Westwards

The North Sea by the river – another week of Elbe Cycling

 

On the Elbe dyke near Wedel

Click here for more photos from the Elbe Cycling Path 2013
and here for photos from the Czech part of the Elbe cycling path and the section from Bad Schandau to Magdeburg (2012)

"Do you seriously want to sit here?" a blonde woman in her mid-sixties asks us with a touch of disbelief in her voice, but we do not care whether we are welcome or not. The last 40 km we have crawled westwards against North Sea winds and gales – and this is the first wind-protected shelter we have come across for hours. The blonde continues to pour sparkling wine into plastic cups for her pensioner friends and rearranges a package of cheese and some mixed pickles on paper plates. The elderly cyclists are apparently on a short day trip with the main aim of holding an outdoor feast. They have parked their bicycles all around the shelter and heaped bags on one of the three tables, and table cloths, sausages, cookies, salads and fruits on the two others. The whole group is clearly relieved when we are about to leave after a very brief break in the sheltered rest house behind the Elbe dyke, but not without assuring us: "No, no, YOU don't disturb us!!!"

For us, it is the last day of our seven-day cycling trip along the river Elbe. Against the advice of many forum contributions and several guidebooks we had decided to cycle downstream from Magdeburg towards Cuxhaven, against the prevailing north-westerly winds.

 

Canal bridge over the Elbe at Hohenwarthe

Luckily, this last day was the only one we experienced the dreaded headwind for more than an hour at a time. In fact, the first two days of our tour we even had some tailwind and thus more time for sightseeing. Just behind Magdeburg, we passed the impressive canal bridge of Hohenwarthe with an equally impressive double-saving lock system to move ships from the Elbeseitenkanal to the Elbe-Havel-Kanal, approximately 18 m lower. The cute medieval town of Tangermünde also demanded some time for strolling and for a local beer in an old church turned restaurant.

 

For 93.7 km, the Elbe river formed the border between East and West Germany. "The inhabitants of the village were allowed to walk on their village road, but not to stop or to look in a westwards direction. Later, a huge fence was built right in front of their windows," a panel in the village of Lütkenwisch describes life at the intra-German border. Relatives, even spouses were not allowed to move to the village, and by 1989, at the demise of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), only 16 villagers were left and more than 40 houses had been demolished by the government. Today the pretty thatched-roof houses behind the dyke appear idyllic and the population is rising.

In Hamburg we arrived just in time for the ship parade of the Harbour Festival. Behind Hamburg the river gets quite wide with big container ships making their way towards and from the open sea. Sheep are grazing on the slopes of the Elbe dyke, and due to heavy rain we cycle through a lot of muddy sheep shit.

With shifting winds, tent and camping equipment in the saddle bags and half a day off in Hamburg, we arrive in Cuxhaven after seven days of cycling. In retrospect, we agree that we liked the first part from Prague to Magdeburg better, because there were nicer towns and the Elbe cycling path often went directly along the river instead of behind the dyke.

See also Part One of the Elbe Cycling Route:

A rough and charming cycle ride along the Moldau and Elbe

Against the wind into Luther country

Glasgow's glorious past: A day with Charles Rennie Mackintosh

In order to hike the West Highland Way, we had booked a flight with Easy Jet from Berlin to Glasgow and back and after we had finished our hiking trip we therefore spent a day in Scotland's largest city. The focus of our sightseeing trip through the industrial town was Charles Rennie Mackintosh, a 19^th century Scottish architect. Most of the houses he designed are well out of the city centre, but his most famous building, the Glasgow School of Arts, is right in the town centre and only accessible by a guided tour.

„Today the building still houses the art university, and there are some areas we cannot visit because it would disturb the students,“ explains Melanie, herself a 3^rd year photography student at the Glasgow School of Arts. In 1896, Mackintosh, then a 28 year old associate in an architecture firm and himself still a part-time student at the university, had won the architecture competition for the design of a permanent new building for the School.

Mackintosh had visionary plans for the new building, but after two years all the money was spent, but only half of the building completed. It took another 8 years to raise new funds and complete the extravagant and for its time very modern structure. As was the trend of his time, Mackintosh wanted to part with the prevailing historicism in architecture and create functional, yet modern and beautiful buildings. He constructed not only the building, but also designed the interior of the rooms. Mackintosh's style is often a mixture of Japanese-influenced geometrical patterns with art-deco flower motifs, such as the famous Mackintosh Rose motif. Some of his solutions are not only new, but also economical: For example, the so-called „Glasgow marble“ of the staircases is really just polished concrete.

