Prior post: https://blog.bucksvsbytes.com/2023/10/18/road-trip-europe-ii-23-10-11-23-10-15-girona-catalonia-dont-say-spain/

It’s well before daylight this Monday morning when I load everything into the car. As I hoped, it all fits into the covered rear cargo area and I can keep the back seat empty – a major reduction in risk of theft. I’ve worked out the most complicated route possible – all small roads, most of them serpentine, passing a variety of “natural park” areas. Eric looked over my original idea and dismissed certain parts as “flat wine country” or “stinks of pig shit” so I revised portions based on his extensive bicycle touring experience. I think it will be a phenomenal drive.

I’m heading to a BeWelcome host in western Catalonia. The most direct route would take 3-4 hours. Google estimates my contorted version at over 9. After fueling up, it’s about 45 minutes before sunrise as I head northwest in the direction of the Pyrenees, the high range separating Spain and France. It’s quite cloudy, so full daylight doesn’t appear until about 9 AM.

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Shortly after that, I reach the village of Santa Pau in one of Catalonia’s volcanic regions. The topography is filled with scattered, often overlapping craters, cones, and caldera but the vulcanism is so far in the past that everything is forested and thus not obvious unless you know what you’re looking for. Santa Pau is an old town and I park the car to search on foot for a bakery.

With 3 croissants in my belly, I return and drive a little further to the trailhead for Santa Margarita volcano. During the summer, there’s a hefty parking charge, but now it’s unstaffed and mostly empty — one of the many benefits of off season travel. Of course, avoiding the extreme heat is the main reason I no longer go to Europe in the summer. Santa Margarita is a small cone containing a crater with walking paths. I hoof it up the slope and, along the road, I encounter an incongruous sight — a pasture full of totem poles and other wooden figures. There’s no one around so I can’t ask about their story.

On reaching the rim, I see that the view of the crater is obscured by the forested slope.

Rather than walk down into the crater and back up in the light rain, I retrace my steps to the car and head north.

On reaching the village of Oix, the road again becomes picturesque, ie severely serpentine, as it ascends to my next goal, the Pyrenees village of Beget. The route is what I now understand to be typical secondary highway philosophy here: nicely paved, with a white line on both sides, but only one and a half cars wide with NO shoulder in most places. In the US, this simply does not meet any conceivable minimum standard for two way traffic. The pavement extends from the steep, uphill slope on one side right to the edge of the dropoff on the other.

In many places, there are guardrails set below the road on the deep downhill slope but not even that nominal barrier between you and death in many others. Driving these roads requires full attention. A moment’s lapse could send the car plunging downhill, yet on every sharp blind turn the car must be as far to the right (against either the upslope face or the dropoff) as possible because you may meet oncoming traffic. In many spots, the other vehicle doesn’t come into view until you’re about 20 feet from it. Opposing cars must squeeze as far to the extremes as possible and try to carefully get past each other. In many spots, that’s physically impossible and one vehicle might have to back up to a slightly wider spot. Fortunately, in all my driving on these roads, traffic has been very light and my dance with oncoming cars (or trucks) has allowed skin-of-the-teeth passing every time.

Beget is a hamlet set, like so any others, in magnificent mountain scenery and perched steeply below one of the many switchbacks.

I stop briefly for a photo before continuing on another 16 miles to Vilallonga de Ter and my next turnoff. On the latter part of this route, I’m surprised that I’m paralleling the River Ter, which is the same one that runs past Eric’s house over 30 miles behind me. My next goal is a road that, on the map, looks insignificant and goes up into the Pyrenees high country. As usual, I have no idea if it’s actually driveable or goes through to the other side as depicted. Named the Camí de Fontlletera, the map also shows a route number but I’ve learned through ample experience that even some dead end, cow pasture, 4-wheel drive tracks are numbered.

As I turn off the highway, the road looks good. It’s another 1+ lane paved road as it switchbacks up out of the valley. This totally unnecessary 22 mile excursion looks like it might be a piece of cake. The weather is kind of sunny but many clouds hang in various parts of the valley. As I ascend, they obscure many of the mountain slopes.

After about 5 miles of winding ascent, things change. The pavement ends, the houses peter out, and the road gets wide and very rocky. As my altitude increases, the trees get sparser until I’ve left them all behind and am surrounded by alpine (well, I guess Pyrennine) meadows. The shifting clouds change the views of other peaks and ridges by the moment but I have to stop the car to appreciate them since navigating the uphill road strewn with large rocks requires my full attention, frequently weaving the car from extreme right to extreme left. Loathe as I am to speak in sports metaphors, it’s like broken field running in American football.

I have the road to myself except for occasional clumps of horned cows blocking my way or grazing the shoulders. Some of them are reluctant to move and I have to drive within 3 feet to finally get them to amble to the side.

The road tops out at a respectable 6,700 feet near Refugio Claus, a deserted stone building that seems to be available for use by travelers and cattle workers alike.

I haven’t passed another moving vehicle since I started uphill, but now I see one tired looking bicyclist having lunch on a roadside boulder. As the road drops back down it gets easier. The surface is smoother gravel, and the route less serpentine as it goes steadily down. On one of my view-appreciating stops, the bicyclist passes me, moving at what seems like breakneck speed. I never catch up to him again. About 10 miles after I left trees behind, I’m back in the forest. The valley floor far below gets nearer as the road narrows again and I navigate more switchbacks. Abruptly, the one lane pavement returns after 15 miles of rock and gravel and the last couple of miles takes me past various homes until I return to a more traveled highway. I really enjoyed getting into the high country but its also nice to be back on a less intense road for a little while.

Continuing generally westward toward my day’s destination, I traverse a long, steep stretch up a mountain and then along the rim of a deep canyon. There are intermittent habitations including a tiny village nestled around one of the switchbacks. At one point I see, far across the valley, what appears to be a very large but abandoned mineworks, so there used to be more activity here.

The mountains are huge expanses of bare rock with views toward distant lowlands. I believe the region is called La Cerdanya.

Soon enough, I’m back in less interesting valleys with faster roads and more traffic. Even here where the mountains are petering out and the road is straight, the two lanes are only a skimpy, 6 feet wide. That’s just enough for a standard car, but with the side mirrors hanging over the white lines. I pull over to take a 15 minute nap before proceeding. I have another long, obscure road ahead but there’s still a long stretch of conventional highway so later I stop at a bar for coffee to boost my energy a bit. The two servers are sharing a plate of lunch food I absolutely don’t recognize but when I ask what it’s called I get an unintelligible name.

