N 60
E 026
Helsinki to Kouvola: 148 kilometres

Helsinki is draped in low-lying, grey clouds this morning and a cool, continuous rain is falling as we head downstairs for breakfast at 9:00. There is chaos in the breakfast room as clearly every hotel guest, their sleepy children in tow, are arriving for breakfast at the same time. The room clearly cannot handle the rush. We wait patiently for a table for two. Some oatmeal and cereal later, Greg heads downtown to the internet café to update the site and I have a leisurely morning, reading and exercising.

We are driving to Kouvola today to catch the train to St. Petersburg tomorrow. The plan had been to make an adventure of it, stopping in the pretty little towns and villages that dot the route. However, it pours all the way. We travel through tall pine and birch forests; they trap the rainy mist on the forest floor. It is very familiar Canadian landscape to us, but the barns and houses tell us that this is not home. Bright red, mustard yellow, pale green, and cream coloured wet clapboard greet us over the green, rolling hills. Greg points out that the Finns have beautiful yet practical barns!

We do stop in one place, Porvoo, where the old wooden homes are well preserved and the streets still look like traditional Finnish towns. From the licences on the cars, we deduce that the tourists Porvoo is crowded with are Finnish, enjoying their summer vacations, shopping for souvenirs in the quaint shops - despite the wet, fall-like weather. We have a light lunch in a small café: vegetable soup, a salad and some bread all served up by some lovely local women.

We drive the rest of the way to Kouvola, another 95 kilometres. Our hotel is right across the street from the train station, and they are happy to have us leave our car in the parking lot while we are away, as we will be staying here when we return.

On the drive, we discuss contingency plans – our original intention had been that after we return to Finland from Russia we would drive north, above the Arctic Circle, cross back through Sweden to Norway, and take a ferry down the coast of Norway to see the fjords. We agree, however, that if it is still raining when we come back, we will probably skip all of that, as there will be nothing to see but fog; instead, we will take a ferry from Helsinki to Germany, cutting short our Nordic adventure, but perhaps finding some decent weather a bit further south.

N 60
E 024
Turku to Helsinki: 193 kilometres

I am so happy to be in Finland again! I travelled here 4 years ago with my mother, and we visited southern Finland before we went on to St. Petersburg. I was impressed with Finland – beautiful, clean, birch and pine covered land with outcroppings of granite – just like northern Ontario but with fewer people.

We are in Turku, the capital of Finland when it was a Swedish province (from the late 1200s until the early 1800s). We head for Turku Castle, beautifully restored, and spend some time wandering around there. Unfortunately, the weather is not co-operating, and we decide to head for Helsinki rather than exploring further into Turku.


Turku Castle

Mid-way to Helsinki the day changes – the sun comes out and it warms up. We decide to leave the main road and go the rest of the way on quiet country roads, hoping that we will see a quaint restaurant where we can stop for lunch. The drive is beautiful, but we pass through few settlements, and see no restaurants, quaint or otherwise. Wild lupins, purple and pink, are in full bloom interspersed with delicate white Queen Anne’s lace. We occasionally drive by huge fields of mustard seed, vast seas of yellow edged by brilliant green fields. The lilacs are at their peak. We see many rose bushes that I grew up calling Russian roses, pink with 5 petals and reddish leafs – my parents have a couple of these in their yard; they too are in full bloom.

We find our hotel easily – it is a bit outside the downtown core, but right on a tram line, so a 10-minute ride into the heart of town. We head downtown, and I show Greg around – I am surprised at how much I remember of the layout of town. To me, this is the nicest of the 3 Nordic capitals I’ve been to – it has the old beauty of Stockholm or Köpenhavn, but is also resolutely modern, full of beautiful buildings built by those amazing mid-20th century Finnish architects.

On its way into town, the tram passes the site of the 1952 Olympics, still used as an athletic facility. Some of the facilities are quite beautiful, but all of them are so tiny by today’s standards that it is virtually impossible to think that all of the athletes at today’s games could fit into the stadium, let alone any spectators or TV cameras.

When the Russians took control of Finland in the early 1800s, they moved the capital of what they called the Grand Duchy of Finland to Helsinki, and changed Helsinki’s fate. A beautiful city sprang up, and much of what we see today is still original from this period. In particular, Senate Square is a beautiful area created soon after Helsinki became the Russian colony’s capital – dominated by the Cathedral, with government buildings on one side and the university and library on the other.


