Saturday, June 1, 2013

Day 354 - 363, Berlin (Germany) to Stockholm (Sweden) via Gdansk (Poland)

Day 354 - 356, 20 km

I spent some more relaxing days with my sisters family in Berlin. 
 One day we went downtown to see the Reichstag Building and its famous dome of glass.
In front of it there was a park with fountains where we competed who could jump highest. My nephew Daniel jumped much higher than me.
This is at the river Spree not far from the Reichstag building.
 
The queue to the Riechstag Building was VERY long. They told us we had to wait 1,5 - 2 hours before we could go up in the dome. 
Therefore we changed our minds and decided to walk to the Siegessäule instead. 

 The golden angel on the top was very bright in front of the blue sky.
 We went up all steps and had a wonderful view back to the Reichstag building.
 Inside the dome we could see the visitors walking up in the spiral.
 Then we took a double decker bus and had a good view on the streets of Berlin.
 There were many bicycle paths and a lot of bicyclers everywhere!

Day 357, 135 km

On May 24th I left my sisters house in Teltow. She and Daniel followed me one hour with their bicycles.
 We passed a very luxurious mall.
This is inside the elevator.
Then I rode by myself the rest of the day. I had a good tailwind and soon I passed more giant fields of solar collectors.
Germany really seems to try to get rid of all nuclear power!

The border to Poland was at the river Oder.
Then suddenly I was in Poland!
 I rode some more kilometers before I found a nice wood to hide my tent.

Day 358, 145 km

As soon as I started in the morning the rain begun. What I did not know was that it would rain more than 24 hours!
I did not take many pictures that day because of the weather. Here is a polish church in the rain.
I rode all day although the roads were all covered with water. Many times passing cars splashed water in my face and many times I fell down in 10-15 cm deep potholes which were invisible in the puddles. In the evening I came to a town called Walcz where I stopped at the restaurant Mustard to ask if they knew a cheap hotel.

The owner could speak English very well and asked me where I came from. When I told him about my trip he said "you must be hungry" and offered me to choose a free meal from his menu.
While I was eating delicious Chinese food (he also offered Italian and American food), he called a hotel and booked a room for me. Then he guided me with his Volvo to the hotel and paid the room for me!
I was really grateful that I did not need to sleep in the woods that night because everything was flooded and it was raining all night...

Day 359, 140 km

The next village I passed was called Szwecja
 which means Sweden. Probably it was named by Swedes, who actually had occupied this area of Poland once. The weather still was foggy and moist, but now I could see the potholes.
The roads and the landscape reminded me of my first days of my trip, when I rode in Lithuania and Russia.
 It was really nice!

Day 360, 100 km

In the morning I found out that there were only 100 km to Gdansk and that even when I rode very slowly I would come 24 hours before the departure of my ferry. So I looked for things I could do along the road. Soon I passed a sign guiding me to a view tower. It was 500 m off the road in a wood on the highest hill of the area.
 The view was fantastic!
 When I walked back to the parking lot there was a shepherd with a goat. Many students had come to climb on the tower and they admired the cute little goat!
 I bought a bottle of goat milk from the shepherd and ate my muesli with goat milk. It was really tasty but the shepherd gave me a lot of parsley and garlic. He said I need the vitamins!
There was another guy who took paid for the parking lots. He had the same kind of costume and had a lot of music instruments around him. He let me try some of them and insisted to ask the other guy to take pictures of us playing.
  He could speak German very well and showed me a textile sheet with Kaszebsze Notes. He told me that in this part of Poland people had their own language which was called Kaszebeze.
He even sang the song for me.
He also told me that the mountain there was the highest between the Pyrenees and the Ural Mountains (which must be a little excessive...)
In the afternoon I arrived in Gdansk.
I had been there before, but I did not remember it was so beautiful!
 I guess they must have renovated many buildings since I was ther six years ago.
 In the eveninng it was raining but I found a good dry sleeping place.

Day 361, 50 km

Next morning I investigtated the surrounding of Gdansk and found out that there were really nice beaches and wonderful bicycle paths along the coast NW of Gdansk. I decided to make some research if it was a good place to go on vacation and became more and more convinced about it!
 I also bought some gifts for my family before I rode to the ferry to Nynäshamn/Stockholm.

Day 362, 70 km

Although it was raining when the ship arrived (at 2 pm on June 29th 2013) in Nynäshamn, my friend Axel expected me there to ride together with me to Stockholm.
We visited the Tourist Office to get maps and advices about the best route.
It was a strange feeling to speak swedish and to ride on swedish roads. I almost had forgotten that swedish bicycle paths were so wide and that the pavement was so smooth!

Late at night I arrived at my house. My girlfriend Emma, who had watched it for a year, was expecting me and I showed her on a map the exact route of my trip.
If you enlarge the map you can see my route
She told me that next day all my children would come for a welcome party!






4 comments:

  1. We, Bali Hut Super Store travel to see the beauty of the world and Germany is one of it! We also experience trekking in the mountains and seeing this blog remind us to go back again. Thanks for sharing these beautiful photos.

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  2. Nice trip! Thank you!
    Can you remember in which city did you shot this nice Polish Chirch? (day 358)
    Somewhere near Szczecin?

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