I have one more unnecessary diversion in mind, a small road through an area called Les Valls d’Aguilar. The name says “valleys” but the map indicates the 36 mile route does a lot of climbing and dropping between them.

I have no further idea what I’ll encounter, which is, after all, where the fun is. It’s well into afternoon and Google estimates only 105 minutes for the ride but over that distance they calculate an average speed of only 30 miles per hour. Translation: rough, friggin’ road.

Once again, I’m on a 1+ lane, paved, rural route but there’s no traffic as I drive up the initial valley so there are no passing crises. The road climbs steadily past occasional houses and tiny communities and at about 7 miles ascends a series of severe switchbacks to reach the next valley which is really more of a high plateau. At one point the road reaches its high point, La Guàrdia d’Ares, a modest 5,200 feet, at a nice, shady spot with a view.

The road continues to meander hither and thither until I reach the small farming village of Taús. Here the paved road heads into town but the through route turns into a narrow dirt road with an ominous “Warning: Pavement Ends” sign. Now things may get interesting/challenging.

The road quality deteriorates dramatically and this portion is obviously much less traveled. This is often the case with long rural routes. Access is from either end and the middle sees much more limited usage due to the paucity of through traffic. About a mile further on I come to Els Castells, apparently an old fortification perched on a small hill surrounded by some farmhouses. Following what looks like the more heavily used dirt track, I quickly come to a cattle gate. Unlike in the American West where one often encounters pasture gates that must be opened, driven through, and closed behind you, in Europe a gate of any sort generally means “Private, No Entry”, so that’s what I assume here. I must have inadvertently gotten off the road. I turn around and go back to the last fork and take the road into the community. Google Maps shows a second route that avoids the gate and rejoins the first so that’s what I’m looking for. After a few hundred feet the road I’m on gets very narrow and passes between two buildings. I ease the Berlingo into the gap and it clears the walls by, literally less than an inch on each side. Right after that, I encounter another gate and the road ends in cow pasture – the alternate road clearly doesn’t exist in any useful form.

I can’t possibly back up through that narrow squeeze and the track I’m on is only 6 feet wide, way to narrow for the required U-turn. As usual, there’s a steep hill on one side and a substantial drop off on the other. I manage to reverse ram the car a few feet up the hill which gives me just enough room to turn it around in 3 progressive iterations without going over the edge. Since the only alternative is the first cattle gate, I drive back there for a closer look. Getting out of the car and inspecting the gate. I see that it’s not a conventional design. Instead, it consists of two spring loaded rubber arms that meet in the middle. Vehicles pass by simply pushing the arms slowly aside as they move through. I’ll find out later this is a common arrangement in the Pyrenees.

This solves the problem. It is a gate meant for public use, so I’m again on my way, moving quite slowly due to the primitive surface.

Past the gate the rough road descends a narrow ravine and is just wide enough for my Berlingo.

After about 6 miles of this, the pavement resumes, although very low, “it-might-as-well-be-dirt” quality at first. Soon it’s back to the standard, super narrow format and I make a long, tortuous descent to the highway. I only meet two cars coming up and we manage to pass without problems.

On the main road, it’s late in the day and it takes me only 20 minutes to reach my hosts, who live in a place called “The Dam House”. I’ve been instructed to walk across the suspension bridge and I’ll see their house in the distance. More on that next time.

Next post: https://blog.bucksvsbytes.com/2023/10/26/road-trip-europe-ii-23-10-16-23-10-20-that-dam-house-and-the-bone-collectors/

Prior post: https://blog.bucksvsbytes.com/2023/10/12/road-trip-europe-ii-23-10-09-23-10-10-a-long-slog-to-spain/

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I’m more or less caught up on my sleep after my 21 hour journey and this Wednesday morning, I have an appointment for the mandatory, biennial vehicle inspection, the ITV. It’s not due until February but I may be away from Spain through then. I’ve been unable to determine whether I can have it done on my return without penalty so I’m playing it safe. The inspection is not particularly intense, similar to New York State but with more tests done with instruments rather than visually. The Berlingo passes easily and I’m good for another two years.

Leaving the test facility in the town of Celrà, I spot a small directional sign that says, in Catalan, “former airfield”. The signs peter out and Google Maps, puzzlingly, leads me to an agricultural field but some online research eventually clarifies the matter.

You may not know that Spain endured a civil war not that long ago, 1936-39. Right wing militarists and Catholics tried to overthrow the recently ascendant, secular, left wing Republic. The rebel Nationalists eventually prevailed which led to Generalissimo Franco’s 35-year rule rule as the fascist, authoritarian dictator of Spain. The nation returned to democracy – although many Spaniards feel the nationalists quietly retain control — only with Franco’s death in 1975.

The three year war was very intense and the historical sign I saw on the way home referred to a wartime Republican airfield adjacent to town. Except for a few bunkers, there is very little left at the site, which is now the farm field to which Google Maps pointed me, but Celrà’s defunct tannery, a massive building now devoted to various public uses, has a hard to find exhibit hall commemorating the airfield and its loyalists.

They fought the rebels bravely but to no avail. The field was bombed 10 times by the Nationalists. The Spanish Civil War has faded into oblivion for most of us, but this hall brought it to life for me.

Heading home, I stop at my favorite supermarket, Aldi. to pick up some groceries. Eric has been working intensely and with Gemma gone he’s not particularly well stocked. He’s also a vegetarian so if I want any meat, it’s on me. I get some stuff to make my eating a little bit more flexible and that satisfies my diet for the moment.

We speak for a long time in the evening over politics, economics, and other topics. It’s nice to get along well. Eric and I both have plenty of strong opinions (“smartest guy in the room” [grin]). Now, we can talk politics and society and homo sapiens and even though we disagree on various aspects, there are fundamental things on which we’re in concert.

My plan to drive solo through Spain, Portugal, and Morocco is starting to firm up. Old friend, Linda Magley, is toying with the idea of joining me for a while, but flying here from her rural area is expensive — and she has a dog. It will take quite a bit of good luck for that to work out. It would be nice to spend some time with her, though, since we’ve rarely seen each other since she moved to the (yecch!) Carolinas decades ago.

With a travel route coalescing, I’m going to have to spend some intense time finding hosts and working out details. That will occupy a lot of tomorrow, which is Eric’s last day of work. He’ll have a week off after that. And we’ll probably do some things together before I leave here. At least I did my 2023 taxes – just before I left home — so that giant annual chore is out of the way.