From left: Helsinki Cathedral behind Senate Square; Senate Square; Helsinki skyline

After a few hours exploring town, we head back to the hotel for naps. A couple of hours later, we head downtown again for dinner (Thai – Helsinki is full of ethnic restaurants of all kinds) and some internet time.

We head for home about 10:30 p.m., and the sun is still way up in the sky. We still aren’t used to the light – it doesn’t feel right, somehow, to eat when the sun feels like it is at midafternoon height; and it doesn’t feel right to go to bed in full sunlight, even though it is bedtime. And we have both been wakened by the sun, even through drawn blinds, at 3:30 a.m. or so, as it makes its appearance for the new day.

N 60°
E 022°

Happy Birthday to Jane Weissman and Lou Bailey (Happy 90!), both on June 30!

The alarm goes early – 5:30. For a change, it wakes me. The coffee is ready-to-go, and although I am not interested in food, I have my cereal with yogurt and a banana. At 6:00, I make sure Greg is awake, and by 6:30 we have packed the car and are driving away from our apartment.

Right on schedule, at 7:00, we pull into the line-up to check in for the ferry to Finland. The ferries that ply the Baltic are not like ferries we have in North America – they are luxury cruise ships. Their primary purpose seems to be to provide a weekend getaway with a day in Stockholm or Helsinki or Tallin, and amazing duty-free shopping. Silja Lines proudly tells you that they are the 2nd largest duty-free vendor in the world, after London’s Heathrow Airport.

The day is foggy, and we sense the islands in Stockholm’s archipelago more than we see them. We quickly get the feel of the ship, and we retire to our cabin, pull open the berths and spend the morning napping. When I open my eyes, the fog has burnt off and the scenery is beautiful – we are passing through the islands, heavily covered with trees; it could be the 1,000 Islands in the St. Lawrence. We go up on the Sun Deck (today, for once, this is not wishful thinking), stand and watch until we pass out of the archipelago into the open water of the Gulf of Bothnia, when it fogs over again.


From the Silja Europa

After lunch, we dock in Mariehamn, a Finnish island in the Gulf. As soon as we pull into the open water, the fog envelops us again. We retire to the cabin again and nap the afternoon away. The trip remains foggy until we reach the islands close to the Finnish mainland – the fog clears, the sun is shining, and the sense of being in the north is overwhelming – from the quality of the light, from the smell of the pine trees, from the water everywhere.

11+ hours after we departed, we arrive in Turku. There is chaos getting all of the cars and trucks out of the terminal, but everybody is graceful despite the length of the trip. We check into our hotel, then make our way into town to find a bite to eat. By now it is almost 10 p.m., and although the light has only started to fade towards dusk, the restaurants are a different story. Back at our hotel, we are able to get a bite to eat, and when we turn off our lights at midnight, it is still quite light outside.

It is the Sunday of the long Midsommer weekend and the streets of Stockholm are teeming with mostly tourists enjoying the sunny weather and their first ice cream of the summer. We are told that many of the locals are out of town at their cottages. We have a leisurely morning of free internet access – at one point the night before, John, on a whim, plugs in the wireless connection on our computer and voila – free wireless access thanks to someone else’s network! The morning has started cloudy but around 11 the sun breaks out and brings everyone into the streets.

We grab the Tunnelbana (the metro or “T”) at Hornstull and head to Stockholm’s Centralstationen as our starting point. It is a quick walk across the water to one of the 24,000 islands that make up the archipelago and protect the inner islands from the open seas. We are in Gamla Stan, the oldest part of Stockholm and certainly the most attractive. These small islands include the Riddarholmen, which has some of the oldest buildings in Sweden, the Royal Palaces, and the Royal Cathedral, all within a short walk of each other. We stop at a square and listen to a brass marching band playing some traditional songs, the music echoing from the old buildings, lifting everyone’s winter blues away.


The Gamla Stan on Midsommer Sunday


From left: The German Church, Spires of Government, Three Crowns: The symbol of Stockholm.

We continue our amble, sometimes straying from an unofficial walking tour the city has provided and wander back to the newer part of Stockholm and share a hot dog with some of the street kids, backpackers and budget shoppers huddled in the hurdy-gurdy (and somewhat ugly) square known as Sergels Torg. Everyone is out enjoying the first days of summer.

We grab some western food at a café that is actually open on the holiday weekend and head back to the apartment, walking almost the entire way home through green belts and church back yards. The sun is still blazing in the sky until after 11 pm these days and will be shinning again by 3 a.m. tomorrow.