When Melanie opens the library doors for our small group, we gape in awe at the vertical lines dominating the rooms and the tall windows extending over three floors. "The third floor is only storage space, and everybody laughed at him, but Mackintosh insisted to have the high windows", we learn. The reading room itself is divided into two floors by a delicate balcony, which is only supported from above. Due to the fragility of the old beams, only three persons are allowed on it at the same time, and for some years now the old library has been closed to the students.

After the tour through the Glasgow School of Arts we continue to the reconstructed Willow Tea Rooms. From 1903 on Mackintosh designed several tea rooms for the wealthy entrepreneur Kate Cranston. Her tea rooms were a place for society women to have tea and scones, to gossip and pick up the latest fashion trends – after all, Glasgow was a growing and prosperous city, just as it is now once more. Unlike in pubs, no alcohol was served in the tea rooms. Mackintosh was responsible for the whole concept, starting from the chairs to the plates and the waitresses' uniforms.

The Stereo Pub

The Willow Tea Rooms operated until 1928, and with the recent new interest in the architecture of Charles Rennie Mackintosh, two of Ms Cranston's tea rooms have been reconstructed.

His other buildings also receive renewed interest nowadays – after some more architectural sightseeing, we end the day in the Stereo, a trendy vegan pub situated in Mackintosh's newspaper block, the Daily Record Building.

Information:

Our tour through the Mackintosh Building was sponsored by the Glasgow School of Arts.

For more information on Mackintosh, visit: www.crmsociety.com

For a digital panorama of the library, see: http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/interactive/2011/sep/09/glasgow-school-art-library-360-interactive-panoramic

Willow Tea Rooms: 217 Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow G2 3EX, tel. 0141 332 0521, www.willowtearooms.co.uk

Vegan pub Stereo: 22-28 Renfield Lane, Glasgow, G2 5AR, tel. 0141 222 2254, http://www.stereocafebar.com

Hiking the Highlands – on the Scottish West Highland Way

 

Rain hanging over Loch Lomond

For more Scotland photos, click here

 

The waves of Loch Lomond hitting the beach near Balmaha are quite high, but nevertheless it is a reasonably friendly day with some spells of sunshine, and hasn't rained for the past two days. Camping, alas, has recently been forbidden along the southern shore of the lake, due to "anti-social behaviour mostly by car-campers" as we read on a sign where an “official wild campsite” used to be. So instead of pitching the tent, we just have some cheese rolls with freshly picked ramsons, and ginger bread with lemon curd, and on we go.

Just behind the "no camping" line, we encounter three local women on a day hike and have a little chat. Yes, they say, we would find some nice spots for the tent down by the lake. And yes, we say, we think Scotland is great – only it could be a bit warmer! The three of them get the giggles: "You are in Scotland – you know, when we see the sun, we take a picture!"

That night the anticipated rain sets in and practically doesn't stop for the next five days until the end of our hike. The West Highland Way leads us along an occasionally steep trail on the northern shore of Loch Lomond and we are walking with umbrellas instead of telescope poles. To our surprise many of the Scottish hikers complain more about the rain than the foreign tourists. We think of last year's drenched hiking trip to the Lake District, where the British hikers never lost their sense of humour. In the evening, we meet everyone we saw during the day again in the Drovers' Inn, a 300-year old pub that is basically the only house making up the settlement of Inverarnan.

The next day we spend most of the morning wading through deep stinking mud, where rainwater, little streams and woolly cow herds join us in using the vaguely cobbled path. We read that this section of the path was restored with financial aid from the "Caledonian Challenge Team Event" and wonder how it looked before being restored. There's barely enough of a break in the rain to stop for a flapjack and Manner Hazelnut Wafers before we walk on to the Bridge of Orchy, which again is little more than a train station and a pub. In the evening our fellow hikers fervently discuss the dangers of the Scottish wilderness and how many people died last year alone.

Over the following days, though, except for two or three times nearly being blown off the mountain side by strong gales, and walking against heavy downpours, we don't really see as much wilderness as we had expected. Most of the time, there is a modern road not too far away, and the West Highland Way itself is rather level and broad – no wonder considering that it used to be a trading route for up to 100.000 sheep per year going to the markets in England, and later on a military road.

Due to rain, fog and snow, however, we don't see as much landscape as we had expected either. Ben Nevis, Britain's highest mountain, can only be guessed to be towering over our last campsite and opposite that panorama window in the "Ben Nevis Inn" where more hikers (including ourselves) toast with Nessie's Monster Mash (a local ale) to having finished the West Highland Way.

Information

Here's our GPS track for the West Highland Way, along with some possible campsites (official and unofficial ones): Download APR2013_WESTWARDS_WHW.gpx (1688.3K)

We used the trailblazer guide, 2013 edition.

We did not use the travel-lite luggage service, who do deliver to official campsites as well.

