives you the opportunity to engage, more deeply, with the locals. Russians are so much nicer than the evil villains of all those Cold War spy movies, though some of the guys are built like them and have the cool accent. They are actually a very jolly lot, eager to chat and quick with a joke. There is still a distinguishable generation gap, generally the younger, post soviet, generation are more open, friendly and jovial, the older ones can take a little longer to engage. In the end though you get a smile and a chuckle from all your travelling companions. They always want to share their provisions, find out where we’re from and what we thought of their country.

On one of our shorter journeys, on an open third class carriage, we met a group who didn’t speak a word of English and whilst we had internet we used ‘conversation’ in google translate. We had so many people all down the carriage laughing along at the attempts to communicate with us. It was a lot of fun.

KC has been continuing her online Russian lessons. She is very willing and eager to try her skills. The funniest moment - calling the waitress stupid instead of perfect!
She also has resigned to the fact, quite graciously, that she is Australian. We point to KC and say England and then us - Australia. Australia causes so much excitement, and responses like “kangaroo” or “Dundee Crokodill”, that England is forgotten. One guy said he is really hoping to go to Australia, when KC asked why - he said because they have good beer! If they speak Australian, we do try to explain, one from England, two from Australia but we all live in Thailand through this is quickly brushed over and we are all Australian again. Poor Karen, we’ll have to start calling her “Kazza”.

Arriving in Moscow and you suddenly in modern, wealthy, capitalist, Russia. While east of the Ural’s the old soviet era lifestyle is clearly still visible, here it’s all but extinct, washed away by the monumental tide of free market economics. There are more BMW and Mercedes than I have ever seen in one city Maseratis out number Lada’s 10 to 1. The grand pre and soviet era buildings that line the boulevards have been renovated into offices and uber luxury apartments, streets are lined with fashionable bistros and cafes, or designer label outlets. It is Grand, its Impressive and its daunting.

We arrived on a Friday evening, at peak hour, so decided that the metro was the best option to get to our accomodation. A little difficult as KC had a wheelie suitcase, as opposed to the backpacks that Pete and I have, and Russian metro stations aren’t particularly suitcase friendly. She got a good work out at each station.

After a few hiccups we eventually found our apartment. It was now Friday night and we needed drinks...and dinner. Luckily we were staying in a very hip area, so finding both was not difficult. We settled on a bar close to us where had a few pints of German beer and grazed on shared plates of local treats.

While Pete finalised the last blog the next morning, KC went out to explore. By the time we met up with her later she had discovered some interesting streets and sights around Red Square so, with KC as a tour guide, we retraced her steps.
The entrance to Red Square was blocked off by military police, as it was, bizarrely, when we first visited back in 1993. The reasons though could not more starkly show the cultural change. In 1993 it was because Yeltsin was sacking parliament and the older generation were protesting against social change, today it was blocked for a ultra-HiSo wedding!

We made our way into the square via a back route and sat down for a coffee and cake and people watched for a while. We dodged the minefield of tourists taking numerous selfies and photos around the magnificent cobblestoned square, taking our own photos of the incredible architectural panorama of Lenin’s tomb, State History Museum and the big towers and colourful domes of St Basil’s, still the icon of Moscow to me.

From Red Square we headed to Zaryadye Park, recently created on the site of the old Rossiya Hotel on the banks of the Moscow river. This compact park includes various buildings including theatres, restaurants and a canter-levered walkway that boomerangs out half way across the river, a great piece of engineering and architecture. The park is well designed and has created a splendid community vibe and, being a weekend, the locals were out and about making the most all the aspects of their park. The public address system hi-lighted the atmosphere announcing that drinking, smoking,..and being sad were not permitted in the park, nice touch.

The General Manager from Eat Me in Bangkok, Maria (who is Russian) recommended a cafe nearby called Dr Zhivago, where we enjoyed a late lunch. It was very quirky. Neo-Old fashioned theme with typical Russian food - which was very good! Sipping on our Aperol Spritz (the in-drink in Moscow) we had various blinis (Russian pancakes) of lamb, game and fish followed by a crayfish julienne (ramekin pie) for me, salad and more blinis for Karen and grilled monk fish for Pete.

One of my most enduring memory of our visit to Moscow in 1993 was the ornate metro stations so I was relieved to see that they haven’t changed, except for the addition of English language signage which, to be honest, took a little of the fun out of getting around. Last time we would come up English words that look like the Cyrillic station names. The stations are magnificent temples to the working class, each station having a different story or theme, one for the farmers, another the athletes or the martyrs. You could spend a day hopping on and off at metro stations just to take photos! At one station, much to Karen’s embarrassment, Pete and I tried to recreate Joanna Lumley's 1960’s photo shoot. People to stare at us... not sure why I was standing in the middle of the platform wearing a blue plastic raincoat looking up!