I have enjoyed Stockholm and would return. John is somewhat less impressed than I am but he is saving himself for Helsinki, I think.

N 59°,
E 018°
Køpenhavn to Stockholm: 656 kilometres

The day starts grey and dreary. We take our leave of Pedro and Bjarne and the cats, and head off for Sweden. The 15 kilometre-long bridge/tunnel to Malmö starts just outside eastern Køpenhavn, and we are in Sweden.

Today is a major national holiday (perhaps the most important holiday of the year) in Sweden, Midsummer, to celebrate the longest-day of the year; but it doesn’t feel much like summer to us. We drive along, almost nobody else on the road. After a few hours, the sun begins to peak out from behind the clouds, and the dashboard thermometer tells us that the temperature outside is rising quickly. Finally, we need our sunglasses, and it gets to 19 degrees outside. It is even warm in the car, the sun shining through the windows.

We entered Sweden without any Swedish kroner, thinking that it would be easy to find a bank machine. But easy it is not – and when we do, we find that they are not on the network that our bank back home uses. Finally, after a number of attempts, we find a machine that will actually give us cash, and back at the highway interchange there is a restaurant that is open and at 3:30 p.m., we have some lunch.

We get into Stockholm without any problem, and easily find the apartment we have rented for 2 nights. We are located on Södermalm, a big island, primarily residential, just to the south of the main city. The apartment building is actually built on top of the subway entrance, very handy.

We park and explore the area just enough to realize that almost nothing except the 7-11 on the corner is open. We buy frozen pizza and breakfast items for tomorrow, and settle in for a night of doing nothing but watching TV.

Happy Birthday to our friends Jim Bratton on June 27th, and Jeff Anderson on June 28th.

Still rainy and cool. Big, flat, low-hanging grey-hued clouds continue to dominate the Køpenhavn sky. Everyone, it seems, is complaining about the lack of warm dry weather both in Europe and in Canada. It is even making the local television news at 6. As charming as Køpenhavn is, it is dull and grey. The morning drags and we focus on the mundane chores of organizing laundry and updating the website. I head off to the café to figure out the wireless connection and after some self-translation from Danish to English, I’m on-line.

We have decided to brave the elements and do a self-guided walking tour of the city, one that The Lonely Planet recommends. We start at the Rådhus (the City Hall) in the busy Rådhuspladsen and are to finish eventually, at the Little Mermaid in the harbour.


The Rådhuspladsenin in the rain

We pass through the major pedestrian shopping area (we need more of these in North America!) pass Gammel Torv and Nytorv, the old and new squares, winding down to the Kongens Nytorv, a huge square, under restoration, circled by many glorious old buildings including the Royal Theatre and the Charlottsburg, that houses the Royal Academy of Arts. We then walk to the Nyhavn Canal, home to Hans Christian Anderson, who lived at number 67.


The Nyhavn Canal

Our umbrellas are up and down during this walk. Sometimes it is just a light misting, sometimes a gusty, pounding rain. We head along the harbour and turn into the Amalienborg Plats and the Amalienborg Palace, home of the royal family since 1794. The cobbled square is wet and has that flat, grey magic light that the 18th century French painters captured so well. We move across the deserted circular square, and like many others take refuge in the Frederikskirken, the Marble Church, spending 15 minutes sitting in solitude in the cool dampness.


The Amalienborg Palace and the Dome of the Frederikskirken

The rain drives us back to the Rådhuspladsen and away from the Little Mermaid in the choppy harbour. Many will be disappointed that we did not visit her but we are told that she is disappointing at the best of times or weather, and always covered in gull droppings. Unpopular choices are sometimes made in life and we must live with them.

Naps and laundry beckon as we wander back to our beautiful B&B facing the Sortedams Sø. Pedro and Bjarne have a beautiful apartment overlooking the water and both they and their two very friendly sibling cats have made us feel quite at home.

We have a very average meal in a smoky, crowded restaurant and a quick beer on the walk back to our beds. We don’t have a lot of Dannish Kroner left and don’t want to take any out of the bank machine as we leave for Stockholm tomorrow. Night, night, Erin.


For those who wish…

N 55
E 012
Hamburg to Køpenhavn: 485 Kilometers

As we head north, we drive through a persistent rain – the storm off the North Sea is in full force today. I have a creeping feeling of being cold for the next few weeks considering how fall-like our weather has been since we arrived in Germany last week. I don’t have anything to base this on other than the coolish, 15 degree, rainy and overcast weather that has welcomed us to Europe. Other than that, Europe has been good to us. There is a strange familiarity about it somehow. Our car is now our refuge from weather, baggage-hauling and, if necessary, from potentially overly chatty B&B hosts. Clothing and language are more familiar to us and we are much more self-reliant. Our choices for interesting side trips have increased substantially. Very different from the first phase of our journey.

