August 4^th, 2003

Leaving Copenhagen behind, we rode through the flat farmland of Denmark into the flat farmland of Germany. In the time that we had been in Sweden, the colors of the landscape had changed from green and gold to silvery stubble and brown earth. In the distance we could see huge clouds of smoke billowing up into the air and as we drew closer we realized that the farmers were burning the fields after harvest. It seemed strange to see field burning still being done here…

As we were leaving Sweden, we heard on the news that Europe was a few days into a heat wave, with temperatures in Paris into the 90’s and no end to the heat in sight. It is hard to imagine the heat coming from a cool climate, but we soon found out as we made our way south through Germany!  We had no real travel plans but Mike was tired of driving through flat countryside and was longing for some proper mountains with cool twisty roads so we headed south into Germany.

Our first destination was Cologne, chosen mostly because there was an Ibis hotel there with air conditioning! We called ahead to reserve a room and “no problem, there is a room for you. But you will have to put your bike in the garage because it is a bit dangerous, and there is a policeman in front of the hotel and in back.” ?!?  Undeterred by the strange conversation, we showed up at the hotel later that afternoon and checked in. The hotel seemed busy but the street was quiet, with not a single policeman in sight. We asked the desk clerk why the area was dangerous and explained to him what we had been told on the phone. He made a face then told us there had been an anti-French demonstration in front of the hotel earlier that day. (The Ibis hotel is part of a large chain of French hotels. Unfortunately, I can’t report on the reason they were demonstrating as I am not sure what grievance they had against the French this time.)

We went into town to look around but it was truly hot and the sun was going down. We looked at the cathedral, a looming dark shape in the twilight, and some Roman portals that had been unearthed there. Lots of shops selling perfumes and eau-de-colognes, not surprisingly as this has long been a famous perfume making town. We walked towards the river, past the terraces with restaurants one after another. We could hear the music from dinner cruise boats in the river with the musicians exhorting the patrons to sing along to kitschy songs like “Roll out the Barrel” and the chicken dance. We walked toward an inviting large brick plaza but when we got closer we noticed it was blocked to pedestrians. Lots of people were out, trying to find a breath of air on this warm night, and we were all being diverted around the barricades manned by half a dozen guards. Curious, we stopped and talked to one of the guards and found out that there was a violin concert going on; the plaza was part of an art museum, with a concert hall built directly under the plaza. I guess they never figured out before building it that the noise from high heels walking across the bricks could be heard during a concert!

We decided that we needed to come back sometime when it is cooler in order to explore Cologne better. The cathedral looked interesting, with a host of gargoyles looking down at us in the dark, but we’ll save that for another time when it’s cooler.

From Cologne, we headed towards the Mosel river. The road along the river winds through a beautiful area, with pretty little towns full of elaborate gabled half-timbered houses and wine-tasting rooms. Castles crown many of  the hilltops, so numerous that I am craning my head to look at another one every few kilometers, it seems. The sides of the valley are steep with vineyards growing up the sides of the hills, so steep that it is hard to imagine how anyone can get up there to harvest the grapes! There was little shade in the valley, though, and by 3:30 we were so hot that we couldn’t go any further. I had seen a sign displaying a temperature of  43 degrees (110F) and although I know these signs are usually not very accurate, it sure felt that hot!

We had seen lots of “zimmer frei” signs through the valley, so we decided to stop at one, a private house with a room to rent. And old woman came out the front door as I stood there trying to peel my helmet off a head that felt swollen with heat. “Are you looking for a room?”, she asked and invited me in saying, “come in, it’s cooler inside. You must be very hot in all that motorcycle clothing.” We were soon installed in a room with a nice balcony overlooking the road with a view of the river, drinking some chilled Riesling wine from the area. We don’t normally drink much white wine, but this was just perfect for the day; icy cold, a little dry, a little sweet and almost sparkling.

After cold showers and a heat induced nap, we wandered groggily into town to find some dinner. It felt like it had only cooled off a few degrees and a heavy meal was not appealing to us, but by 9:00, most of the restaurant kitchens were already closed. We found a wine cellar that served a couple different kinds of snacks along with a selection of wines. We ordered a plate of cheese and cured ham on delicious German light-rye bread and another bottle of cold Riesling. Ahh, perfect.

The next few days we stuck to riding the small roads, avoiding the highway and heading for towns with an air-conditioned Ibis Hotel. The smaller back roads were shadier and we felt a breath of cooler air from time to time as we rode through patches of forests or alongside a stream or river. At one point on a Sunday afternoon, we started seeing lots of motorcycles on the road at the same time we noticed the air cooling gradually as we rode through a forest of cultivated pine trees. We soon came to a high point with a panoramic view; without knowing it, we had been riding through the Hartz Mountains.

As is typical in Germany, high spots like this are popular meeting points for bikers and there are usually a few restaurants to have lunch or a cup of coffee with friends. The parking lot was packed with motorcycles out for a Sunday run, their riders milling around looking at other bikes. We decided to stop and eat lunch and watch the parade of bikes zooming around…

From there, we went north again, back to Berlin to spend a few more days hanging out there, and hopefully catch some cooler weather. We took the highway, planning to get off in a few miles, when we ran into a huge traffic jam. Not wanting to spend a lot of time inching along in the heat, we got off the highway at the next exit and followed a detour that would get us to the road we had planned to take. We were soon traveling down a nice shady road alongside a small river when we passed a small town. As we went by it, I looked down one of its side streets and made Mike turn around to go back to check it out.

