Family Affair...Northern Germany Impressions (no bikes)

glitch

Mapping the next ride...
Staff member
Despite an extremely hectic and intense schedule to re-settle a family member from the near-Dutch-Border in the West to the near-Polish border at the Baltic Seaboard in the North-East, a handful of pics were taken in+around both locations....and along the way.

No wandering around going for proper shots this time, just some quick-snaps.

Coming from the Rhine-area just north of Duesseldorf myself, there's still a soft-spot for any place along the big, wide river.
The Rhine River is still THE major waterway in Europe, commercially as well as in any other way. It's the one artery that strings together Switzerland, Germany, France and the Netherlands along its way from the Alps to the North Sea.

It's brought wealth and migration, industry and commerce, fabulous landscapes and 1000's of local specialties of all kinds... connected cultures and languages, customs and most importantly, food and drink!!
It's LOTS more than just a few million cubic-meters of water a day...it's been the pulse of Northern Europe and has a life and presence all its own.

And the places and history along its banks are simply GORGEOUS!! :drool:


A little stroll around Monheim/ Rhine...
halfway between Cologne and Duesseldorf (bigger map)


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VicRoads would have a fit giving this little cracker a full registration. No issues here.

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Another Shock-Horror for Nanny-Australia:
Bus-Stop in the suburbs...Ciggie-vending-machine included.


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Courtesy of the local Shire and power company: Free kilowatts for your E-mobil while you're shopping.


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Old and cute....Old School Rd. 7a


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Streetlights in the Old Town....from-Gas-to-LEDs



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Not a tourist thing at all... just everyday stuff.


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Floating-dock winch of the local rowing club.


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The last of the old eel-catchers (yes, still operating)



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Old + new...new power-lines crossing the river.


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Sunday... and the tradition-rich little ferry gets the locals to the Cafe and beergarden on the other side.


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It's the annual "Showing of Geese-Lizzie and her Prince"....a local saga re-enacted early September each year. The locals are gathering long before the scheduled appearance. Party-time!! :chug:


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A couple of random shots, walking the pebbly banks down-stream.


Wild geese and "progress" in one...


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Lunch-board of the local "gasthof" offering local specialties to the passing walkers and cyclists. The bike/ walking path runs right past the front door on top of the dyke.

Potato salad and Schnitzel = E7.50
Roast on a roll = E3.50
Potato salad and rissole = E4.50
Add ~ 50% to prices for A$.

And check out the old "spacer-stone" at the bottom of that wall.
It prevented the carts nicking/ damaging the rendering off the edge of the building by forcing the inside wheels of the cart/ coach away from the edge.



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glitch

Mapping the next ride...
Staff member
With the main mode of local transport being bicycles (carparks are near impossible to find + expensive!), this is a fairly common sight all around the place
and along many of the cycle-paths, which connect the close-by towns.


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No Lycra-bandits and TdF-winners here....just ride the bike. Trackie-daks, suit, skirt, shorts...dressed and painted to the 9's... or in your work uniform/ overalls, the bikes are king. Panniers, topboxes, crates or baskets...anything to carry your shopping, tools or whatever stuff along. Seeing a few hundred pushies out the front of the local train station is a common thing.

Another glaring item is the near total absence of rubbish, debris and graffiti.
Maybe 5-10% of what we're used to in AUS...and that goes for inner-cities, roadsides, Autobahns, public buildings, stations etc...just everything.
For a population density of 80+ million in a place not much bigger than Victoria ... it's mightily impressive.:clap:
 

glitch

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Staff member
Picking a Sunday for the trip to Stralsund in the North-East of the country proved a wise choice, as no trucks are allowed to be on the roads (apart from essential supplies and services).
The rest-areas along the Autobahns are choked with parked trucks from all over Europe, jostling for the pole-position-spots to be first to hit the road again a few seconds past midnight Monday. No idea what size the cut-off is, but there weren't even 3 or 5ton shorties around.

No fuel stop...the 2week-old EuropCar Mazda 6 Diesel station-wagon still showed 230km fuel to go after 'the oil was burned".

Which made for some rapid travels and a late-lunch arrival.
Just on 700k Autobahn-kilometers (route via Hannover) in 6hrs. which included a 35min break + breakfast stop at one of the stops along "the Bahn".

Which equates for an average of about 130kmh...mostly the speed of the slow- lanes around the bigger cities and heavy traffic.
Yes....130kmh, dodging in+out between trucks only going marginally slower, watching for rare gaps in the fast lane for enough run-up to match their 160-180kmh levels.

Long 80kmh roadworks sections are best done at 100, just to not become an obstacle and lead other traffic to fast+drastic overtake maneuvers.
Yes, that's the slow lane again. W-)

No dozen's of safety-monkeys and flashing lights+ 40kmh zones for 2 kilometers for some guy on a Bobcat digging a hole in the footpath 8ft from the curb somewhere along the way...no, traffic actually flows here.