A visit to the Glengoyne Whisky Distillery in Scotland

On the first hiking day of the West Highland Way the trail passes the Glengoyne Distillery. Obviously we have to stop for a visit (and a tasting).

The air in the backyard between the old whitewashed buildings is filled with a peculiar smell, sweet and strong. „Where does that smell come from?,“ we ask, but Arlo shrugs and points to a crane used to clean the copper roof of the pagoda chimney: „Maybe from the engine!“ The chimney, he explains, is typical for the malting houses of Scottish Whisky distilleries. The chimney opening needs such a large roof because it rains so much in Scotland. In the malting house the barley used for the whisky production was first soaked in water so that it would germinate and the starch would turn into sugar, and then dried in order to stop it from actually sprouting. Nowadays, the Glengoyne Distillery (like most others), buys ready-malted barley and doesn't use the malting house anymore, but it still has the picturesque pagoda chimney, which is now gleaming like new.

Arlo, who used to work in the police force for more than 20 years and now guides the tour groups through the whisky distillery, leads us into the mashing room where the malted barley is simmered in water to produce sweetish malt water, called wort. “Malt storage” indicates a sign on a door we pass. And then that peculiar smell intensifies as we move on towards the fermentation tanks, where brewer's yeast is added to the wort. The mixture bubbles ferociously in the tanks, turning the sugar into alcohol. “This is basically a strong beer, only without hop,” explains Arlo. And we realise that after several years of working in a whisky distillery he probably doesn't even notice the peculiar smell any more.

“Beer?!” The group of Russians who have belatedly joined the tour take notice. But Arlo insists that this strong beer with around 8% of alcohol doen't taste well. The beer is only a means of getting an alcoholic liquid from which to distil the actual whisky: It is heated to just over 78°C, at which point the alcohol content boils and evaporates. The steam is then cooled down and led into a tank for another round of distillation. The outcome of all of this is an unimpressive clear liquid, Arlo shows us. “And at this stage it is not yet whisky - you are only allowed to call it whisky after at least three years of maturation in an oak cask.” It is this cask, which had previously been filled with Bourbon or Sherry, that gives the whisky its golden colour.

And of course the tour ends with a glass of 12-year-old single malt Glengoyne whisky. In the shop we buy another tiny bottle of their 15-year-old and a small package of whisky fudge – both of which we cherish in the following wet and windy hiking days on the West Highland Way.

 

A pilgrimage to the holy island of Miyajima

 

The famous Miyajima torii

 (click here for more Japan photos)

"Please don't move from one side of the boat to the other," the captain warns. "This might be dangerous and can lead to capsizing!"

The boat is turning slowly, and on the left side the bright orange torii, the wooden gate of the Itsukushima Shrine, can be seen. Conveniently, it is lit up at night and glittering magnificently over the water. People with huge cameras storm the windows on the left side of the boat. Then, we turn about and head directly towards the torii.

Most of the passengers are Japanese tourists; for the handful of Western tourists who don't understand the commentary about the history of the island and shrine, and the legends of goddesses visible in the shape of the mountains, the captain has prepared a picture of the Australian Uluru. "Holy mountain", he says, "all holy, no walk! Miyajima holy island, no walk!"

The island itself was considered so holy that for many centuries only Shinto priests were allowed to set foot on it. Only from the 12^th century onwards were select pilgrims able to visit the shrine there, and until the 19^th century there were severe restrictions regarding taboo and unclean activities (such as death, birth and hunting). Even now, Miyajima does not have a cemetery although a considerable village has sprung up to cater for tourists and pilgrims.

The ferries bringing visitors from the mainland today arrive well to the left of the shrine. In former times, however, pilgrims would come by boat and pass through the torii, the gate officially demarcating the holy area. As the gate was cleverly set up in the water, it was possible to enter the holy area without actually stepping on the – forbidden – island.

Our boat is now moving through the narrow orange gate, just as the pilgrims used to do. The photographers jump from one side to the other, busily trying to get a sufficiently impressive, and not too blurred, shot of the torii. Meanwhile the captain hands us a block of very heavy and hard wood: To withstand the seawater, the torii is built from camphor wood. Nevertheless, it is already the 8^th gate guarding the shrine since the first one was erected in the 12^th century.

After hovering in front of the shrine for a moment (this would be the appropriate time for a prayer), the boat heads back through the gate and to the jetty. And although we are back on the holy island itself, the pilgrim's passage through the torii seemed a heavier spiritual experience than walking the planks of the shrine the next day.

 

Information: Miyajima Sanpai Yuran – Sightseeing boat departs 6 times daily in the evening from No 3 pier, Miyajima. 30 minutes, 1500 Yen.