Hluboká nad Vltavou chateau near České Budějovice from the air

This castle near the home of Budvar beer (Budweiser) is modelled after Windsor castle.

Hluboká chateau from the air

Hluboká chateau from the air with extra castle

Děčín (Tetschen) castle from the air

We left Pirna flying East along the Elbe, past Koenigstein Fortress and not long after Děčín (Tetschen) castle.

Děčín (Tetschen) Castle, with it's long ride (long street up to the castle) and the Elbe in the background

Festung Koenigstein on the Elbe from the air

This fortress is 240m above the Elbe and was used for centuries as a prison.  You can see why.

Koenigstein fortress

Schloss Pillnitz bei Dresden

Charming summer residence of the electors and kings and kings of Saxony built in baroque style in the 1720s.  More information.

Schloss Pillnitz viewed from the air

And from the bicycle

Isn't this boat fabulous

Lithuania flying photos from Kaunas to Vilnius

Our desire to camp on the airfield caused some consternation in Kaunas.  It's not that it's never done, it just isn't done often.  Luckily this meant a flurry of communication between that the tower and the aeroclub ending with us comfortably ensconced in the aeroclub's bunkroom, too kind.

Kaunas is a nice airfield and a comfortable bike ride into a pretty little town, well worth a stop.  The next day the weather was a bit damp and we were feeling a bit deflated after a somewhat stressful and noisy month in budget hotels across the Baltic and had been contemplating packing up and going West where things are simple. Luckily at that point Justinus, a TV producer arrived to fly back to Vilnius and said that it was impossible for us to visit his country without seeing Vilnius. He most kindly lent us his car and house as he was off on holidays to Egypt.

Justinus' very nice Dynamic a fast going places carbon fibre plane

The picturesque Trakai castle fortuitously lay directly en route

From this bigger scale pic you can see how Trakai's in the middle of a lake system

Justinus with his plane, I like this photo as it gives a slight impression of how active Justinus is: he's constantly performing a multitude of tasks each of which takes his full attention.

Lunch flight to Dragsholm Slot

We read a review of this restaurant in the paper in Australia and figured that Cris and Rosi's visit warranted going to a nice restaurant. So we found the nearest airfield (Kalundborg) and landed. Who would have thought how difficult it could be to get a taxi in the country. Luckily Micheal an ex-Danish jet pilot gave us a lift and told us a little about working for the Danish air force and working as a trainer in Texas, which was a fascinating counterpoint to Wolf's experiences in the DDR.

Kalundborg airfield's art

The castle was lovely, as was lunch. We ate in the bistro eatery rather than the gourmet restaurant and had the 3 course set menu. The food was very good, though I had expected more herbs and fresh vegetables in spring. Several of the dishes used a really dry, crumbled chocolate biscuit as an ingredient, which worked surprisingly well.

After lunch the retaurant manager very kindly gave s a tour of the castle, including the bones of a teenage girl who was bricked into a wall for an inappropriate pregnancy by her father. Cris took photographs behind himself as we walked away, but her ghost was not to be seen. We then digested for a while in the rhododendron garden and snacked on a few wild garlic leaves.

Starter of cured salmon, radish and cucumber from the garden, microherbs, wild garlic cheese and toasted breadcrumbs, yum

Dessert of caramel with meringue, crunchy oaty stuff, crunchy chocolate biscuity stuff, sanddorn which have a great acidity to offset the sweetness, and a yoghurt sorbet.  Sorry, too busy eating the main of shredded veal on mashed potato with chocolate crumbs and beetroot to photograph.  According to the very helpful staff we really should go back for a dinner at the gourmet restaurant and this taste of what they can do really tempts me....

Cycling south from Bonn to the spectacular Drachenfels

When we told the locals that we intended to cycle north to Cologne, they earnstly informed us that we would be much better off riding south long the Rhein, as it's one of the loveliest rides in Germany. Well I can't comment on that, but it was a truly stunning ride - many tree lined alleys and parks.
It's amazing how important hills are to making an attractive landscape, and putting castles on top of them does add to ther attractiveness, so we made sure we flew past the Drachenfels (dragon cliff) when we left Bonn.

