Kurort Gohrisch - a lazy 4 days

20/7

Around the corner is region called Saxon-Bohemian Switzerland, obviously quite close to the Czech border.  It’s a national park but as we’ve observed before, the European type of NP that’s populated, criss-crossed with superhighways and with flora & fauna probably quite remote from what was indigenous.  Nonetheless, it’s pretty & castled and we wind our way up from the Erbe River valley to the small township of Kurort Gohrisch with a large, full well-serviced campsite.

We plan to plonk for a few days.  First job - wash all the bedding & ourselves.

The kids ricochet between splashing in the pool & swinging in the playground.  Kel finds a sweet German friend called Hannah and has perfected ways of signing communication.  

Kel and Hannah

My big boy helps with the laundry and comes for a short bike explore of the village on which we locate the bakery for tomorrow and some exercise tracks for the olds. 

Seeking an easy giggle we cuddle up in our PJs in front of the Tooth Fairy movie.

21/7

Woken by the early morning gravel loo-ward tramp of endless fellow campers, Jeff & I give up at 0700 and mount the bikes for a flog up and down dale.

Back 1 hour later and the kids snooze on, not rising until 0900 allowing us a first cup of coffee quietly together outside.

A gorgeous fresh pink face with dancing blue eyes emerges all dressed asking for money to fetch the bread.  Off he goes on his bike full of purpose and pride. Only moments later, he returns with a loaf of sourdough and some pastry rewards to follow maths.

BreadBoy

Brekkie, skype Gren and school broken up with playground pauses with foreign friends, table tennis, brief (freezing) swim, mother & son philosophical walk in the fields, daughter & mother making 3D shape nets, boyz mountain bike spin and a big spaghetti Bolognese lunch/dinner.

Later in the afternoon the Mannechoir Sachsische Schweiz, a bunch of elderly gents with BIG bellies in which to resonate their fine voices,  line up in their red tracksuit tops and long cream socks to fill the campground with song to the pleasure of beer drinking holiday makers.

Light dinner of cheese and bread before a cool night has the kids happily seek the quilt cover mit boeken!

Jeff and I watch another episode of Band of Brothers which this time recounts the Americans marching into Germany towards the end of WW2 and the gruesome discovery of the Death Camps full of confronting starvation & squalor.  It seems so amazing a whole nation was seemingly unaware.  It’s not a horror story, it’s fact - we’ve walked on the soil of such a place.  I think it’ll be nice to get to Italy and discover Galileo, Michelangelo, Da Vinci, Art, ice-cream and pizza.

22/7

Up for a slightly longer bike ride this morning.  It’s crazy that the kids don’t wake with us dressing, filling water bottles, lifting the bikes off locks on the other side of their beds, opening and closing the boot and main door, the rustling of trollies & other campers, younger children’s squeals…..

Back for brekkie.  We move camp to the other side in a quieter spot whilst the kids swim, zipping up & down the water slide and collecting circular skin burns on their spinous processes.

We trickle out some maths (Jeff and Wil look at ratios using the gear systems used on bikes; Kel & I learn about the nets of hexagonal based prisms using opened out chocolate boxes) and writing around plays and a large, lazy late lunch of chicken korma.  Sadly, the sun bolted early tiring to the stamina of the clouds that have ruled the skies since late morning.

Harry Potter - a phenomenon!

The swarm of kids is increasing to the delight of ours and the evening gently comes with our only plans being to finish off the Tooth Fairy DVD.  Jeff and I catch the last episode of Band of Brothers which this time is largely set around the capture of Hitler’s Eagles Nest and poignant vignettes of soldiers trying to imagine their futures back in their pre-war lives.

23/7

A good sleep sets us up for another, slightly longer again bike ride followed by a day largely like yesterday, the only difference being a cloudless sky & hot sun ALL day long!

So, the young ‘uns punch out school, freeing up the whole day to play ping-pong, 

spend water-logged hours in the pool adding to their slide induced spine burns (we thoroughly enjoy a conversation with Wil about how pain is measured depending on the context of one’s activity) and  annoyingly fill their pockets in the sandpit playground with Mika, Hannah, Luke etc. 

