Cesky Krumlov

Going south from Prague there were some thunderstorms. So we took the advice of the nice tower guys to forget about trying to reach Vienna and instead land at Cesky Budjovice for Cesky Krumlov, 'the jewel in the Czech Republic's crown. We convinced a German couple, Ellen and Eckhard, who'd landed just before us in Prague to do likewise.  The kind airfield manager lent us his car so that we could drive the 30kms to Cesky Krumlov.

Of course once we'd all landed and dealt with all the admin the thunderstorm caught up with us and we ended up spending more time hanging out in a chilly but dry bowling alley than here at the picturesque castle...  You can see the rain evaporating off the ground in the background.

You can just see the river around Cesky Krumlov

MIG bunker madness

My former colleague and friend Irene and I try to open the massive concrete doors of a MIG bunker.  With no success.  Electricity is used to close the doors and the track is angled so that if the electricity should be cut, the doors roll open.

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.

Off to Soderslatts Vellinge for Malmö and farewelling Cris and Rosi

It was a wet and blustery morning that Julian and Cris took off as the first load going south, braving the at times 70 knot winds. Rosi and I stayed behind to clean, drink tea and go for a walk along the lake. Tough, but someone had to do it!
In the afternoon, when we'd all unpacked in our field near Malmö and after having iur 3pm late lunch, we strolled down the runway between the canola fields to walk along the foreshore (and eventually get abus to Trelleborg, as the seaweed smelt rather intense). Trelleborg is a great compact little town, with massive ferries coming regularly over from Denmark. In half an hour we had seen the major sights, including a fountain of a mermaid riding a snake-dragon (!) and were ready to hit up the supermarkets for dinner. With great talent Julian an Cris managed to get all we needed and meet the last bus (6.45pm).
Sweet.
The next day we wanted to do the 30km into Malmö, but decided (wisely as it turned out) that the hire bikes from the aerclub might not make the distance. Instead we cycled onto the big sand peninsula at the souh west corner of Sweden, which has long been the location of the holiday houses of the rich Stockholmites. There is a very impressive canal across the base of this peninsula. The bike paths out there are really good and the area is worth a look. Unfortunately not long after we'd turned back the bearings fell out of the crank in Cris' hire bike, rendering it unpedallable, so the boys ended up finding some rope and Julian towed Cris the 17kms home. It was a very windy day and a lot of that was with headwind....
Then a 10 year old on a bicycle managed to shoot out from behind a hedge and I didn't manage to take timely evasive action. Sigh. So now my bike has a broken gear lever which I hope to have fixed in Berlin in 5 weeks, as it's the first place we'll be in long enough for a repair...
Crisand Rosi managed to catch a variety of busses to make it to Copenhagen airport for their onward journey to Amsterdam, so all went well.

Bodensee (Lake Constance) from the air with uncle Bill

The Colossus of.... Lake Constance???

You may have heard me talk about my Uncle Bill.  He's 78 and met my Aunt Gisi when he was 70, after both of them had lost their partners.  Neither of them was looking for a new partner, he was happy travelling and she was happy at home in Konstanz: now they're living happily ever after travelling the world and splitting their time between Melbourne and Switzerland.  They're also thinking of taking a bicycle tour along the Danube (a support bus takes your luggage for you).  Zwei haben sich gefunden.  I hope that I'm as happy and active as them when I'm their age.

The three of us underway

Uncle Bill has had a hip replacement and is currently staving off a second.  As you know our plane is not massive, but a little thing like that isn't going to stop an adventurer like him.  So we went for a tour of the lake.

The Rhine canal

And going inland, pretty isn't it?

Lindau in Austria is on the Eastern corner of Lake Constance and being a pretty little island with a middle-ages city centre attached by a strip of road to the mainland it is a real tourist attraction.

Overview of the island and its harbours

view from the direction of the mainand

one of the towers, look at all the tourists in mid September!

Gisi's house, very top centre, it is incredibly difficult to identify a house from above, no matter how well you know it.

Konstanz waterfront, with tourist boat.

Church in the centre of Konstanz

On the way back to Bill & Gisi's, we went to Gottlieben, where Gisi lived for many years and just so charming and beautiful that it is absolutely packed with tourists in the season.

beautiful half timbered inn

And a gratuitous shot of the Friedrichshafen blimp flying past as we get ready for takeoff

Back to Denmark (Kolding) for some wild autumnal weather

It seems very appropriate that I now post about Kolding, as I have a cold, again....

We met Morten, Birgitte and 3 kids right at the beginning of our trip, as we were both going to our planes to depart Bornholm, us off to Stockholm, them off for a week's holiday in Lithuania.  It turns out that 5 years ago they spent a year travelling Africa, Norway & Finland with the children.  So we had to hear more.

We had been unsuccessful at contacting them while in Denmark, so when they invited us to stay when  we were already in Berlin, we wanted to hear more about their trip so had to go back north to see them.  We found a weather window to get into Denmark, but the weather thwarted our plan of just staying for 2 nights with low cloud, wind and rain.  Morten and Birgitte spent the last 3 years building their new house on their own, and luckily for us Birgitte has converted their old house into a really lovely B&B in Sysselbjerg, which the photos on their website do not do justice.