Thanks to lobbying by the tax preparation giants (I’m looking at you H&R Block and Intuit), the IRS is legally prohibited from offering automated or even directly prepared returns. There is so much mandatory financial reporting in the US that the government could fill out 90% of your return ahead of time, which is how it works in some other nations. Instead, we all have to prepare or have prepared our own incredibly complicated forms. I did mine by hand for many years, on the assumption that knowing the details of tax law was a worthwhile effort. About 15 years ago, the already complex process became so impossible that I had to start using commercial software. As a sop, the tax prep giants offer free filing for many lower income people but each taxpayer has to figure out which firm, if any, they qualify for and millions of people aren’t even aware of the possibility as it isn’t well publicized. It’s a perfect example of dollar politics, where the rich can write their own laws and regulations even when it’s not in the public interest.

Thursday is busy but unexciting. I’m working on trip planning, sending out dozens of tentative hosting requests (since I don’t know more than a day or two ahead where I’ll be), and other necessary tasks. Eric is decompressing and relaxing after finishing work in early afternoon. Taking care of his bicycle touring guests while pedaling every day isn’t easy and he works three weeks straight without time off. He’s lucky, though, to be able to spend most nights at home.

A neighboring couple are screaming at each other, she on their balcony, he on the street. This is apparently a recurring event here and, tonight, someone calls the police. Seven officers mill around trying to defuse the rancor.

Friday turns out to be a lazy day. Eric takes the van to pick up some purchases from a warehouse and I get a message saying a Romanian acquaintance is in Barcelona, heading back home today. I stayed a few days with Florin in his small town. He is ex-army and in his retirement has his own one-person trucking company hauling car parts around Europe. We went out every day to see the sights in his region of Romania and he was a great guide. I spent some jolly time with his relatives even though some of them didn’t speak English. In Romania and Hungary, alcohol is a significant part of many people’s day and diet and I spent a lot of time there fending off proffered drinks, including firewater, often with the completely honest excuse, “No thanks. I can’t afford to get any more stupid than I am.” My last ditch strategy is to lie that I have a bad liver and alcohol will kill me, but no one has ever been so insistent as to drive me to that extreme. I invite Florin to stop by for a reunion on his way out of Spain and I walk to a supermarket to get some lunch and dessert supplies.

He arrives later than he expected, 5:30 PM, and can only stay 15 minutes as he has to get his load, for which the shipper made him wait in Barcelona four days (!), to Belgium by morning. He looks very tired, but he insists coffee will get him through the night safely. Florin has a childhood friend riding with him for company. Vasily is Romanian but, by sheer coincidence, lives a block away from Eric here in Sarriá de Ter. Serendipitously, he gets to meet one of his neighbors through my Romanian connection.

Saturday, I decide to start my road trip early Monday morning so I need to finish everything I need to do today and tomorrow. I drive over to Girona’s shopping area to buy some basic camping gear. Decathlon is the REI of Spain, with an enormous selection and reasonable prices. I end up with a tent, sleeping bag, folding camp stool, and an insulated cooler bag, all low end and just consumer quality. Surprisingly, rigid camping coolers are an uncommon item here. The rest of the day is spent on the computer doing stuff that shouldn’t be neglected but has been.

Sunday is packing day. I like to keep everything invisible under the load cover in the rear of the Berlingo to minimize the chance of theft but that area is quite limited so too much load means I’ll have items exposed in the back seat. To avoid that, every bag and box must be tight-packed, which requires planning and experimentation. Piled up in Eric’s garage, it looks like much more than will fit but I think I can manage.

By the time Eric returns home from a typical 3-hour Catalan lunch with a friend, I’ve done all I can do. He and I take a ride up into the nearby mountains and past some of the region’s dams and reservoirs, almost all of it on narrow, sinuous mountain roads.

To put it extremely simply – which is the only way I understand geology — about 65 million years ago, the Iberian tectonic plate careened northeastward into the much larger Eurasian plate, turning the smaller plate into today’s Iberian Peninsula, ie Spain and Portugal.

The idea of giant land masses drifting randomly on the earth’s mantle like ice floes and reconfiguring the continents every 10 million years or so has always fascinated me, especially since as a young child I stared at maps of the Atlantic Ocean and noted that the contours of the land masses to the east and west seemed like they would fit together if the ocean were removed. This idle observation came years before the theory of plate tectonics became sufficiently accepted to reach the public eye.

The Iberian impact pushed up the Pyrenees Mountains, the present day border between Spain and France. The stresses of that uplift (I think of the analogy of ripples radiating outward from a rock splashing into a pond) also resulted in the formation of the Catalan Coastal range, the low mountains near Girona through which we’re driving. This region has deep canyons and exposed cliffs everywhere you look so the views are frequently very dramatic.

Returning home after an intense drive, we go into Girona proper this evening and have dinner at a Catalan restaurant.

The food is very tasty but the portions leave a lot to be desired from my point of view. The service is very sluggish and I can’t figure out if it’s due to understaffing or the fact that there’s no custom of tipping in Spain. I guess speed of service doesn’t matter because Catalonians linger for hours over their meals. Eric tells me they are so focused on preserving their unique culture that ethnic restaurants have never gotten much of a foothold in Girona. Many Catalonians reject the idea that they are Spanish and wish for independence although that will almost certainly not come to pass.

After our meal we walk around Girona’s old town a little and Eric shows me the footbridge designed by Gustav Eiffel years before he designed the Eiffel Tower. I jokingly ask whether the structure was also intended to be a tower. Did it then fall over and the city made the best of it by using it as a bridge?

Returning home, Eric and I say our goodbyes before going to bed because I plan to be on the road before first light tomorrow.

Next post: https://blog.bucksvsbytes.com/2023/10/23/road-trip-europe-ii-23-10-16-getting-high-in-the-spanish-pyrenees/

I’m off to son, Eric’s, house near Girona, Catalonia, Spain this Monday morning, a lengthy, grueling trip from my home in Livingston Manor. Susan’s last minute decision not to come along throws me into a completely different travel mode. By the way, if you’re interested in riding along for a while, contact me ASAP.

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Instead of someone driving us to JFK airport, I use public transportation, loaded like a burro with heavy backpack, duffel bag, and two shoulder bags. In case you haven’t tried it, once you have a backpack on, a shoulder bag becomes a dead neck weight. Two of them are a choking hazard.

Susan drives me to the Coach USA bus terminal in Monticello. Due to their sparse schedule, I have to catch an 8 AM bus to make a 5 PM flight. It’s been quite a while since I bused to New York City and I’m shocked to see the terminal and ticket counter no longer open in time for early buses – another example of the decades long trend of CSID, “Customer Service Is Dead”. I have to figure out quickly how to buy my ticket on my phone.