The real issue we have been struggling with is how to greet people. Everyone it seems approaches and kisses you when they meet you for the first time but the trick is in understanding the sequence and number of kisses that separates the men from the tourists, so to speak...

In Germany, for example, they greet you with two kisses and two kisses only. God forbid you should stray from that hard and fast rule. The Belgians and Dutch kiss three times and many make a distinct “mwu” sound as they move from cheek to cheek. These social rituals appear obligatory; you must greet or say goodbye to everyone you are visiting, out for a drink or sharing dinner with. Even if you are crammed into the back seat of the car you are travelling in you must pull yourself out to say goodnight to everyone you are hitching a ride with. Now, don’t misunderstand me. It is actually very pleasant and familiar. Very un-North American, where a quick and polite shaking of hands is as close as you will get to your new acquaintances.

I am also struggling to comprehend the policy and politics of which cheek is offered first. If you are initiating the greeting, which cheek do you approach? If you are accepting the hello, and say, are left handed (cheeked), which cheek do you offer? If there is a collision mid-greet, do you start again with the first cheek or continue with the cheek you collided on? Can anyone help me with this??

As always, practice makes perfect and practice we must because it is rumoured that in France they greet you with four kisses………

Today we will cross a major bridge, 24 kilometres long, connecting 2 regions of Denmark, Fyn and Sjælland, over the Storebælt. This bridge opened 4 or 5 years ago, at about the same time as another bridge/tunnel of similar length that connects Denmark to Sweden. I am fascinated by bridges, and I have been dreaming about driving across these 2 bridges since I read about them when they opened. Both of these engineering feats have cut hours off their respective journeys, and the toll of 250 Danish kroner, (or just over C$50) is less costly than the ferries used to be.

I am disappointed when we arrive at the bridge, it is virtually invisible, shrouded in the fog and driving rain.

For most of its length, the bridge is merely 10 metres or so above the water, and there is a double train track running alongside. As we get close to the Sjælland side of the bridge, we start rising to go over the shipping channel – but we can’t see the towers because they rise into the fog. The train tracks have disappeared – we learn later that they go through a tunnel under the channel.

N 53
E 010
Amsterdam to Hamburg: 498 kilometres

The weather is not promising - a major storm is supposed to blow in off the North Sea today. A good driving day - except that we are planning to drive over the Afsluitdijk, and if the storm gets too bad, the road over the dike will be closed. The Afsluitdijk is the 30 kilometre-long dike that the Dutch built in the 1930s - and which created the Ijsselmeer, a freshwater lake where the Zuider Zee used to be - to prevent future flooding of their lowlands, including Amsterdam. We consider our options, and decide to take the risk - if the road is closed, it is only about 100 kilometres back to Amsterdam and the overland road, and we have enough time that we can do it if necessary.


The Afsluitdijk ¡V the North Sea is on the left, the Ijsselmeer on the right

Our luck holds - we get across the dike with only a "high winds" warning. But soon after we get across, the storm hits in full fury. It comes and goes, heavy wind and rain when it is upon us. So heavy, in fact, that we pull over to the side a couple of times, and sit out the deluge.

Today is organization and wander day. I sleep in until quite late, enjoying the time while I can, knowing that the next week will be one of constant travel until we land in St. Petersburg on July 1. John spends the morning updating the journal, editing pictures and drinking his usual 4 cups of coffee. We need to find an internet café to update and confirm our B&B bookings for Hamburg, Copenhagen and Stockholm. We head to the centrum via the major tourist route, which is quite unusual for us and deal with the crowds of gawkers and hawkers, swarming the Dam. One would think that in a city the size of Amsterdam considering the number of back-packers and budget travellers roaming the city, one would find a selection of internet cafés competing for your web euros. But no. We wander for an hour before deciding to head back to a small café on one of the out-of-the-way grachts that we had stumbled upon the day before. The sun is out and it feels like a beautiful summer day, and we have our lunch basking like cats in the sun. Our updating takes no time at all and we continue to stroll the grachts and head for home to drop our computer bag before heading out for dinner. Michiel, Fred, Damien, Ron and their friend Ramond have suggested getting together for a drink later in the evening and so we do and toast our last night in Amsterdam.



