surprise visit to hamburg

So I havent blogged for sometime now – ‘searching endlessly for internet’ not being the reason. I left Sweden just over a week ago to surprise visit my big sister with flowers and wine (and a smelly tent and shoes) – she lives in Hamburg with her husband. I choose to cross by ferry from Trelleborg to Rostock and then make my way over here. This was a nice crossing (around 4 or 5hrs) and once in Rostock or Germany for that matter the cycling pathways are very efficient and easy to navigate. I’ve noticed though that speaking English is not so common here in comparison to Norway and Sweden. However, you can get by with hand gestures and smiles.

Something I must say is that the actual port terminal in Rostock can be a little tricky to get out of – it may be worth chatting to a ferry person before leaving the ship to know the right direction for a cyclist – I was peddling like crazy in between huge lorries, making my way onto the actual motorway (not a good position to be in) before hauling my bike off the road and waiting & walking to get to a pathway to cycle. I’m sure there was probably a bike cycle sign somewhere but I must have blinked and missed it.

So, since being in Hamburg I seemed to have lost sense of being on the bike tour (only been on the bike maybe 4 times??!). And really I’m not really a city lover but there are some tranquil places here to wander through and enjoy, there is great architecture and tonnes of places to eat. My sister and I have talked ourselves silly and spent many hours deciding what to do for the day, of which it mostly has involved green parks and late breakfasts.

This weekend we visited a beautiful place called Lychen, located in the former East Germany amongst many lakes and forests and oh it so was good to be in this environment again – seeing the camping signs and bike trails made me get excited about being back on the road again (but the comfortable bed will be dearly missed). We arrived on the Friday evening to a small gathering for food & wine, and then on Saturday morning we took on the lakes in a rather large canoe. We got into a good rhythm for paddling and it was sunshine all around. 

With the water being so cool some essential diving, backflips and swimming were had – was alot of fun. On the evening we went to a 30th birthday party, which was very nice and went on till the early hours. We arrived back to Hamburg this evening and its a bit grey outside.

Will be leaving later this week to head into Denmark. Looking forward to it – although I have been warned about the wind???