And they seem to have that sorted just as well as the lack of carcasses lining the roadsides.
Makes a total mockery of our idiotic Vic/Aussie "safety"- Nazis and their puppet-stringing political- fiscal masters.

The high discipline, high speeds and tight traffic certainly are very intimidating when well-conditioned to the dopey speed limits in Oz.
One actually HAS TO DRIVE, be alert and interact rather than reading the paper, sip coffee and paint the fingernails while crawling to work on the Monash etc.

After a few hours of continuous 130-200kmh one is still highly alert and buzzing when the ride is over... and somehow that seems to make the 30kmh zones in the towns rather reasonable and acceptable.

Oh...and where does the Mazda Diesel top out?
No idea, that bend coming up in 2 kilometers or so made me pull the pin at 200....to an Aussie, I was waaaay beyond the death-zone already.:doh::bs
(the Mazda still had some urge left, though...)

Poland and Czech Republic down the righthand side...Denmark up the top... Holland + Belgium + Luxemburg and a tiny bit of France down the lefthand side...

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glitch

Mapping the next ride...
Staff member
Needing a place for a week while moving into another place in town through that week had brought up this place, one of the typical, local reed-roofed houses with spare space underneath all that "hay" for a sweet + cozy holiday flat.

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Looks cute on the website, dunnit?
Wait for the inside then!! :glu:glu


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No, it doesn't get better than this... it just keeps coming.

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Sweet place and barely 10 mins from Stralsund-City

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glitch

Mapping the next ride...
Staff member
Stralsund...some short Wiki-stuff here.


As for the name...Sund = Sound...as in Milford Sound or the Sounds of Norway.
Narrow, but ship-able waterways leading either inland or separating mainland and islands.
Sounds = protected harbours for trade and exchange of goods and other things.
Stralsund = settlement/ city at the Strelasund, the Narrows between the mainland and Ruegen, Germany's (former East Germany!!) biggest Island.


It also was one of the seaboard-cities of the Hanse-Trading-Association, a trade + political+ military organization of traders to precede the British East-India Company by a few hundred years and deal with the pack of pirates led by the legendary Klaus Stoertebecker
which controlled the narrow entrances of the Baltic Sea (Skagerag and Kattegat).
My kinda guy :thumbs: :....Störtebeker, meaning "empty the mug with one gulp" in Low Saxon (Low-Saxon...that's ENGLISH!!, for anyone asking :)


And what a neat, historic place it is....:clap::clap:


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Old ...and ancient, side-by-side.


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Blast from the past...looks like Kreidler is back, if in name only, the rest looks pretty much Chinese...and decidedly 4-stroke , barf!!


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Ohhh, the heydays of the Kreidler Florett!!

1973, a Kreidler-stroker went head-to-head with a Maico stroker
at over 210kmh in the German 50cc Motorcycle GP!!
I think, I'd be shittin' meself running into the first corner on that Dinky-toy! :eek::doh:

The legendary Van Veen (Dutch Tuning House) GP Factory bike
55kg wet!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
18.000rpm, 21hp!!!
from a shot-glass 50cc!!!!!!
Repsol, Ducati, Honda...eat your heart out!!


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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNSCjewSq6g



Kreidler Racing '63

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glitch

Mapping the next ride...
Staff member
:clap: Haven't managed to get to that part of the world yet, thanks for posting some 'real world' pics.

It's still a bit off the beaten path, but the area of Stralsund and the island of Rügen have started to become major tourist areas....there's also the Lakes District NP south of Stralsund (Mueritzer Lakes and the "Meck-Pomm" Mecklenburg-Pommeranian Lakes) loads and loads of dedicated and signed bicycle touring routes (http://bit.ly/2yeuGXP German only at this stage),
the Zingst-Darss Coastal Park with 50-70.000 cranes nesting grounds and lots more.

All within a couple of hours drive of eachother and peppered with lots of relics of its former communist / East German past.


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glitch

Mapping the next ride...
Staff member
Another reminder of the fairly recent Communist times around here....
an MZ250 stroker, the bike with the longest exhaust pipe on a motorcycle, ever!
And single-skinned they were, too....the pillion's nightmare!
Goodie still bears the scar 40-odd years later.

Nice resto!! (even though being one of the last built, this one....they always looked 30 years old after the first 6 months of use) :doh:W-)

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The tiny APE-truck....a long way from Rome, but nowadays doing duty all over Europe. Next to the Vespa scoot, the most enduring vehicle (Piaggio) ever to come from Italy.


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Old Stralsund...

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Market day at the Old Market...sprouting garden furniture from nearby Poland.


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The local "Smithy" knocking up small household/ garden items while you're sampling a local rollmops-roll.
The small bellows are foot-driven while he sings away the orders...


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Imagine the sight when all that cladding was new :glu...and not oxidized.
All that copper would have been a total blinder!


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Cobblestones?? You want cobblestones? Just hold on to your teeth and kidneys...




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The Seamen's communal kitchen, open to all, 6 days/ week, offering 3 eggs + bacon on a roll = A$3.50,
half-a-roll with cheese or cold-cuts A$1.20



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