Ahhhh, Amsterdam.

Michiel is at the corner to meet us promptly at 10:00 and we drive over to the Leidseplein and grab a coffee, get caught up and plan the day. It is a typical Monday morning – garbage trucks picking up from the week-end’s revelries, late workers hurrying to work, cafés rolling out their awnings for the day. There is talk of rain today but all we see at this point is the sunlight streaming through the enormous trees of the Leidseplein.

Our plans made, we start out of the city and into the countryside. Our first stop is the quaint rural area outside of Amsterdam known as the Zaanse Schans, an historic Dutch village on the Zaan river with several working windmills. We explore the cobbled streets and climb De Kat (the Cat) windmill, a famous dye mill on the Kalverringdijk. John and I both laugh at the sign that says “Your visit to this windmill is at your own risk” until we get inside and feel the rumble and shuddering of the ancient building, the souvenirs for sale rattling and shaking on the walls as the big sails make their passes overhead. We climb up past the gear mechanisms and step out onto the balcony as one of the four huge blades swoops past. I lurch back as the next sail comes hurtling by me. The area is gated off but I can see how easy it is to get hurt by one of the passing blades. You don’t realize how big and powerful these mills are until you are standing underneath one.

The windmills of Zaanse Schans


From left: De Kat, the village

The rain continues to hold off as we drive towards the north-west and lunch in Egmond aan Zee, a small village on the North Sea. We stop at a small restaurant right on the beach, small children, kite flyers and us, daring the gusty winds. We start outside on the terrace but it becomes quickly evident that a storm is blowing in, the rain that had been predicted all day; so we head into the restaurant for cover and the rest of our lunch. We watch the big black clouds and the pounding rain for about half an hour. We finish our lunch and beer in time for the sun to peek out and dry the footpath back to the car.

We point the car towards the east and head to the village of Volendam, a fishing village perched on the dike, just south of Edam and sitting on the man-made, fresh water lake that was created in the 1930s when the Zuider Zee was dammed. We stroll the boardwalk and laugh at the stereotypical Dutch souvenirs: personalized wooden shoes, tacky photos of your family and friends in traditional Dutch costume holding herring and wheels of cheese. Tulips and more tulips everywhere: wooden, silk, plastic. Some that light up, some that squirt water, glass ones, hand painted ones, fake-Delft ones, every variety known to man. We follow Michiel to one of the local fish mongers to buy pickled herring and smoked eel, which Volendam is renowned for.

Across the water is the small island of Marten, a Dutch village known for its wooden houses and traditional costume. We make the fifteen minute drive around the lake to the parking lot outside of town (no cars are allowed in the centrum), where we realize that we are all toured and “kitched” out and decide to return to Amsterdam. Michiel and Fred have invited us to dinner at their house with friends Ron and Damien. Hors d’oeuvres are, of course, herring with onion and pickle, smoked eel and bitter ballens. Typical Dutch delicacies we are told, that are served by royalty and at official state functions. Of course, we politely taste everything.

N 52°
E 004°
Antwerpen to Amsterdam: 265 kilometres

Happy Birthday to John Dinning on June 23!

We stayed up later than we had expected last night, sharing a nightcap and talking with our hosts Stephane and Michael, so we all sleep in a bit. After breakfast we have time only to walk into town and turn back around before we depart, a walk of about 1 hour in total. Stephane has told us of a beautiful Italianate church that we did not see yesterday, and so this is our destination. We are both glad for the exercise, having made a promise on this part of our trip to get more exercise, and glad to have seen this church. Not only is the church Italianate, the square in front has a distinctly Italian feeling, and we sit, in the Sunday morning sun, enjoying the feeling, listening as the bells call the faithful to Mass.

We drive on back roads most of the way to Amsterdam, passing cattle, sheep and goats, crossing dikes and beautiful waterways. The sky is filled with big, billowing North Sea clouds - it is the sylvan type of Dutch landscape that we were taught about as children. A beautiful stereotype.

The road eventually snakes into the major highway for Amsterdam and we have instructions to park outside the city and grab the metro into Centraal Station and then it is a quick bus ride to our bed for the next three days. We are staying on a lovely side canal, in a converted warehouse in Jordaan, and our host Stanislaw greets us with a little bit of bewilderment: he is expecting us tomorrow! I pull out our printed e-mail and sure enough we are booked for three days commencing tomorrow. Everything is fine as he explains that his last guest left this morning and he is not booked.