Perfect Danish dining room in their new house: surprisingly comfortable dining chairs, extendible table and good lighting.

I really enjoyed the opportunity to see how people live and eat in Denmark.  I'd been wondering what the thin slices of chocolate sold in the supermarket were for, so was really pleased to discover that they're eaten for breakfast on white bread, something I never would have guessed.  We also had a traditional birthday party of Boller (sweet buns) and hot chocolate as a cousin was having her birthday, and even if the birthday person isn't present it's a good idea to celebrate their birthday.

Day flight to Bad Salzgitter - sleepy hamlet with great gliding and icecream

Bad Salzgitter is very active with gliders and paragliders

all four of us with the plane

What was meant to be a short walk into town....  Note Kerstin's fabulous box shaped earrings.

We tested all four icecream shops in town, this is the one that got our vote.

my inner spotter couldn't resist this old fully open cockpit glider (hanging from the ceiling).

Kerstin looking almost like she's enjoying the flight

Hannover once more

I have been to Hannover quite a few times already.  But Kerstin moved there, so it was time to go again.

with Kerstin & Gerd in the Herrenhaeuser gardens

mmm Flammkuchen, thin base with creme fraiche, bacon and onions

Kerstin did some stunning cooking during our trip, we had a day out in Hannover and all four of us went for a fly to Bad Salzgitter.

Copenhagen: design city

We met Regnar on Samsoe, he didn't have much time to chat as he was taking some friends for a joy flight out of Kopenhagen, but he pressed his address and number in our hands and said that we had to come and stay with him and his family in Kopenhagen.  Who were we to say no?

Regnar, me, Storm, Julian.  Kids always seem to be the opposite of their names, Storm is the most peaceful child you could imagine.

Landing was a challenge as we were going into the small private grass strip, Freeslev, that is right next to quite a good sized glider strip.  So we did a circle and then another circle as we tried to find the little grass strip, all the while keeping an eye on the 3 circling gliders and the tow plane that was diving back to the ground.  Finally, the airfield!  And was that people waving from the end of it???  Indeed it was.  We packed up and got moving quite quickly once on the ground, as it turns out that it was Regnar's son Storm's first birthday that day and people were coming around, no photos as I was a bit embarassed.

Kopenhagen is a fantastic city, like Aarhus it is quite compact (we were staying a half hour's bumble on the bike from the city centre), but has all the attractions of the major city that it is.  There are so many possible things to see in a city, that we decided to focus on design for this trip.  So we definitely had to see the design store, Paustian, designed by architect Jorn Utzon's (of the Sydney opera house fame).  They had all the good furniture of the last century (Le Corbusier, Eames, Artek etc., etc.) in a really well redesigned old warehouse.  Normann Copenhagen was also on the list, although its hipness was a little bit over the top.  And of course a bummel along the second hand district, which we couldn't do for long, as it was hip in an edgy, someone's going to steal my bike kind of a way (and you know how I feel about the idea of someone stealing my bike).

looking appropriately depressed (unhappy hipsters?) in the children's department of Normann

Paustian, it's hard to capture the building.

We also had a look at Christiania, of which I of course do not have any photographs: the combination of the sign at the entrance saying both pictorially and in several languages 'no photographs' with the dodgey dealers (what the English police call 'with the hood up', i.e. hoodies) that not only populated the area, but also had trestle tables displaying the 12 varieties of dope they currently had on offer kinda scared me off the idea of photography.  Christiania is quite fascinating, as it was started by hippies in the 70s as a country within a country, at that time no only with legal dope but also with normal stores etc., that just didn't pay any tax.  Liberal Denmark just let them do their thing back then and hasn't really worked out what to do now that the demographic has changed from hippy uni students to big business of the mafia kind with your usual dregs of society dealers.

Wherever we go we've been on a mission to find the best icecream.  Several people recommended the Ismageriet in Copenhagen as one of the best, so we took ourselves off on the 45 min each way journey.  Below is Julian with his well deserved icecream.  The white fluffy stuff is called guf, it's like uncooked meringue with strawberry jam very, very sweet and it really overpowered the icecream.  The icecream itself is really very good, with all the fruits coming from the local area - customers bring them in, or staff collect them.  I really enjoyed my rhubarb icecream as it had the nice tartness of the fruit.

All guffed out

Yum, Ismageriet (ice cream makers) from the inside

Regnar was a wonderful host, very thoughtful and generous.  When we left he made us a packed lunch of Smorrebrod, so that we could see what a Danish packed lunch looks like (yum sorry, too busy eating to photograph) and gave us a variety of Danish conserves to put on our Smorrebrod (open sandwiches on dense rye bread).  This included something called Rogen, which is pressed fish eggs and eaten with a squeeze of lemon and of course the lemon to go with it!  Rogen is really nice, with a good texture and a flavour like crab.  He also gave us some of the beetroot burgers he made for his work (cooking for schizophrenic men), which were really lovely.  Take 1.5kg of raw beetroot, grate it & mix it with some cabbage, onion, feta cheese, a dozen eggs, breadcrumbs, some spices and you have a really lovely vegetarian dish that tastes good to meat eaters too.  Denmark is the only country I've visited which has beetroot available in plastic 1.5 kilo bags, just like carrots.