The town is called Hann Muenden and it is one of those charming, out-of-a-fairy-tale-book towns straight out of the middle ages. There were some tourists wandering the streets, but not the huge crowds we find in better-known places. Most of the buildings were lovingly tended fachwerk houses (the half timbered ones I told you about before), with lush geraniums spilling out of window boxes. Some of the timbers of the houses were carved to resemble a braid or twist, or painted with flowery tendrils in primary colors, and almost all of them sported some sort of blessing or perhaps a verse from psalms carved into the wood in ornate old German script. In front of the Rathaus, actors clothed in Elizabethan era costumes were performing a play for an audience scrunched up in whatever shade they could find. In the photo on the right, note the date of 1554 in the inscription.

Another town we found ourselves in, called Halberstadt, was also interesting, but in a different way. A small core of old fachwerk houses sat near the cathedral, looking even more ancient for their dilapidated condition. Rusted water tanks and abandoned factories languished alongside roofless houses in a weedy lot. Few people were around and gave the town an eerie half deserted feeling. In the old Jewish section, a stone portal marked all that was left of a Jewish mansion. The roads were also in poor shape and as we stopped for a traffic light, Mike leaned over to the car next to us and asked the driver if we were in the east. She answered that, “yes, we are in what was once Eastern Germany”.

Once in Berlin, we stayed for five nights to get ourselves reorganized and rested. We had a pile of paperback books which we wanted to trade in for new ones, and amazingly, we found two used English book shops that took our old books. The bike needed a new front tire and an oil change again, so we found a shop that could take care of us. They had to order the tire from a tire shop in town, telling us that none of the bike shops here stock tires, so it would take a couple of days. We made a mental note to ourselves after seeing the bill for the work to always change tires in France when possible; the 100 euros for a tire in France would cost us €164 here. In addition, the labor is higher here, and they added an extra €15 to have the mechanic ride the bike around the parking lot a few time. We also noticed that they were charging us for less oil than is usually put in when changing the oil. “The book says it takes 2.7 liters” the shop told us. “Yes, the book says 2.7 liters”, Mike agreed, “but it always takes more oil than that”. “But the book says 2.7”, the guy pedantically replied. We’ll see.

Apparently the German’s methodical approach to motorcycle maintenance was a good thing – albeit more expensive for us – because in the process they discovered that the head bearings for the front steering were badly worn and would need to be replaced, something the French probably wouldn’t have caught. We got the news when we returned a few days later to pick up the bike. They would have to order the parts from Holland and could get them by Thursday morning – that is if they were still available for this bike – but the garage would not guarantee that they would have time to work on it. With the heat wave had come a lot of business for the garage and the garage manager did not want the workers working overtime in the heat. No amount of pleading would change their mind. We were due in Hamburg Friday night so we figured if nothing else we would take the parts with us and have someone install them along the way.

(Oh, yea, about the oil. Mike figured out that both he and the French, when changing the oil on our bike, drain more out of the crankcase tipping the bike by putting it on the side stand, thus having to add more than the book says when refilling it. In this case, stereotypically, the German shop did put precisely the amount called for by the manual…)

We met a Belgian biker one afternoon in the metro; spotting Mike’s FFMC tee-shirt (French Federation of Angry Motorcyclists, a pseudo-political motorcyclist group), he excitedly began speaking French to Mike. Switching to English, we found out that he was staying in a hotel near us, and at a suggestion that we meet in the evening for a drink, we found ourselves sitting at an outdoor café, eating pizza and drinking beer and talking about riding in the Ardenne in Belgium and his work with a Belgian gun manufacturer. (I suppose there is a need for guns in this world, but I don’t have to like it. He talked also about how his wife had committed suicide with a gun and I wonder how he can reconcile continuing in such a sordid business but felt too shy to ask…) The heat of the previous few weeks had finally broken, and a lovely cool breeze was blowing. After dinner we returned along a street that during the day had been full of young people and sightseeing tourists, but was now dimly lit and lined with prostitutes, drug-induced or anorexically thin and wearing more makeup than clothing.

Thursday afternoon we called the shop to see what was happening with the bearings and they said it was all done. The parts had come and somehow, magically, they had time to install it all. The catch is, that the shop would not take foreign credit cards and we would have to pay the bill (almost €700 in total) in cash! Withdrawing money from various accounts we were able to come up with enough money to get our bike back…

Every time I am in Berlin, I marvel at how many reminders there are of the war and Hitler’s plan for the Jews. Indeed, many of the young Germans we talk to still have the shame of it all very much on their minds even though they were not around at the time. Those who would think Germany or the world forgetful, have only to visit here to realize the fate of many Jews have not been forgotten. We stumbled upon what had once been a Jewish cemetery and found a poignant group of silent statues, one with a wilted rose placed in its arms, and a nearby plaque was piled with tiny stones left by reverent Jews paying homage to the dead. This graveyard, as well as all the other Jewish monuments like synagogues and community centers are all guarded by watchful cameras and in some cases, behind barriers set up relatively recently. We also saw many clusters of brass plaques in front of buildings where Jews had lived, maybe 5 inches square, set into the pavement each inscribed with a name, some dates and their fate – “deported to Teresienstadt”, some say, “and murdered in Auschwitz”. Continuing with the Jewish theme, we ate dinner at a restaurant next to the New Synagogue which served Israeli-vegetarian cuisine for a delicious change from German food.

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