Jeff finishes off a giant general practice CPD on non-cancer pain and summarizes the salient points for me.  Team work!

Jeff & Wil break it up tearing off for a boys ride up the hill only to get all shook up slamming down the mountain tracks, Wil redefining his concept of pain as they climb bigger/steeper hills.   Kel’s content to draw & tell me stories as I cook up a monster trephina poijke.   Linner in the sun and more of the same.  I find myself dozing off as I read about communism to set Wil’s next school assignment. Ahhh…Jeff washes Ed.  Team work! 

Wil & I chat about Hugo Victor’s Les Miserables and a possible topic for an essay. 

A whiskey at 2000 and only now the sun softens....or is it our reducing arousal?

farewell friends

Dresden

17/7

Jeff & I suck it up & jog off into the grey drizzle having squeezed through a gap in the barbed-wire topped standplatz enclosure imagining Gestapo at our backs.

Back for school before we groan out of Berlin (West Slavic for swamp) toward “Florence of the Elbe” at Dresden. It’s the 4^th largest town in Germany (½ million people) but has ~60% green space and an energetic story of rebuilding post WW2 decimation and communist neglect.  It now houses 36 theatres, 44 museums (including the German Museum of Hygiene!), and 13000 cultural monuments.

After a huge grocery shop where I’m so easily entertained by new cultural favourites (ALL types of sauerkraut…..and wurst again) we find a welcoming open greened standplatz this time and plonk ourselves down for lunch at 1700hrs!  We have to buy a parking ticket at the nearby hotel where Wil finds a skate/bike park, Jeff a small bit of internet, a laundry service & fancy toilets.

Kids in bed, we brave a doco-movie about Eichmann, the Nazi who oversaw the extermination of Jews and other ‘undesirables’ shuffling them between concentration camps and finally, Auschwitz.  What a dark stain & profound embarrassment in German history.  The Jewish lawyer who finally extracted Eichmann’s confession thus leading to his execution, demonstrated such a contrasting humanity.  Despite the fact that Eichmann signed for his  father’s transfer to Auschwitz and that his wife’s parents were also ‘exterminated’, he  posted a letter on Eichmann’s behalf to his 4 sons. 

18/7

Given we’re next to a huge patch of soft juicy grass, our morning starts with a 10BX (don’t like to run together leaving van & kids unless in a monitored campground).  Fellow motor-homers often look on with a smile - I hope they’re inspired….some very large tummies need attention!  We often discuss the privilege of being able to do this sort of trip with fit & well, relative youth.  Many we see around us have gathered arthritic joints, weight, heart disease disallowing all sorts of vigorous experiences of beautiful landscapes - tall buildings, walks in the forest, bike rides and view points.

Today, we hit the bikes into town first, wanting some information, a post office to send home a package, a shop for undies & jeans, some detergent and of course, fresh bread for dinner.  We wander into an extremely upmarket shopping complex about 3 x or more the size and grandeur of Indooroopilly shops (not the place to buy undies - we find this down the backstreet!)  Usually we leave with the full kit of hats, sunscreen and raincoats because it changes several times to the extremes quickly & often ferociously.  The best time however is after 1800 - we’ll go out later as well. 

Home for BBQ salmon crusted with pesto & nuts with a side of steamed garlicky greens and school.  Kib’s a bit sniffly & tired (only our second URTI all year!!) but her gorgeous temperament wins out as usual.  All feeling a bit full and lazy, we hang and read for a bit and the kids zip out for a skate or two.

About 1800hrs, the weather has had its four seasons, the wind has settled and we head out in the calmer traffic and soft sunlight to tour along the River Elbe. 

Frauline

Frauline!!!

The place just oozes charisma with broad riverside running and cycling boulevards & lawns thoroughly enjoyed by family groups with balls & bikes, young folk with guitars & picnics, oldies strolling with dogs and tourists with cameras.  

Frauenkirche (Protestant)

Glittering statues atop massive palaces, cathedrals and town halls & rows of coloured lights from open air concert & cinema stadiums show the way as the light fades.  

