Luxembourg

We sit in Luxembourg City, having our first day off the bike for 2 weeks, hence the lack of contact. Tonight will be our 4th night in Luxembourg, not bad considering its only 80km long. Its a great country for cycling, with cycle paths all over, quiet backroads, and of course everything is just so close together.

The first night we spent in Vianden, a little village on a river, with a castle above on forrested slopes. Our jealousy for Euros that speak multiple languages hit a high when we asked our English speaking camp owner what the main language is here. They have their own national language, but offical forms etc are in French, while German is widely spoken as a second language. Language hogs.

After that we biked to Ettelbrück and dumped our panniers for a day of exploring the hilly north. First was a massive 1000 year old castle that has been under restoration for the last 30. An hour and a half was spent wandering the ruins and not so ruined, while admiring the stunning views of a twisting river valley on three sides below. A ride through a wind farm, which was conspicuously quiet compared to our own, took us to Esch-sur-Sure. This village was described in our guidebook as one of the prettiest in Europe so we had high expectations. Unfortunately it was not quite so, and we were left wondering if this was another instance of the author not visiting the country concerned (see Columbian Lonely Planet story from earlier this year in papers). No excuses if so, as you could whip around this country in a quick day.

First glimpses of the capital look promising, so off to discover that and report back soon.

Much love
C&D

Germany

We entered the Fatherland having already covered the Mother Country and Hastings` sister city, so all we need is a trip to the Bronx to hang with the brothers and we`ll have the whole family.

A torrent from the sky had us arriving in the Black Forrest bedraggled and glad to be visiting friend Paul in Kandern, who has a roof, and chairs. Paul and his partner Sarah, along with thier twin girls Sonne and Lucy, live at a community for mentally handicapped people, where the residents live a highly productive life manufacturing various products in workshops of a non-sweaty nature. Paul landed charge of the bakery when the baker "miester" left after some deep political intrigue, so we spent an evening making bread. Only a small batch using 15kgs of flour was required as it was holidays at the community. Much fun was had using all the industrial machinery and house sized ovens.

From there we have follwed the Rhine from its pristine clarity at Lake Constance, through days of industrialism that has us reminiscing of China and turning the river a murky Waikato colour. The Germans have along the way rivaled the Chinese also in terms of helpfulness, and on one day it seemed every time we pulled out the map a local was on hand to give advice based on his or her intimate knowledge of the regional cycle paths.

Our route took us to Freiburg, and onto Schiltach, which was an extremely atmospheric place of half timbered buildings crammed together around various platzes. After the Black Forest had literally taken us by storm - it rained the whole way - we stopped in at Baden Baden, a place Clinton described as "so nice you had to name it twice". It really was worthy of a double naming and could be the flashest place in the world. Without our white linen trousers or pearls we felt a little underdone in sun bleached shirts and jandels. The town centres on two sets of baths, one built on the site of a Roman bathhouse where nudity remains compulsory. Crys of "Is that a house?!" rang out as we came in along a river lined with mansions more like a grand hotel or cathedral. Even the info centre is in a columned building with 14 frescoes on the facade.

Sauerkraut, beer and wurst were had in the Schloss (castle) of Heidelberg. Claud said of the sauerkraut "that was one of the worst things I have ever eaten" and mused that perhaps it was some torture technique perfected in (dont mention the war). Back on the Rhine, it was the aforementioned industrial hell for 2 days before hitting wine and castles between Mainz and Koblenz. Apparently the highest concentration of castles anywhere in the world and a UNESCO World Heratige site. We saw 13 in one day, and that was only between the spear tipped raindrops lancing us in the eyeballs.

Then it was up the Moselle valley for more vineyards, and to Trier, home of Karl Marx and a popular visit for hordes of Chinese. The parallels just keep on coming.

Switzerland - easy on the eye, hard on the nose

From our partisan support of New Zealand in the Tour we headed to the land of neutrality. Switzerland is so neutral it doesn't even have its own language, and we spent a confusing week juggling French, German and occasionally English. Those at one end of the country struggle to talk to those at the other, which seems a rather odd and highly complicated way to run a place. And the whole place stinks of cowshit, which was surprising as we saw almost no cows at all...

Geneva was our first port of call where we visited the UN for a guided tour of the highly exciting conference rooms. Perhaps the most entertaining aspect was the children under 10 on our tour asking questions such as whether a country can receive nomination twice to be on the Security Council. Answers were duly written in their UN notepads. At 10 we didn't even know the UN existed. Across the road, the Red Cross Museum provided us with a days education and we even saw the first Geneva Convention and Nobel Peace Prize which was awarded to the founder of the Red Cross.

Then it was off to Bern, via Montreux. For some reason "Smoke on the Water" has often been stuck in our heads on this trip, so a detour to Montreux where it all went down was a must. Bern is not often included in the "must-visit" list of world capitals - without any classic monuments or a particularly chequered history - but we loved it. We were there on a Sunday, when all the shops were closed and the town was left to the tourists. Fountain highlights included one with an ogre that was eating squirming children headfirst, and another that squirted randomly from between paving stones waiting to soak those that fail to notice the telltale wet patches on the ground. Buildings are uniform grey, but brightened up with flowerboxes on every single window.

Another feature of Bern is the swift river that runs through the middle, which in summer is packed with people jumping in for a quick ride down. It's hard to think of another world capital with a river through it that you would want to swim in. We too tried to float down it but it turned out all thsoe grannies had made it look deceptively easy. Claudia was so cold she couldn't breathe, and Damien slammed his knee on a rock, so we got out, bedraggled and ashamed, after 100m.

Onto Interlaken for a quick look at more famous mountains - the Eiger, Jungfrau, and the Monch. But having had quite enough of mountains for the moment we stayed firmly in the flat (ish) valley. On through the rolling rural countryside, nothing in particular to see but very nice to bike due to fantastic bike routes all over the country using back roads or dedicated bike paths. Perhaps the 'high'light was seeing a crop of dope 8 feet tall and 100m square right beside the road. No doubt someone would claim it was for hemp.

After that brief interlude it was onwards to Lake Constance, where we hit 3 countries in a day and made our entrance into Germany. We have now made our way to Heidelberg, where we are sheltering from yet another cold and rainy summer's day. Tales of Germany and baking bread in a mental institution to come...