The Short Line, as it used to be known, was never a luxury service, but post-pandemic it’s gotten sloppier. The driver pulls in late, without apology, and his destination sign carelessly says “Binghamton” instead of “New York”. I imagine he rolled out of bed ten minutes ago. Once we’re on board, he announces we’re making an unscheduled detour to Middletown. He has to go where management tells him, of course, and when some passengers complain he’s making them late for work he ignores their comments.

Most annoying, he plays religious preaching radio for the whole trip. I can hear it clearly from my seat in the second row. At one point, when the bus is stopped, I ask, “Can you turn down the sermon, please?” but he ignores that, too. Before departure, most drivers offer a stern warning that passengers playing music at a volume others can hear or engaging in extensive cell phone conversations are at risk of being put off the bus for discourtesy. This guy supplies the audio disturbance himself. The Conditions of Carriage do not include being evangelized throughout the ride. I complain to the company but don’t identify the trip because I don’t want to risk getting the driver fired. I suggest they remind all drivers not to subject passengers to personal religious beliefs.

Arriving at Manhattan’s Port Authority Bus Terminal, I struggle into the depths to catch the subway to Queens, followed by a long bus ride to JFK. A couple of short Skytrain rides and another long, burdened walk gets me to the American Airlines ticket counter. Here I can finally shed my loaded backpack. I always use soft luggage because it’s easier to pack in my car, but I lose the benefit of wheeling it around.

On my way to the gate, I encounter a new procedure: the ID checkers ahead of security won’t let you proceed if you’re carrying more than two items. I’m told I have one too many and required to repack things to get rid of one. I’m already wearing extra layers of outer clothing that wouldn’t fit in my luggage but, fortunately, there’s just enough slack in my flexible bags to consolidate four into three.

The security checkpoint is easy thanks to PreCheck but I will never stop resenting that passengers have to pay the federal government to qualify for a procedure that saves it labor and improves service for everyone – opportunistic bastards. Oops, is my problem with authority showing?

I had hoped to while away the idle hours in an airline lounge, with food and comfortable chairs, due to a benefit I have on one of my credit cards. After an hour of confusion on the phone trying to get usage details, I finally present myself at the American Airlines lounge where they immediately tell me my pass isn’t valid in Terminal 8 and I can’t transit to a different terminal lounge. There’s a restaurant where I could, instead, get $28 off a meal. Given it’s in the post-security hostage prison, that probably amounts to a 10% discount, but they’re closed on Mondays anyway. So I spend over four boring hours at the gate before my flight boards, which gives me time to notice that either American Airlines or Port Authority are letting things slide here. The nearest water fountain is out of order and the next one’s flow is so low you have to just about suck on the metal spout to get a drink. The phone charging station ports are mostly broken so users have to negotiate turns on the two functional ones. The seats have prominent electrical receptacles on them – but they’re not plugged into power.

The 7-hour flight is uneventful. Supper and a breakfast snack are supplied and there are no disruptive passengers. I have two seats to myself, so I manage to curl my six foot frame into a three foot sphere and catch some fitful sleep en route. Despite thoroughly understanding the physics involved, it’s still hard to believe that you can routinely hurl a 300 ton plane into the air and reliably expect it not to slam vertically into the ground at 200 miles per hour. All I really ask of an airplane flight is that it gets me and my luggage to my destination, alive. The days when flying was actually fun ended around 1980. I fly as little as possible and when I do, I like to amortize the discomfort and frustration over at least two months of destination time. For me, it’s actually more fun to drive 3,000 miles than spend a day being treated like a package of meat suspected of terrorism.

Arrival in Barcelona early Tuesday is a relief.

Thanks to my German passport, I breeze through immigration. Unlike US airports, European ones supply free luggage carts so once I claim my pack I’m unburdened for the long walk from terminal to the train station, broken up by a free shuttle bus ride. Barcelona’s two terminals are on opposite sides of the airport, about 15 minutes apart by road. You can’t walk between them.

Two train rides get me to Girona. The regional train has nearly airport level security, with bag xray, id checks, and queueing.

Arriving in familiar Girona, I had originally planned to take two local buses to Eric’s house but, since I’m again loaded like a pack animal, I take the easy way and opt for a taxi. Eric is at work so I let myself in and am asleep 10 minutes later. My complete door-to-door trip took 21 hours and involved car, bus, train, bus, train, train, airplane, bus, bus, train, train, taxi. Whew. I’m lucky I can still manage this sort of travel.

When I awake in the evening, I greet Eric. I see more of him now that he lives in Spain than I did for years before. It’s a happy reunion. He’s such a fine person, despite the acrimony he and I went through when he was young.

Next post: https://blog.bucksvsbytes.com/2023/10/18/road-trip-europe-ii-23-10-11-23-10-15-girona-catalonia-dont-say-spain/

Prior post: https://blog.bucksvsbytes.com/2023/01/06/road-trip-europe-22-12-21-german-christmas-singalong/

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First thing this morning, before dawn, I drive over to my property in Eggersdorf for my first eyeball look in 8 years. I’m still getting used to one major difference in German intersection design. In the US, traffic lights are typically hung in the center of the intersection or on its far side, so the light is visible anywhere you stop the car. In Germany, the lights are almost always placed on the near side of the intersection. Drivers must be careful to stop far enough back to see those lights. A little too far and they’re all out of easy sight and you won’t be able to see them change. Easily avoidable, but the first week or so, I’m constantly overshooting and either craning my neck to look straight up out of the very top of the windshield to glimpse the red light or being “advised” by the driver behind that it has changed and I’m blocking traffic.

I was sure I had left keys for the property gate with the erstwhile real estate agent in 2014 but he insists I did not. Susan is bringing the second set from NY but that does me no good now. I have a vague memory of talking to a neighboring business. Perhaps I left the keys with them so they could park a vehicle in the driveway rather than leave it completely unused. Which business? I don’t know.

On my arrival, I find a completely unexpected situation. In 2014, there was a wall between me and my neighbor and their backyard was occupied by a garage. Now, I find the wall and garage demolished, my gate broken through, and my lot used as driveway and construction yard for a new house nearing completion in that backyard. This despite that the neighbor’s existing driveway on the other side of their property provides equal access.

By German standards this is outrageous behavior but since I have no lawyer, it’s almost Christmas, I’m leaving town in 4 days, and it seems like more of a civil issue than a police matter, there’s nothing I can do right now. I take photographs of the damage and the extensive debris covering my property and head home.