Augustus Bridge

Catholic Dom from Augustus Bridge

We cycle over 2 of 9 wide broad bridges (including the magnificent Augustus Bruke which leads to the Gothic Catholic Dom), weave through the old city stopping with open mouths & disbelief to listen to professional level opera singers, violinists, trumpet players, pianists busking on almost every corner.  The best was a trio singing Phantom of the Opera beneath the acoustically magnificent stone gate to the city.Kel kept asking if it was a recording and the trio, actors!

Adjacent to them is a 100m long mural painted on tiles of Meissen porcelain.  It leads through to a most spectacular square in which the Protestant Frauenkirche stands.  In my opinion, it tops the list as having the most beautiful exterior of all churches we’ve seen so far.  It’s too late to go inside. Oh well, we’ll have to plan another day here tomorrow! 

100m mural

Frauenkirche detail

Frauenkirche

Dresden deserves every bit of its reputation as a rich artistic city, a place of obvious & abundant music culture and one of the most splendid & beautiful cities in Europe.  Its quite amazing really when one takes into account its almost complete destruction in WW2, the OBVIOUS decline and deformation in the GDR period (lots of work to do here yet - many buildings are quite blackened & monuments badly eroded & defaced) and a devastating flood in 2002.

Always in the background of our appreciation of these peaceful and cosmopolitan German towns are the weird & ever-present  ‘pop-ups’ of Nazi times and the bewilderment we feel. 

Home for a cheese & fruit platter via the skate park where Wil continues to show Kel new tricks, but spends a lot of time observing the local tricksters in action.  She’s elated reporting the ability to do ‘wheelies’!

19/7 

Must be good for the oils of our skins not showering for days in a row!  I’m sure it stinks in here!

Even slower than usual get up.  Kids bolt to the skate park & we enjoy a “2in1” (2 teaspoons instant coffee & 1 hot chocolate) in Ed.

Brekkie and school whilst the wind settles and the sky clears. The weather suits our schedule quite nicely.

Jeff’s bike tours starts in the old centre revisiting the Lutheran Frauenkirche which inside is a real surprise.  Wil describes it as a doll’s house - all pastels (especially pink), bright, light, gold frills and very pretty.  The altar is crowned with an extraordinary gold and pastel diorama.  We sit in a pew to crane our necks upward as one dome opens to another and another….and another all with spirals of ascending smaller and smaller stalls.  Jeff reckons it looks and feels a bit like a theatre.  It’s most unlike the quiet simplicity of other Lutheran churches we’ve seen. 

Talented buskers put all sorts of gorgeous music into the vast open squares as we ride slowly past.  Who needs to pay to enjoy the opera here?  Jeff reckons we should take $20 & deck chairs, pull up alongside 10 appealing acts, toss $2 into their hats each and be thoroughly entertained without having to dress up and stay up late.

Our sights are set on the Blue Wonder Bridge, an ugly steel monstrosity built in the 1800s, about 8 kms along the Elbe. 

So we’ve cycled the Seine in France, the Rhine in Germany, the Arve & the Aarle in Switzerland, the canals of Amsterdam & Belgium, the Sure in Luxembourg, the Spree in Berlin and now the Elbe in Dresden.  We rubberneck past glorious castles & chateaus as old as the forests they stand in, high on banks framed only by the blue sky, their cloaks of vineyards spilling down to the river before them.  A cycle tour second only to those in Switzerland.

BUT….the cobbled esplanade pummels one’s rump such that as we round the corner, the aroma of coffee invites us to the sumptuous lounges of a ritzy cafe. Easily the best kaffee in Germany.

Over the Blue Bridge to a small market smelling of warm baked goods and underneath onto a magnificent return cycle path.

ugly blue bridge

Against the wind on the way back, Kel slows to a snail pace muttering & grumbling but never, never giving up!

All roads lead to the skate-park where we drop off the kids.  Jeff & I find a whiskey….and a beer back at Ed.

Card games, reading and a light dinner end the day.

20/7

Morning exercise through park in which there’s a stinky big zoo. 3 days later, I finally discover the beautiful golden girl statue that Kel told me about when we first arrived.  She and Wil had been exploring when we first touched down. She didn’t tell me it’s a tribute to Mozart in this city of music and opera, and it's only 50m from Eddie!