We get our bearings and receive a call from our friends Michiel and Fred, who live in Amsterdam and whom we met while we were in Bali. Michiel has generously offered to show us around tomorrow and, in particular, to take us to some sites outside of Amsterdam that we might not have had the opportunity to see. They refer us to a famous happy hour bar in Amsterdam, (isn’t it always happy hour here?!) and we head towards the central area, skirting the Anne Frank Huis, the Liedseplein and the Dam, crossing numerous bridges and canals before ending up near the beautiful Bloemmarkt for our beer. It is a lovely late Sunday afternoon, the sun still very high in the sky. It won’t get dark until after 10:30 p.m.

N 51
E 004
Gent to Antwerpen: 61 kilometres

Happy Birthday to our new friend Yves de Baets

After a wonderful breakfast at which we toasted Yves’ birthday, we walk back into old Gent, and find that the centre is much larger than we had anticipated – and all of it has kept its look and feel. We wander without reference to the map, just going where our eyes lead us, exclaiming in awe as we go round another corner to find another building, more spectacular than the last.


The golden dragon of Gent

St. Bavo’s Cathedral is 1 of 3 beautiful churches side by side by side, evidence of the former wealth of Gent. Inside is a Northern European cathedral that feels almost southern European because of its artworks (including a masterpiece by Rubens), which is so unlike the austere beauty of most northern European cathedrals I have been in.


From left: St. Bavo’s Cathedral; St. Bavo’s Square


Inside St. Bavo’s Cathedral

We happily stroll around Gent for hours, every corner revealing beautiful new sights. At one point, we run into Marc and Yves, who are out doing their marketing for the dinner party that will have tonight to celebrate Yves’ birthday. We stand chatting in the sun for 10 minutes, enjoying the streetscape and the conversation.


Gent

Mid-afternoon we force ourselves to leave Gent and do the short drive to Antwerpen. Another guest of Marc and Yves, Mieke, is from Antwerpen and she tells us that she thinks her city is quite as beautiful as Gent. When we arrive in Antwerpen, we find it a much bigger city than Gent, with a more modern feeling. We get to our B&B and Stephane, our host, gives us a map and shows us where to go.

Antwerpen is a bit of an onion – the 1st impression it makes is of a big, industrial city, which it is. It has not managed to preserve the integrity of its old quarter in the way that Gent has, but as we walk the streets and peel back the layers, we discover its many charms, and we are glad to have come here.


From left: Antwerpen Railway Station; streetscape


Antwerpen Cathedral


Roofs of Antwerpen

N 51°
E 003°
Köln via Aachen to Gent: 303 kilometres

Charlemagne is in evidence everywhere through these parts – his name, in its Latin, German, Dutch and Flemish forms appears on roadsigns, schools, and bars as we drive through western Germany, Holland and enter Belgium.

We stop in Aachen, Charlemagne’s capital and long the centre of the Holy Roman Empire. It has gone back and forth between opposing armies over centuries, and it is perhaps an omen of a stable and long-lasting peace that today the signs throughout Aachen are trilingual – Aachen, Aken, and Aix La Chappelle.

Most of Charlemagne’s castle is gone, and we find a quaint and unexpectedly pretty town in its place; Aachen is well-accustomed to tourists, as evidenced by the high-end shops that line the streets. What is left is Charlemagne’s Dom – unexpectedly small on the outside. It must be the cathedral, it has pride of place, but we walk the exterior expressing scepticism until we find confirmation, which comes in the form of a sign announcing the cathedrals 1,200th birthday celebrations.


From left: Aachen street; Charlemagne’s Dom

Inside, the Cathedral is as unlike the great cathedrals of Europe as it is possible for a church to be – the influence of Byzantium is very clear, in the beautiful mosaics of black, gold and mother of pearl that cover the walls and ceiling, creating a dark and almost mysterious interior. We feel that we have been transported back to Turkey in this serene space.

From Aachen the drive to Gent takes us through the Netherlands – a tiny finger extending down to Maastricht – and into Belgium, through flat, lush farmland. We take the ring road around Brussels and get caught in Friday afternoon traffic.

Our B&B in Gent is a 100 year old mansion that Marc and Yves bought a few years ago and restored themselves to its original splendour – uncovering in the process the frescos on the walls of the entrance foyer that had been painted over. Despite its grandeur, Marc and Yves have turned their home into a welcoming and comfortable place, and we feel lucky to have such a nice place to call home for the night.