Karl-Heinz and Edelgard are leaving for a holiday road trip to Copenhagen tomorrow, so a few days ago I arranged to leave Biesdorf Saturday morning to stay with another host over Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and Dec 26 until I drive through the night to meet Susan’s arriving flight in Frankfurt at 6 AM on Dec 27. When I report my plan to Karl-Heinz I run into an unexpected obstacle. He is very worried about break-ins to his unoccupied house and asks me to stay through Dec 26. I can hardly say no to a generous old friend so I reluctantly adjust my plans to assuage his worries. Instead of spending the nights of Dec 24th and 25th with hosts, I’ll spend those days with them and come back to Biesdorf at night to stand “guard duty”.

At any rate, since my remaining days are spoken for; I have to spend this morning and afternoon cleaning up the apartment so as not to leave work for Edelgard next week. I gather up the bedding and my dirty clothes and head down the steep, cement cellar stairs to the laundry room. Now, after my two falls on the ice last week, I’m moving around much more carefully. With a sack of laundry in my right hand, I’m carefully descending the stairs in my bare feet holding the banister firmly with my left. It seems uneventful, but about 6 steps from the bottom my right foot loses traction and shoots off the step, followed immediately by the left. I end up riding the step edges on my right ribs before coming to rest at the bottom. Thanks to my grip on the handrail, the fall isn’t as bad as the earlier ones, but the pain is acute and the stream of cursing continuous. I don’t understand how it could have happened — perhaps some moisture on a step or the lack of a friction coating on the painted cement — but it did. For the third miraculous time, I realize I’m still mobile so I pull myself painfully to my feet and continue with laundering.

Although I’m sore as hell, I pursue my plan to meet Servas host Sabine for a long walk through the Christmas decorations of downtown Berlin. About 5:30 pm I drag myself to the Biesdorf train station for the hour ride to our Savignyplatz rendezvous.

Sabine is an engaging host who grew up in East Berlin until the wall fell when she was 20. Our conversation is nonstop as we walk first past the Gedächtniskirche (Memorial Church). In 1943, this prominent church in the center of Berlin was severely damaged in a bombing raid, yet remained standing. 12 years later, its ghostly profile made a deep impression on my 5 year old self as I visited the site with my mother and aunt. Today, the church has been replaced but the core of the damaged steeple preserved in the new design.

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Sabine and I continue along Kurfürstendamm, Berlin’s version of Fifth Avenue, where all the big name stores have elaborate Christmas window displays.

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Leaving the shopping area, still talking away, we walk through dark streets to the Bundesrat, the German legislature with it’s famous glass dome tourist attraction. Due to the building’s heavy security, there’s no way to enter without advance booking, so we proceed to nearby Brandenburger Tor, the famous city gate that for decades sat inaccessibly on the boundary between East and West Berlin. It re-opened to foot traffic when the Berlin Wall came down in 1989 and is a stop for virtually every tour and tourist in Berlin. As we walk through at about 8 PM it’s relatively uncrowded — that is, not thronged — and we can appreciate the Christmas lighting and a large menorah.

Since Sabine grew up in East Germany (which dissolved 33 years ago), I remark that some older, former East Germans that I talk to sort of dismiss life in East Germany as a bygone not worth discussing. She points out this may be because such people played roles that do not go over well today. For example, they may have been Communist party members with foreign travel or other privileges, or cooperated with the Stasi police to report on activities of their neighbors or even family (if you’ve never seen the movie “The Lives of Others, I highly recommend it). Nebbish that I am, this idea never occurred to me but it is thought provoking. Certainly, in a comparable system, after Germany lost World War II, “nobody” admitted to being a Nazi.

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Continuing east along Unter den Linden, a famous [East] Berlin street that has been completely transformed by new construction since reunification, we end up at the Einstein restaurant for a late dinner of Austrian (i,e, to my crude palate, very similar to German) food. Traditional cuisine is surprisingly hard to find as Germany has become home to myriad ethnic restaurants operated by waves of immigrants. You’re far more likely to find Middle Eastern, Italian, Chinese, Thai, Indian, Vietnamese, and of course fast food.

After dinner, we say our goodbyes and I haul my aching body home on the subway to a long, recuperative sleep.

Prior post: https://blog.bucksvsbytes.com/2022/12/31/road-trip-europe-22-12-19-20-a-careless-moment-and-a-narrow-escape-from-tragedy/

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With no chance of making progress on my real estate issue, it’s time for vacation pursuits. Servas host Isolde has contacted me and suggested attending a community Christmas sing in Spandau, a neighborhood on the opposite side of Berlin. This sounds like a fun time so I agree to pick her up and head over there. On the way, I notice a store whose name doesn’t come across well in English.

After some location confusion, we figure out where we’re going, park about a kilometer away, and walk to the venue. In general, Europeans who go everywhere by bicycle are not good guides while riding in a car because the routes they take with their bikes are often very different from auto routes.

The event is at the Sport Club Siemensstadt. Sport clubs are very common in Germany and many people hold a membership in one. These private clubs provide access to a swimming pool, game fields, gymnasium, etc. They also offer regular lessons, tournaments, and other events, some of them open to the public, such as tonight’s community sing.

Although we’re late according to the schedule, we still arrive way ahead of the singing. Everyone is sitting on outdoor benches facing a small stage with a large display above where lyrics will be projected. There are many families with children.

Surrounding the area are kiosks selling various holiday drinks and foods. As Isolde and I sit there making conversation, there’s a seemingly endless set of speakers lauding the club, the town, the local government, and who knows what else. Finally, we get around to the actual singing. The activity is led by a female singer and an accompanying keyboardist.

The singer is quite upbeat and it becomes apparent by her style that her typical audience is kids. There are a dozen or more Christmas songs, more secular than holy, with several in English. The selection is a little kitschy — the singer said that from the stage, not me — but fun. The singer often repeats a chorus or sings verses out of order, leaving the lyrics switching wildly as someone tries to re-sync them.

Many sing along and have a good time. In the midst of the crowd, I belt out lyrics, too, secure that in all that noise, my two-note range won’t impinge on anyone else’s enjoyment. Toward the end, a number of Ukrainian refugee children are invited to dance in front of the stage as the singer encourages them.

After an hour or so, the show ends and we disperse to our cars. I drop Isolde at her house and begin the long trip home. It was a very German Christmas celebration.

During the event, rain fortuitously held off, sparing the audience, but as I’m driving home it closes in. Late at night in Biesdorf, the scene is eerie as the street lights shine through the fog.

Next post: https://blog.bucksvsbytes.com/2023/01/15/road-trip-europe-22-12-22-another-dumb-accident-what-am-i-getting-old/

Prior post: http://blog.bucksvsbytes.com/2022/12/30/road-trip-europe-22-12-12-18-tires/

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The first change in weather since I got to Berlin is occurring. It’s raining today and slightly above freezing. To save energy, I’ve had the apartment heat turned off since arrival, relying on thermal underwear and the ubiquitous German featherbed for comfort. Today, I open some windows to air the place out.

