Hiking in Germany: Day 1

Thursday was an important Dutch holiday: King’s Day. It is the King’s birthday and everyone gets the day off from work, dresses in the most horrible bright orange (he is from the House of Orange-Nassau), and has a giant party. Being an American, I find everything about this holiday objectionable so we made our escape with several other Americans (Michelle and Travis) to go hiking in Germany on sections of the Saar-Hunsrueck Steig for a long weekend.

Hendrik posing under the orange-banner-adorned Dutch flag as we attempt an early morning escape. 

We drove to Moersdorf to hike the section of the trail with the Geierlay Bridge, the longest pedestrian suspension bridge in Germany. It was a nice little hike but somehow we managed to transform a 6 km loop into 10+ km by taking every possible wrong turn.

Putting on our brave faces before crossing.

During the hike it managed to rain, snow, and drop three distinct types of hail on us, but all in light, short bursts so it was more amusing than unpleasant. That night we stayed in Trier and had the most delicious schnitzel and dunkelweizen for dinner. The giant pile of fried calories was welcome after a long day of hiking.

 

March for Science, Maastricht

On Saturday (Earth Day), we joined the march for science in Maastricht in support of the marches in the US. 

My favorite signs:

Science makes muggles into wizards (held by a little girl in a Harry Potter costume).

Forget princess, I want to be a scientist.

Drop the base (with a drawing of a titration).

Renewable energy? I’m a big fan! (With a picture of a wind turbine).

One of the goals of the international marches is to connect with people and make science more accessible. I’m a scientist so if anyone has questions about science or science policy, I’ll give it a stab. If I don’t know the answer, we can learn about it together.

Egg coloring mills

Egg coloring mills: the literal translation of what I bought us for the purpose of painting (yes, painting) our Easter eggs.

The task is made much harder by the fact that the eggs I bought were brown. Nonetheless, we persevered, at least for four eggs.The paint’s adhesion wasn’t good enough for us to want to hide them around the house.

-Hendrik

Dutch Trump

As you may have heard, the Dutch Trump (Geert Wilders) and his populist party, the PVV, did not win a majority in the elections on March 15. This leaves the Dutch in an excellent position to make fun of America and Trump. Here is an excellent example because you don’t need to know any Dutch to understand.

The guy sitting next to me on the train was reading the newspaper so I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to share it.

Tuscan Townhouse

Our airbnb in Florence consisted of two bedrooms (half of a floor) in a beautiful historical villa in the old center. The furnishing was incredibly opulent, with marble everywhere:

And behind the house there was a beautiful private garden with turtles, trees and roses where we enjoyed breakfast on the last morning:

This was definitely the fanciest accommodation we’ve found while traveling through Europe. Highly recommended.

-Hendrik

Siena

On Sunday afternoon, we set out on our own for a visit to Siena, which the guide book described as the perfect Gothic foil to Florence’s Renaissance style. The town, a 90 minute train ride from Florence, is in the hills of Tuscany and the journey the has views commensurate with its setting. Since we visited in the early Spring, we enjoyed sights of wisteria-covered villas surrounded by green rather than golden hills as is more typically imagined. The charm of Siena was enhanced by the nearly empty streets we wandered since we somehow beat the swarm of other tourists there. In fact at first we thought it was abandoned. Here and there we saw a few Italians wandering around carrying olive branches. Eventually we figured out that Italians use olive branches instead of palm fronds for Palm Sunday.

We found the Duomo di Siena, which although made in the Gothic style had the same color scheme as the cathedral in Florence with white, green, and pink marble. I also discovered the greatest gelato-related invention called brioche con gelato, which uses a brioche bun instead of a cone and is filled with three giant scoops of gelato. I ate mine sitting in the Piazza del Campo, where they hold a famous horse race every year.

While meandering through the streets back to the train station, we discovered a cute place that served wine and antipasti. I have to say that I’m developing a taste for prosciutto but chicken liver pate is really not my thing.

Firenze

This weekend we met up with Julio and Inocencia, friends from the US, in Florence, Italy. On Saturday, we went sightseeing together. 

For me, the highlight was the huge duomo (cathedral) with a gorgeous white, green, and pink marble facade. In my opinion, it is best viewed from the bell tower that stands next to it. We also saw Ponte Vecchio, the famous bridge lined with luxury shops, Piazzale Michaelangelo, with a panoramic view of the city at sunset, and the lively Piazza Santo Spirito, where we drank wine on the cathedral steps at midnight.  We didn’t manage to see any art museums so Michaelangelo’s David and Botitcelli’s Venus will have to wait until next time, although we saw enough reproductions of David around the city that it almost counts. 

Not being big shoppers, the world-class luxury goods scene was lost on us, but we did eat our money’s worth of gelato. We also splurged at a fancy Florentine restaurant to taste local specialties like ribollita (bean stew so thick you eat it with a fork) and bistecca alla fiorentina (thick steaks seasoned with olive oil and black pepper). Delicious!

The Cycling Dutchman: Helmets

Helmets are only for road bikes and mountain bikes. Not only do Dutch people subscribe to this rule themselves, they will also mock anyone who wears a helmet on a city bike. 

The only exception I have noticed is small children bicycling next to their parents on busy streets during commuting hours. However, the exception does not seem to apply if the child is on the back or front of the parent’s bike.

Given that children are expected to be proficient in cycling before starting school, the Dutch probably see wearing a helmet while cycling as akin to wearing a helmet while walking on the sidewalk or crossing the street. 

Checkpoint Ceramique?

In a tribute to Berlin’s Checkpoint Charlie – and our expatness – we keep a postcard we bought in Berlin on our front door:

“You are leaving the American sector”. The previous renters of our apartment were also American, and we stole this idea from them when we toured the place (though we had to supply our own sign).

-Hendrik

Nancy the Travel Blogger: Debut and Data-less Travel

I’ll try my hand at being a travel blogger with a new series of posts sharing my travel tips for inexpensive travel through Europe.

Topic 1: Traveling without (or with minimal) data. Whether you want to avoid roaming, don’t have an international data plan, don’t want to buy a new SIM card, or just want a backup plan in case your data doesn’t work, here are a few suggestions to help you get by.

Google translate. You can download the relevant Google translate dictionaries to your phone before you leave or when you have wifi. I always have French, German, Spanish, Italian, and of course Dutch. 

• In the translate app, just select the language drop down menu and press the down arrow to download.

Google maps “offline areas.” In Google maps you can download areas to be used offline. You can then view the map and look up driving and walking directions in that region. Unfortunately, public transit directions do not work offline so you’ll have to look that up ahead of time.

• In the Google maps app, select the button with three parallel horizontal lines for settings and look for “offline areas.” Select custom areas, zoom to the area of interest, name the area and download it.

Note: if you have data turned on, your phone will probably default to using that instead of the downloaded dictionary or map so be careful about that.

I use these features almost everywhere we go, sometimes as my primary means of navigation and translation and sometimes as a backup and so far so good. Just don’t get lost with a low battery; from that perspective a paper map always wins.