A few of my favourite things (in Denmark)

I'm a bit behind with my blogging, but I'm sure you can still notice that we've spent a lot of time in Denmark.  Probably around 6 weeks over 3 separate visits.  So the question is what is so special about Denmark.  In no particular order:

1) The people.  They really are wonderfully kind, interesting and helpful.  Big thanks to Regnar and Eva; Birgitte and Morten; Lars, Catrine and of course Mercedes; Rune; Aasbjoern; Patrick and the many others who have helped make our trip so much fun.

and how could I leave out Legoland???

I could add a lot about the society here, but will attempt to keep it brief.  Kids are treated as humans, and have a lot of fun at school.  They often spend a year at a special school like the one we visited with Rune on Samso where they stay as boarders and get to do lots of really fun courses (parachuting anyone?).  The community looks after its kids with all adults keeping an eye out for the young and provides several great services including areas where youth can hang out with adult supervision with computers for gaming, pool and table tennis tables and karaoke machines.  Most of the local youth seems to spend time at such youth centres and to develop a positive relationship with adults not their own parents.  There are also special morning screenings at the cinema for mothers: the babies are left in their prams outside the cinema with half a ticket stub on them and if they start screaming and staff or other adults can't calm them, the mother will then be found.

6 weeks a year holidays in the public service, plus 2 days per child off to look after them when they are sick.  Fabulous.

2)  Paalaegschokolade.  Really thin slices of chocolate that are eaten on white bread for breakfast.  Nicer than nutella and definitely a smaller portion than what I end up spreading.

3)  Concentrated fruit juice.  You can buy the concentrate and reconstitute it yourself, saving on packaging and transport, brilliant!

This is just the one glass variety you get at conferences, but the same 1:4 principle applies!

4)  The fish.

Julian about to enjoy his platter

5)  The chairs.   We went to some fabulous shops and design museums in Aarhus, Copenhagen and Kolding and discovered that what I have previously found so elusive; furniture that is comfortable, is a given in Denmark and also looks good.  Of course it has an associated price tag, but considering how much time you spend at the dinner table or on the sofa, how could it not be worth it!  I would love to hear your thoughts and inspirations on good and bad furniture buys.

This is not in a design shop, but someone's home.  These fabulous chairs are comfortable sitting up straight or sitting sideways with your legs across the arm.

Comfortable dining chairs, who would have thought of it?

Note the fabulous cast concrete design museum.  Pity the roof leaks!

6)  There are many other great building design elements that I love, but of course I'm looking with the eyes of someone about to build.

Note double sided stove, light shades and my favourite roofing: a mix of saw offcuts and concrete that looks great and absorbs a huge amount of sound.

No more mucky cleaning around the base of the tap and mouldy silicon when your tap comes out of the wall.  The drawers also open themselves when you push against them, great for when you are cooking.

Fur the perfect island of special sand mining (diatoms) and general awesomeness

Fur, the beautiful island

We ended up with an extra day in the North of Denmark, so we decided to go to the local island of Fur, as recommended by Lars.  Fur is really very close to Morsoe.  So close in fact that it was only a 25 min flight, 15 mins of which was taken up in engine warm up at the beginning and circling the airfield prior to landing.  If we'd had a lookout on Morsoe we would have been able to see Fur from it.  

Fur is a little farm strip, owned by Poul, who promptly appeared from building a bike shed / toilet / shower room next to the hangar.  Poul is a really fantastic guy, who turned out to be building a helicopter.  We had to see that.  So we both hopped on the back of his quad bike for the short trip across the island to his garage where the project was progressing steadily.  

Me on quad bike

Chopper, awesome

Then we had tea with his wife and daughter, who then took us for a walk along the sea-shore.  Back in the day Fur's waters must have been pretty quiet as a whole heap of diatoms and larger stuff has been laid down.  The diatoms are mined and the fossils are collected.  So the sea shore walk was a good opportunity to look for fossils, which Poul's wife is great at and found us several examples of what I would call moss.  Unfortunately I was less good and didn't find that bird / archaeopteryx / fish that I would have liked to.  We also had a look at the little hiking shelter log huts, which we really wanted to go back and try out, but even in a 5 month trip there is a time pressure to keep moving.

Stunning coastline

The fossils come out of the cliffs behind us

Fabulous hiking huts

Cornflowers in the corn, it all begins to make sense

Then we went for a drive around the entire island to look at the old and now silted up harbour, the diatom mines and other sites.  At 5.30pm we were dropped of back at our plane after having a marvellous time and really having seen the island.

Poul would like to encourage visitors to his landing strip and I can't think of any place I'd rather go.  Lovely for bathing, walking and kayaking.  Poul has bought 20 new bicycles that visitors can borrow and there will be by now a toilet and shower available.  

Diatomaceous earth