Helsingor castle from the air

You will hear from us again and again that we flew over some amazing tourist attraction / UNESCO world heritage town, as sometimes time and bicycle distance just doesn't permit us to look from the ground.  At least we don't have to battle with crowds or pay silly entrance fees.  Below is Helsingor one of the stunning sights we sort of saw on the way from Hoegenaes to Copenhagen.

Amazing castle with the marina in the background

and Helsingor from the other side

On the way we had a look at Helsingborg from the air - the city on the Swedish side of the water across from Helsingor.  The story is that in Helsingor the Danes used to say 'do Denmark a favour, take a Swede to the ferry', as it's the closest place to Sweden  in Denmark and all the Swedes used to go over there to get drunk on the comparatively cheap alcohol.

Helsingborg harbour, Sweden

and this is the town hall in Helsingborg, again only seen from the air

Hoeganaes, the home of ceramics in the middle of a stunning natural reserve

Ever since we started researching this trip I've been just a little obsessed with visiting Hoegenaes.

The Kullaberg peninsula, a beautiful place for a bike ride.  Hoegenaes is the town in the harbour at the top left of the picture.

I can't really explain why I had to go there, it was partly to do with their Tuesday night fish grill.  But also because of the large national park on the peninsula to the north of the town.  Add to that an airfield right in town and an abundance of potters and I'm there.

We didn't stay for that long, just enough for a bike ride up to Moelle, a beautiful little harbour, beloved of tourists since some time in the late 19th century.  We also had a look at a couple of old churches and the odd potter.

Krapperup castle, note the lovely and unusual star decoration built into the building.

and Krapperup castle from the air

I thought the provision of a communal fish smoker at Molle harbour was particularly nice.  Wood and lighting materials are stored under the nearby table.

This was a really  nice windmill from wooden 'slates', staves.

As to the history, Hoegenaes has a very large coal deposit that people started mining in 1780.  Having abundant fuel the region developed into a centre for industrial and art ceramics.  Traditionally the area produces salt glazed pottery, a dark brown shiny pottery which is fired for much longer than stoneware and is a lot harder and was used in the past for water pipes etc.

But I'm going to put up a separate post for ceramics!

Egeskov Slot (castle), so good that there is a scale replica in Japan

Julian's sister Clare had a week free, so she and her boyfriend Guntram decided to see some of Denmark with us. So we brought out the big guns, Egeskov castle.  The plan was to pick them both up at Flensburg on the German border, about 45mins flight away and fly them up to Egeskov. The sun was shining & the weather looked fanstastic from our camp at Morso, so we just hoped in CGOL for the hour hop south. And the horizon just kept getting grayer. 

Egeskov castle from the air as we came over, as you can see it's a bit misty.  Otherwise note rose gardens to the left, hedge maze to the top right and Renaissance gardens hidden below a bush to the bottom right

Castle with excellent topiary in the foreground - the first peacock I've seen.

Anyway next day we managed to pick them up, by which time the weather was stunning again, so we had a good look at Egeskov's most impressive gardens: renaissence (fleur de lys shaped), rose, kitchen (in four sections including medicinal), vegetable, hedge maze, old hedge maze, deer park, etc. etc. Until 1962 it was a normal castle with the usual problem of agriculture not bringing in enough cash for the upkeep so transforming the until then rather pedestrian gardens into something special and opening the whole place to the visitors was an inspired move. 

The treetop walk was one of the best I've ever been on, as it felt like an old school suspension bridge in a Western, whilst being really quite solid

And this is the engineering holding the bridges up...

Guntram and I lost the race to the centre of the maze

Clare & I in the middle of the herb garden

With all the recent rain, the question on everyone's lips was: what about the harvest, as the wheat had been looking very ripe.  So at 9pm the questions was answered....

Note harvester behind my head in this idyllic picnic scene!

Unfortunately for Egeskov dew point was reached not long after this (about 10.30), which on the other hand was great for a peaceful night's sleep for us.

 The following day the weather was bad again so we looked inside the castle and at the enormous car, motorcycle, bike museums. Since we were a bit tired of camping beside a main road (we just pitched our tent next to the plane as it was raining when we landed), we decided it was time to move on to Samso.

Amazing old bicycle

Another awesome 3 wheel scooter based car that I'd never heard of before, the Trojan.