Another vivid memory from our first visit, was eating an ice cream in the snow in Gorky Park, so we headed back there partly for nostalgia and partly because I wanted an ice cream. It was heaving with people enjoying the lovely, warm, summers day. We had a bit of a walk around, Pete swooned over the new contemporary arts gallery and I of course bought ice cream.

There was a free classical concert in the amphitheatre of the Zaryadye Park, starting at 6pm, so we left Gorky Park and headed back. Unfortunately, after sitting on wet seats for 30 mins watching a famous black & white Russian war movie, I found out that the concert would start after the movie, 8pm. Given we couldn't understand the movie, we didn’t hang around. None of us were that hungry so we decided to picked up a bottle of wine and some snacks and took them back to our apartment.

The next day we strolled down the streets of one of the more exclusive areas of Moscow, past trendy cafes, restaurants, Mazarratis and Porsches on our way to the Kremlin. I suppose the Kremlin is a ‘must do’ in Moscow, as it is the founding site of Moscow and the ultimate symbol of political power in Russia.

We had prepared ourselves for the onslaught of tourists, thankfully the process wasn’t too bad and the throngs weren’t so intimidating. I have never seen so many churches in a confined area as there was inside the Kremlin. The Kremlin is enclosed by 2.25km of high walls and houses 5 churches. It was pretty amazing. After about two hours, and after a brief moment wondering whether Pete would be arrested or not after he wandered into an out of bounds area, we headed off.

Pete was keen to revisit Zaryadye Park as he discovered, on leaving the previous day, that the enormous dome actually houses an indoor park and wanted to check it out. We decided to grab some lunch in one of the cafes in the park. Just a light meal as we had a special dinner planned that evening.

The restaurant White Rabbit has been on our hit list for some time. It is number 13 in the San Pellegrino Worlds Top 50 restaurants and we had been recommended as a must visit! Luckily we had managed to get a booking. It certainly didn’t disappoint. What an experience. The food was sensational and easy to see why it is number 13. After taking the tasting plate option, we were undecided what our favourite dish was. Was it the crayfish, short ribs, burnt cabbage or milk and foie gras. A perfect way to celebrate the end of our travels together.

KC was heading to the airport at 3.00pm the next day and, as she really likes Georgian food we, followed a recommendation of a local friend, and headed to a nice Georgian cafe for lunch.
After lunch, we said our goodbyes to KC who was sadly heading back to Bangkok. We have certainly covered some miles together on this epic journey, 10,000km across 7 time zones, Russia is without a doubt- massive. It was great that KC could join us on this part of our travels and after 3 weeks we were all still talking, surprisingly, since we were with each other 24/7 with several 24 & 30 hour overnighters in the same compartment!

Having fair welled Karen, Pete and I moved from our luxurious apartment to a hostel closer to the train station and settled in to a 7sqm room with no air conditioning, as opposed to the 25sqm with air conditioning that we booked (sorry mistake on website!!!!)... budget back on track!!

That evening we caught up with Maxim, an ex-colleague of mine from my TopTalent days, who heads up the Moscow office. It was good to catch up with a local who gave us some extra tips for our time left in Moscow and also for St Petersburg. After our drinks, we headed off to visit the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. It was massive, definitely worth the walk. It sparks a love it or hate it reaction from the locals. It is described as grandiose and gargantuan. It was completed in 1997 in time for Moscow’s 850th birthday.

From there we walked down Gogolevsky Boulevard and Tverskoy Boulevard, both these stretches are a narrow park land strips stretching approximately 6km. Gravelled pathway and grass on either side, dotted with small playgrounds and art exhibitions along the way. Even at 9.30pm it was well populated with locals drinking wines and generally hanging out enjoying the warm, late Moscow evenings. Tverskoy Boulevard sparked a sense of de ja vu, we felt this was an area we had walked some 27 years ago, but then it was covered in snow, need to check the photos when we get home.

In a final act of reminiscence we found the first McDonalds store in Russia. We visited this store in 1993, back then we wanted to queue with the locals, just to say we had done it. At that time it was the largest Maccas in the world, today it is still the largest in Asia. It has changed - just a bit!

Unfortunately we are travelling to St Petersburg in peak season and all the high speed trains were sold out, unless we wanted to go business class at over $300 each - niet!!! So the only option was a slow 9 hour journey. Oh well it was cheaper and gave us time for some more trees. All aboard for our last journey in Russia!

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