Tribute to Mozart, and Frauline

Delicious breakfast and school whilst Jeff & I prepare to leave.  Vacuum, wash up, pack the boot, empty bins - such a simple, short routine and the whole house is freshened & ready.

Drove out of Dresden into the countryside towards the Czech border, pan is to hole up short and chill for a few days, blog up, wash up, read and relax - need a break from this incessant movement.

castle on a hillock

Wurst (ex-fuel) Station, Strassen Shaden!

hillocks everywhere

Berlin

15/7

Sleep by the lake interrupted by intoxicated youths driving into the lakeside carpark, yahooing, 1 bunch set to barping their horn to wake us up and then got up the courage to knock on our door and run away - we really are the same the world over!

Separate runs along an easy track around the waters edge.

Breakfast slowly by lake with families playing in the gale and skaters gliding past.

 1 ½ hour drive to Berlin on through flatter and industrialized terrain. Like all big cities, there’s a long grungy introduction through the outskirts.  Its population  is 3.5 million and growing with immigration.

Found close packed eastern European CV site, holding some 30-40 vans like sardines with single temporary-type toilet and shower. 

The kids are a bit disappointed (no playground, no cycling/skating paths) but we’re only a few kms by bike from the enormous city we’d like to explore. At least Ed is clean, cozy and familiar. Jeff emptied the poo just in time and topped us up with water.  Kel strangely loves watching this job.  Even though I quite enjoyed changing the kids nappies, this ain’t the same - thanks Jeff!  Sandwiches for lunch whilst we wait for the rain to clear and then, on cue, the beautiful European summer sky clears to blue and off we go on the bikes along great paths to the centre. Our cycle takes us through a 19^{th century} cemetery where bits on the wall eerily stand in thick grass.

Berlin is known to permanently look like a construction site.  Cranes, roadworks, scaffolding and grunge & graffiti is everywhere.  Closer in to the Mitte, at times this gives way to a quite pleasing River Spree curving around past & through really interesting modern concrete & glass shapes/buildings and admixed massive old stone remnants of the period of decadence in the 1800s.

Topping the list of grand stone giants is the Reichstag, crowned with an added modern glass cupola and enormous bold flags. 

Reichstag

Close by is the quite magnificent old city welcoming Paris Platz, entered into through the beautifully restored Brandenburg Gate.  We pull up just in time to be delightfully entertained by an extra-ordinary group of hip-hop dancers called Topp Doggz who all dance professionally and do this on the side for fun (and euros) - WOW!

Brandenburg Hip Hop

An engaging mix of old & new, austerity & softness, shocking & party keeps us exploring.  A ‘bierbike’ bounces by packed with singing, beer swilling tourists as we come up alongside the Holocaust Memorial where 2711 concrete stelae stand on a central grid.

Bierbike

Holocaust Memorial

A subterranean museum housed in an ex-bunker, like so many other “attractions” of its kind, only allows kids aged >14 entry.

Back on the bikes, we weave in and out of old Eastern & Western Germany marked by information panels and sections of the Wall.  Large pockets of on-the-bread-line densely packed parallel immigrant societies and gypsies often rest up against these barriers.  Scores of austere ex-communist residential blocks crowd the skyline in other areas.  The only colour are massive water/sewerage/electricity cable (?) steel pipes painted pink, purple or blue standing some 2-3 m high above ground.?.  

Small playgrounds poked in between throng with Turkish & Lebanese children.  Through the edges of the city, we trace the exWall to the longest remaining section, lay on the grass in no man’s land where in the past, if found, one would be shot if not already blown up by a mine.

no man's land

Back in search of a toilet and a curry-wurst for dinner, we end up in Alexander Platz on the old East side where we stop for a while in the sun on a beach deck chair(?) & watch all sorts of life go by.

Home & showered, we crawl into Ed’s comfy cocoon whilst the campground screams on and sirens wail past on the busy street outside.

16/7

How pathetic but feeling bloody exhausted.  No runs.  We’re up ...the standplatz and the city hasn’t been down.

Strong coffee before a distracted school as massive white whale campers try to squeeze out past even bigger campers hurrying to jam in and others block the skinny drive way vulturing a potential exiter’s spot.