Tomorrow is my meeting with the lawyer to start resolving the preliminaries to marketing my Berlin property. However… around noon I receive an email from her husband and law partner that she is ill and won’t be working the rest of the month — and is fully booked through January. Not what I expected since she was eager to go just 4 days earlier, but there’s no point in speculating whether she’s dissembling. I ask the husband for a referral to another lawyer, which he supplies. I send my analysis to this attorney and within hours he responds that my problem is complex, he has upcoming surgery, and is not interested in handling it. My skeptical hope of progress by Christmas is now dashed. Since I’m leaving Berlin soon, any further work will have to wait until my return in several months. I’ve waited 10 years, so this is just a minor additional delay.

Since there’s no hope of further progress — hope may die last, but it does die — it’s time to start socializing. I begin sending out emails to various Berlin Servas hosts asking if they want to get together before I head for Frankfurt during the night of 26 December.

Mid-afternoon, I need to get something out of the car, which is within feet of the door. Leaving my house slippers on, I go outside. Failing to realize how the rain and cold ground have conspired to create a frictionless layer of slick ice, within a couple of steps my feet go out from under me and I free fall 3 feet onto my back. As I lay there cursing, moaning, and evaluating whether my traveling is at an end, I gradually conclude the pain is all superficial and nothing has been broken or displaced. Blaming my smooth soled slippers for the fall, I reach down and pull them off, figuring my wet socks will have a better grip on the ice.

Slowly and painfully, I get back on my feet and work my way to the rear car door to retrieve what I need. Feeling a little less slammed and surer on my feet, I head back to the house. Just as I’m thinking about bending down to pick up my abandoned slippers, it happens again! My stocking feet shoot forward and I again free fall onto my back. This time my elbows and the back of my head make a secondary impact. I can hardly imagine getting through two such falls without a serious injury and my head certainly hurts where it hit. Miraculously, I realize my pain-wracked body is nonetheless functional. I make it through the front door.

My head didn’t hit hard enough to even raise a lump but there is a neurological effect. My thoughts are quite confused. It’s strange, though, because I know I’m confused and am simultaneously monitoring it. I have to suspect concussion, of course, so my first decision is not to lie down and fall asleep. I unlock the doors in case I take a turn for the worse and have to dial for an ambulance. The layout of the small apartment seems unfamiliar to me. I wander from room to room trying to make sense of it. At one point I walk into the adjacent apartment to see if I “belong” there. I’m also staring at the computer trying to remember what I had been working on 20 minutes earlier, to no avail. Very fortunately, my thinking gets steadily better and in 30 minutes I feel perfectly clearheaded.

As a precaution, I stay awake in a chair for several hours. By evening, my concussion concerns dissipate and I stay mostly horizontal for the next 48 hours to let some of the bruising and aching abate. I am a very lucky guy.

It’s a good reminder, though, of something I already know — one’s life can be permanently altered in 5 seconds of carelessness or bad luck.

Next post: https://blog.bucksvsbytes.com/2023/01/06/road-trip-europe-22-12-21-german-christmas-singalong/

Prior post: https://blog.bucksvsbytes.com/2022/12/19/road-trip-europe-22-12-09-fahren-fahren-fahren-auf-der-autobahn-to-berlin/

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Saturday morning, I wake up in the home of Karl-Heinz and Edelgard on the eastern edge of Berlin, friends I’ve known for over 20 years. They built their large house in the 1970s, in what was then communist East Berlin, under the radar. Official permission was hard to get and they’ve told me stories of bartering for bricks and cement and slowly erecting the structure as they could manage.

Edelgard runs 4 vacation and worker apartments they built into the lower floors and I’m always welcome to one of them. In the old days, we were quite close, spending lots of time together. They’re a bit older than me , though, and in recent times their concerns with health and family matters mean that I still stay here but see them much less. Our relationship has evolved from me being a house guest to non-paying tenant. That makes the time we do spend together even more precious.

As I arrive, Edelgard, 80, has just had successive eye surgeries for clots and a cataract. She’s confined to bed for a few days. self administering a complex regimen of eye drops.

I awake Saturday morning in the vacation apartment and organize my goals. In typically considerate fashion, Edelgard has left me with some staples — coffee, tea, butter, eggs. currant preserves… and milk (she knows me). Saturday morning, Karl-Heinz silently drops off a couple of rolls fresh from the bakery.

My sister and I for many years have owned a mostly vacant lot in Eggersdorf. a modest community about 20 miles east of Berlin. It’s been in my family for about 100 years, having been the weekend retreat (a simple 2 room cottage) of my paternal grandparents. My father told many stories of his adolescent adventures there, including playing piano accompaniment to silent films is the village movie house. During the German Democratic Republic (DDR in German, East Germany to us), the property was lost to the family for about 45 years. Shortly after reunification in 1989, my father and aunt took advantage of a legal window to recover ownership. The long time DDR-era tenant retained rights to the property, however, for many years, while paying s very low rent.

My aunt, angered and frustrated by the lack of access, gave the property to me and my sister in 1995. The lot has since sat largely unused. I once had visions of building a house there for personal use and rental, but those plans never ended up fitting my actual life. For many years, my sister has gently urged me to sell.

Although I speak German, my knowledge of how the German real estate market works is nil – a potentially very costly bit of ignorance. I did list the property with a local agent in 2014 but he came back almost immediately with an offer. I had no confidence that he was actually working in my interest (especially since he told me the buyer pays his fee, not me), so I pulled the listing resolving to first educate myself about the realities.

Well, that’s my primary job now in Berlin. I’ve been inquiring of all my German friends and acquaintances, “How do I get maximum value in selling the lot?” I’ve received a spectrum of helpful advice but one friend in northwest Germany introduced me to his brother and sister in law who are both engineers and homeowners near Berlin. They’ve helped me find online information about the property and we’re going to get together Tuesday to discuss the matter.

My goal is to get everything set up by the time Susan arrives on 27 December so the property can be marketed while we’re road tripping and sell and close without my physical presence. Given that German business and government slow to a crawl during the holidays, this is very ambitious.