Marc and Yves’s Garden

We walk into the old town for dinner, and discover that Gent has been able, somehow, to maintain its historic look and feel in the centre. We decide that instead of driving as planned to Brugge tomorrow morning, we will spend the morning exploring Gent and will pass on Brugge, at least for the moment. (We are told repeatedly over the next day that Brugge is for tourists, Gent is more beautiful.)

The Dom, Köln’s cathedral, is the major building on the skyline and it dominates everything else. One of the largest Gothic buildings ever constructed anywhere, it was mercifully spared during the night blitzes of WWII – the stained glass windows, which are magnificent, were all removed during the war, and thus also survived.

Much of the rest of Köln, unfortunately, was not spared and everywhere you go you see modern, rebuilt buildings interspersed with occasional, original buildings. Based on those few original buildings, we think Köln must have been a lovely city before the war.


The Dom

We also see, as we walk the streets, silent reminders of another aspect of WWII – square brass plaques inset in the concrete sidewalks, giving the name of someone who once lived in a home that stood nearby, with the date this person was deported to the camps.

Greg has slept well – over 12 hours; I have also slept well, but don’t have his capacity for sleep. Out of this I experience an unexpected benefit of staying in a B&B – there is more space available than just the room. So while Greg sleeps, I sit at the kitchen table, making and drinking copious quantities of coffee, looking out the big window at the home and garden next door, reading.

Special hellos to those whose birthday happened while we were in Canada: Michael George and Charles Wattles, both on June 9, and Susan Eckel and Eric Bradley, both on June 13

N 50°
E 006°
Frankfurt to Köln: 205 kilometres

Renault provides a seamless service as we pick up our brand new car – we are met at Frankfurt airport by a happy German who vigorously shakes our hands and drives us to the Renault lot for the final paper work and signatures before the car is ours – Renault takes a big IOU, in case we disappear with the car. We hit the autobahn and head to Köln for the first 2 days of phase two our trip. Although we are driving at a good pace, car after car zooms past us on the right, traveling at speeds that make us look like we are crawling.

Köln, or Cologne as English speakers call it, is an extremely pleasant city of about a million people nestled on the Rhine River about 190 km northwest of Frankfurt. Our B&B owner Thomas has given us good instructions, and we arrive in the city centre by about 1 pm. We park, drop bags and walk off to explore the downtown. We don’t get too far – our long flight and the stress of the 200 kilometre drive from Frankfurt to Köln catch up with us, and we spend the rest of the afternoon napping. We head out again about 9 p.m. for dinner. After a light meal, we head back to the apartment, ready for sleep, despite the fact that at this northern latitude, the sun is still shining brightly.

We are tired and emotional from seeing everyone during our two weeks at home. We both admit to each other that we will both be happy to be on the road again, without the physical and emotional baggage of the “return”. Some have asked us if there has been a defining moment for either of us on the trip; a moment of transcendental awareness that characterizes our journey over the last five and a half months. There is an assumption that we have changed somehow. We have an assumption that we have changed somehow.

We answer questions from family and friends that soon become familiar: “What was your favourite spot? Tell me the highlight of your trip? Are you coming back to Toronto? When was your transcendental moment!?” We politely try and answer as best we can. I feel guilty because I don’t have a transcendental moment to share, something to adequately throw to the hungry, curious audience. There have been many glorious moments on the road but too lost in the detail of everyday life to mesmerize around a drink, a quick cup of coffee or a party of 20 close friends and well wishers. I keep saying “have you been to the web site?” This seems to be the logical place to go to share the day-to-day magic of our trip. Our friend Tim goads me on… “oh, that bloody web site! If I hear another word about it…”

But there is a transcendental moment: I’ve come to realize how loved we are and not just for who we are but also for what we are doing. So many people actually visit the web site and followsummer but don’t check in with us because they don’t want to bother us. They are living completely vicariously through us. People have been gushing and ooohing and ahhing. I feel like a celebrity.

John: We recognize, on arriving “home”, that home is wherever we are. It isn’t, surprisingly, a physical place, or familiar things. It is being together, wherever, in conditions that range from the sublime to, more normally, definitely less-than. It is the sharing of experiences. We have learnt that the only thing we really need to be at home is a good book.