Brushing it aside, together with the fatigue of remaining open curious pages & educational opportunists as well as the juggle of keeping Kel especially going in a city so madly historically confronting has Jeff & I drag ourselves to the bike seats this morning.

Nonetheless, saddled, our moods lift as we follow a rough plan of things we’d like to see starting with a lovely ride alongside the Spree through broad boulevards & parklands.  Here, on the ’right’ side of the Wall is plenty of evidence of what folk referred to as “Athens on the Spree” that has been spiced up with outrageously crazy new architectural shapes as well.  They like glass cupolas on top of old buildings and needle-like impossible glass angular towers.

First, we visit the unmissable typically European ‘my-Golden-Lady-Victory-column-is-bigger-than-yours’ affectionately called, “Golden Lizzie.”  She is very, very beautiful.  The surrounding sprawl of gardens however are the show piece.  We stop for the obligatory playground dash.

Golden Lizzie (and horizontal Bogong)

Bismark and conquests 

Next stop is the “Ku’dam” (Kaiser Willhelm Gedachtniskirche & Kurfurstendamm) monstrous gothic cathedral that was heavily bombed by the Allies in WW2 leaving just one half spire standing.  Initially we walked straight past it because, like 50% of Berlin, it is covered in scaffolding as temporary sheeting whilst it undergoes extensive semi-renovation.  

old bombed church inside

The plan is to leave it in ‘designer ruins’ to mark a dark period of destruction in Berlin.  Jeff is intrigued by the church’s glorification of the Kaiser and Royal family - unification of church and state - disturbing.  Warmed however by the alcove that pays homage to the Cathedral in Coventry that was bombed by the Germans and their liturgy of reconciliation and forgiveness, adopted in turn by this German target of Allied bombing - that is sweet!

This is an enormous and demanding city requiring an urgent coffee & hot chocolate stop.

East meets West

Third, is an excellent open air largely photographic as well as a very full housed museum mapping the rise of the Third Reich, Hitler’s Germany and the subsequent Cold War.  Here, some startling detail & propaganda exposure of the anti-semitic, anti-homosexuals, anti-undesirables and anything un-Nazish, anti-democratic horror story is told.

Nazi HQ - what the Allies left standing

Called the Topographie de Terrors, the architecture is fittingly very austere, very grey, and very concrete.  The chosen site is the home of the old SS Headquarters alongside which was built a great slab of The Wall. 

Slow feet, heavy hearts, tired eyes, overwhelmed senses…..and we can only skim given the distraction and prohibition to viewing that comes with being in TeamConnberry.  There are endless memorials and museums to Berlin’s ugly past. We didn’t even touch on the Stasi story.  The skies open and cloud over.

Ahh, it’s only water….back on the tour following the Ex-Wall’s simple now flattened foundations  as it endlessly, incredulously marches on through road and pavement  in a once strangely desperate hermetic attempt to wall in the East (or out the west).  One can still obviously distinguish East vs West despite the passing of 20 years. Last stop is a small white weatherboard Checkpoint Charlie, the only break in the Wall.

We’re all exhausted and ready for a feed...and more importantly, a break.  We’ve hunted down a Turkish restaurant where we kick back and thoroughly enjoy ourselves.  No wash-up tonight!  Coming out onto the street, I’m surprised the signs are in German.  It feels like Lebanese/Turkish Melbourne!

The rain stops in time for our ride back across this massive angular, heavily policed, grand, ugly city, across the Cold War’s Ground Zero, across the centre of Nazi rule, across a continuously rehabilitating construction zone to our dingy old Eastern style standtplatz that unconsciously never really allows separation from the town’s previous destitution.

On the way to the shower, Wil’s car obsession allows him to spot a familiar Mercedes van with Quebec plates.  No way!  It’s Simone and Jacque who we met in Bern, Switzerland from who gave us ALL the Lonely Planets.

We share a whiskey in Ed, chat on about Jacque’s father’s involvement driving tanks in WW2 Italy and tell stories of our travels….

Despite this being a fascinating town with a history too shocking (over and over again), the Conns are ready to leave tomorrow - most people say you need a week in Berlin but we are a little jaded with museums, grand buildings and negative history.