Saturday evening, just before closing time, I remember it’s Saturday evening — and I’m in Germany! Almost all German retail business is shut tight on Sundays. It’s considered a worker’s right to spend that day with their families — a very nice philosophy. Gasoline and restaurant meals are about the only things available tomorrow, so I dash over to the nearby Kaufland supermarket to get what I need for the weekend. Kaufland is an enormous store, covering acres. It can take five minutes to transit from one desired department to another. Really, you need map and a motor scooter to find products there. I’m literally running through the aisles, in my slippers, like a maniac, 20 minutes before closing trying to gather produce, meat, spaghetti fixings, bread, juice. and more milk (!) to get me through to Monday morning. Worse, I don’t have a 1 Euro coin so I can’t unlock a shopping cart. Worse yet, I forgot shopping bags and backpack so I’m limited to leaving the store with whatever I can carry loose in my arms. Definitely not a competent foray.

I spend Sunday, working on client matters, researching the property, and kicking back a little. Karl Heinz’s and Edelgard’s younger daughter, Marit, is visiting with her family from elsewhere in Berlin. They’re staying in the other vacation apartment across the hall. Karl-Heinz is cooking a big family dinner and I’m invited to join them. I’ve never met Marit, so introductions are made and we sit down to eat. The centerpiece is a big roast duck — my favorite fowl — and we all dig in.

The conversation is all in German and I’m very pleased that on my 3rd day in Germany I can not only keep up but be a full fledged participant. I was already surprised two days ago when I noticed myself starting to think in German within hours of entering the country. Usually, it takes a week or two. The traditional Christmas meal in Germany is goose and Karl-Heinz is perturbed that it’s unaffordably expensive this year. I’m loving the duck.

The weather is consistently below freezing but the roads are dry. In the next installment, you’ll see why that’s so important.

Next post: https://blog.bucksvsbytes.com/2022/12/30/road-trip-europe-22-12-12-18-tires/

Prior post: http://blog.bucksvsbytes.com/2022/12/18/road-trip-europe-22-12-06-08-my-new-french-friends/

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Friday morning and it’s time to push onward. Sophie has to go to work so we say our fond goodbyes. The only bad thing about getting to know people through hospex is that some of the contacts are ephemeral. Over the decades, I’ve built up an enormous collection of hosts and travelers and, although most of the initial visits are truly heartwarming, I lose touch with many afterwards. Whether it’s my failings as a correspondent or just the sheer numbers, I stay in communication with some and barely write to many others (and vice versa) — until and unless the opportunity comes much later for a return visit. We’ve had people we visited come see us in New York years down the line. Likewise, we’ve had belated visits at people’s homes 8, 10, and in one case 35 years after our first encounter

I’m pleased to say that, without exception, these renewed friendships and acquaintances pick up right where they left off after years of neglect. Actually, I have the same experience with long time friends from childhood, college, and Alaska — reunions after 10-40 years are joyful and apparently mutually appreciated. Only one old, close Alaska friend has consistently dodged me and he was always pretty self contained. Of course, the fact that I got rather intensely involved, over 40 years ago, with his ex-wife (you should know she and I had been friends for almost 5 years) while he was my Alaska housemate may have remained a factor… Nah, probably not.

During my cross country road trip during the Covid summer of 2020 — pre-vaccine — I visited about 16 households of long lost friends. Taking proper precautions, I stayed over in most their homes — no one got sick and we had great times reminiscing, hiking, boating, cooking, etc. It was one of my greatest trips ever, even when a massive Oregon forest fire was just 24 hours behind me as I drove west.

But, back to the present. I throw my stuff in the car and head for my day’s destination: Berlin, Germany. Today my Berlingo’s name takes on added significance, “Berlin — GO!”

I fuel up in adjacent Mulhouse and it’s only a short hop up the expressway to the Rhine River bridge and the German border. I spoke earlier about the expensive French tollways. Virtually every European country has a network of toll roads that are hard to avoid if you’re in a hurry — except Germany. According to the dearly held doctrine of “Freie Fahrt für freie Bürger” — culturally this translates as “Unrestricted driving for unrestricted citizens” — the German roads, including autobahns, are all toll free for vehicles under about 8 tons GVW and many inter-city stretches still have no speed limits — yes, NO speed limits.

I maintain high speed travel is much safer when drivers can concentrate completely on road and traffic conditions rather than spend valuable attention on arbitrary speed limits and traps. Yes, many sections of the autobahns are speed limited, some with variable speeds based on conditions, but in the rural areas there are long portions of just “drive safely”. There are few serious accidents in these sections (I’ve never personally witnessed a crash scene in, cumulatively, about a year’s worth of German driving) but when they do happen it’s a spectacular mess, typically with fatalities.

I’m not ready to sprout highway wings yet, though, because I have a civic obligation to resolve first. Many European urban areas have “green zones”, where only low pollution vehicles are allowed. The criteria for these get stricter over time but so far my 2018 diesel vehicle qualifies for entry. The rub is that each country has its own green zone permit. My Berlingo came with a Spanish C-class sticker but that means nothing in Germany. So I head for the first city hall on my route, in Freiburg im Breisgau to buy my German emissions sticker, the Feinstaubplakete.

Outside city hall, I need to pay the parking fee but, as I’ve seen elsewhere as well, the parking meter display is so worn that, without knowing how the system works, it’s impossible to follow the payment instructions. Not wanting to get an expensive violation, I reluctantly leave the lot and find the nearest street parking which turns out to be almost a mile away. Worse, Freiburg is itself a green zone, so while I’m at city hall there’s a significant chance my stickerless car will be emission ticketed. I hoof it as quickly as possible from car to city hall, where I find a typically German efficient and formal service system. Without an appointment, I tell a clerk what I want, she issues me a ticket (with an apparently random number so I can’t tell where I am in the queue), and told to sit in a waiting area and watch the monitor.

After 20 minutes my number comes up and I head for the designated window. To my surprise (I’m always surprised when any governmental or corporate interaction goes smoothly), the purchase process is simple. The clerk looks up my Spanish license plate number which tells him the car qualifies, and for about US$5 I get my permanent German sticker.

Rushing back to the car, I apply the sticker next to my Spanish one and by noon I’m legal in all the German green zones.

Now I can tackle the remaining 500 miles to my friends in Berlin, doing some low flying up the autobahn. Yes, much of the way I’m not subject to any statutory speed limit but I’ve long set my personal max to about 90 miles per hour (144 kph). Except for maybe short stretches downhill with a tailwind, that’s about as fast as I ever drive. Beyond that velocity, an old Alaska pilot joke invades my brain, “An aircraft is just a bunch of spare parts flying in close formation.” Above my limit, I can vividly imagine one or more of my wheels or ball joints saying, “The hell with taking orders. I’m going where I want to.” and abruptly separating from the car with disastrous result.