We leave Stratford with few tears, except from John’s mom. So very different from what we wrote on our departure 5 months ago:

A day of travel and time for contemplation. The beginning of a year of living in the moment, following an intense period of planning, when it often seemed that we spent all our time living in the future as we laid the groundwork for the trip.
The movie on the flight is “Under the Tuscan Sun”. The name of the villa, Bramasole, means “yearning for sun”, and it is an apt description of the year we begin. Some particular quotes from the movie stand out: “Terrible idea! - don’t you just love them!” and “Regrets are a waste of time.” I believe there are no coincidences, so I take all of this as a good omen for our journey.

Today is like leaving any country we have visited and left, our two week saturation point being reached. There is no guilt in these feelings; they are similar to the feeling of being ready to move on that I have had all through the trip – whether in Sydney, Chiang Mai, Bangkok, New Delhi or Istanbul. My memories of the lush, green rolling hills of newly planted corn outside Stratford are clear and strong; as are the familiar thump-thump, thump-thump of the wheels of the always-late Queen streetcar, heading towards the Humber, taking me downtown to meet friends for a drink, and our families, eager to fit us into their busy schedules, everyone hanging on our every word.

Some quick thank-yous for those who looked after us while at home. John and Jeff: thank you for letting us mess up your guest bedroom for our week in Toronto. Jim and Joanne for your impeccable (as always) hosting of our Wednesday night dinner. It was lovely. Jeff, Keiko and Noah, for an easy-going and relaxed BBQ with our friends from the MBA. Bill and Bob, what can we say: we overstayed our welcome – you should have kicked us out at 9:00! Sarah for a lovely lunch with our kitties, Carmela and Frank, thank you for sharing Katie’s graduation with us, David and Kathryn, arriving late to brunch is better than not arriving at all, right? Our lovely neighbours who all wished us continued good travelling, all the business and social lunches and parties everyone treated us to, and lastly, our families Gary, Louise, Kim, and Shannon, Pam, Nimi, Eric, Liz, Janet, and Chip, and especially to Nana, who graciously increased our storage capacity at the family house in Stratford, without extra charge.

“Terminal New” at Pearson greets us like every airport we have travelled through: sleek, big and mostly unknown. We pass through it’s various check-points, remembering the long list of screening procedures including passports, watches and belt buckles, shoes and computers to try and save some time if not some hassle. We make our way to the lounge and settle, making some final calls and organizing email. Our flight is comfortable but short – a mere 7 hours across the Atlantic. By the time supper is cleaned up and we settle in, we have little more than 3 hours of sleep available to us. We have preset our watches to Frankfurt time and I don’t get to sleep until after 4:30 a.m. We are scheduled to land in Frankfurt at 7:30! Someone neglected to tell us that the European Soccer Championships have just started and all of Europe is in soccer frenzy. Just our luck.

N 43°
W 080°

Southwestern Ontario is lush and green from a cool and wet spring. Our rush hour drive home from the airport takes us through the gentle rolling hills of both Wellington and Perth Counties and is uneventful other than the usual end of work day traffic on the 401. We arrive to a beautiful late spring dinner of BBQ'd trout with rosti potatoes and fresh asparagus prepared by John's sister Liz. Lots of fun, laughs and wine.

Our time in Stratford is all too short. We spend it unpacking and re-packing, planting John's mother's flower beds and visiting local friends and enjoying my best friend's opening of Macbeth at the Stratford Festival on Friday night. John's mum is dealing with a chest cold while we are home and we help with the nursing, bringing trays of chicken soup and glasses of orange juice up to her bedroom sanctuary on the third floor of Hibernia Street. Saturday evening, with John's sister Pam, brother Eric and nephew Nimi home for our visit, she is well enough to take us out for a lovely dinner at one of the local restaurants. Liz and Janet pop their heads in between classes at their popular cooking school, Chez Soleil, saying hi and sharing stories.

We start to focus on the next part of our trip. Germany and northern Europe are pretty well organized until we head for St. Petersburg on July 1st. We buy the Lonely Planet and Rough guides to Europe and confirm our train to St. Petersburg. We connect with our Russian guide, Nikolay, and repack our bags for our hectic second week in Toronto. We will return to Stratford in exactly a week for the final repack of our trip bags and won't be returning until the snow flies in Canada in December. I find it hard to believe that five and a half months have flown by already.

Gone fishin' for two weeks in Canada!

Happy Birthday to Graham O'Keefe down under on June 2!
Happy Birthday to Lorie Milone on June 5!

We are spending some R & R time with family and friends at home in Stratford and Toronto before hitting the next part of our trip. Please check the site over the next two weeks. We hope to update you on the Canadian portion of our trip.

See you on June 15th, starting in Germany.

Greg & John
The Boys at followsummer.com

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