Even at 90 mph, I’m far from the fastest vehicle on the autobahn, with other cars – usually expensive, luxury brands – routinely passing me at 100, 125, even 150 mph. I learned decades ago that before pulling out into the passing lane to overtake someone I have to carefully check for fast traffic about a kilometer back because a high speed vehicle that’s barely visible could be right on my ass in seconds while I’m in the left lane. This is all part of autobahn driving and I love it. There is nowhere else in Europe with no speed limit. The maximum I’ve ever seen in other countries is an occasional 130 kph, almost invariably a privilege offered only on an expensive toll road.

I’m now traveling through Baden-Württemberg state, one of my favorite parts of Germany, not least because I have a number of friends living here. Unfortunately, as I’ll explain later, I have business in Berlin to take care of before Susan arrives on 27 December and I can’t tarry along the way. Reluctantly, I speed through towns where I can almost see my friends’ houses from the highway.

About 2 PM, I stop at a highway rest area for a quick lunch special, $9 for a hearty bowl of pea soup with carrots and frankfurter and a large coffee to get me the last 7 hours to Berlin. I can’t get there too late in the evening as my friends will already be asleep. I fuel up the car again in Würzburg and plow on to Berlin with only one more short stop for pastry, coffee, and a few minutes phone charge.

I’ve forgotten one thing about German rest areas — you have to pay over a dollar even to pee. Seeing the bathroom turnstile, I turn around and walk out to a dark portion of the rest area and relieve myself outdoors, in the company of truck and car drivers who, like me, refuse to pay.

I roll into Berlin-Biesdorf shortly after 9 PM, the long day’s journey over. My old friends welcome me as they always do and within minutes I’m downstairs in the vacation apartment they’ve offered me. It doesn’t take long to sack out.

Next post: https://blog.bucksvsbytes.com/2022/12/21/road-trip-europe-22-12-10-11-settling-in-in-berlin/

Prior post: https://blog.bucksvsbytes.com/2022/12/16/road-trip-europe-22-12-05-the-car/

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From here in Girona to Berlin is almost a 1,200 mile drive, which even for a driving enthusiast like me is too much for one day. I’ve contacted a Servas host in Riedisheim, France. Sounds German, doesn’t it? It is, because this is the part of France that has historically seesawed back and forth to Germany. Sophie is expecting me about 6 PM Wednesday. This means I can laze around the apartment Tuesday and gradually pack up for a 3 AM Wednesday departure that will get me through the 600 mile trip over 15 hours, including some potential roadside nap time.

Setting off in the Berlingo for my first extended drive is pretty exciting but driving expressways at night is pretty mundane. You almost never see road kill in Europe because the constant traffic sweeps the lanes clear every 30 seconds or so. Besides, any animal likely to enter the busy roadway was probably never born, because its ancestor was probably run over years ago. Europe is not my primary destination for wildlife and wilderness.

I tank up before the French border, assuming (without any real basis) that French fuel prices are likely higher than Spain’s, and continue through the night.

I’m avoiding toll roads since I’m not in a rush. I often do this just for the fun and challenge even if the extra time and distance don’t make economic sense but in France that’s not the situation. If I took toll roads all the way today I would end up paying about US$86, a significant sum. Thus, I’m bypassing the tolls and driving on some attractive secondary roads.

In most of Europe, one rarely sees police hiding along the road, US style, lurking for speeders and other vehicle law violators. Instead, the roads are peppered with radar cameras and threats of the same. As much as I hate not matching wits with the police, I’ve got to say the policy is effective. For a cheapskate like me, paying careful attention to speed limits is mandatory.

On secondary roads, speed limits change constantly. 110 (kph) to 80 to 50 to 90… You can be monitored anywhere, never know how much leeway a particular jurisdiction allows, and 2 weeks later, presto, an expensive violation appears in your mailbox — well, in my case it will be in Eric’s Spanish mailbox. These cameras aren’t coordinated. A careless day on the road could result in 5 or 10 violations. There’s some respite in that most radar cameras are announced by a sign a kilometer or so ahead, but there’s never a guarantee. But wait, there’s more! France deploys 3 other radar types along the roads including the worst of all: unmarked cars driven by civilian employees whose automated radar collects speeds and license plates all day long.

On this, my first long distance drive, with the first portion in the dark of night, I’m exceedingly careful to note all posted speed limits and camera warnings. I think I’m sliding through each one without garnering a ticket, but I just won’t know until Eric’s mailbox stays clear. The only time I exceed the limits by more than a few percent is when the surrounding traffic is speeding. I assume local drivers know the system, so when they suddenly slow up, so do I.

Much as I bridle at being subject to them, I think the US would be better off with traffic cameras, with the police confined to callouts and doughnut shops. In gun drenched America, fewer face-to-face police stops mean fewer innocent lives cut short by police bullets. In that regard, automated citations are well worth it — but I still hate them!

Sunrise comes at about 8 AM and my first reward is a beautiful view into the Tarn Valley as I descend to Millau, France.

The next couple of hours are up and down through the Massif Central, an ancient volcanic area, with elevations to 1120 m (3700 ft) and temperatures down to -12 C (10 F). There’s quite a lot of snow cover in places but the roads are dry all the way.

Being in a French-speaking area is always a challenge for me because I’ve never been able to make any headway in the French language. I can deal with signs and such because many words are similar to English, Spanish, or Portuguese but my aural skills — always my weakest point in any language — totally fail me in French. I understand spoken language mainly by picturing the words in print in my head. That step is what keeps me from ever attaining true fluency in any language, but French is the worst. When French words are spoken, I simply can’t figure out how they would be written. My primitive attempts to ask a question often result in a frustrated, semi-polite, nasal, “Quoi?” (“What?”) Even if I get the question communicated, there’s almost no chance I’m going to understand the answer. It’s humiliating, so I’m happy to work my way north as wordlessly as possible. I’m hoping my host, Sophie, speaks adequate English. Thanks to online translation, you can never be sure whether someone actually speaks your language. With Google’s help, I can probably write a pretty fluent message in Kurdish.

I make steady progress, stopping once more for fuel. Midday, I’m looking for a working class (US$10) lunch menu but, unlike Spain, that doesn’t seem to exist in France. The best I can find is about US$28 so I settle for pastries. You can’t swing a dead cat in France without hitting a good patisserie.

The Berlingo’s USB port is apparently made for accessing music rather than charging and my phone has been slowly losing charge even while plugged in. I’ll have to buy a cigarette lighter charger but for now I make a 30-minute stop at McDonalds to plug in to the wall. It would be quite inconvenient for my phone to go dead while I’m trying to find my host’s address this evening, in the dark. While I’m waiting, I order a large coffee from the menu but it doesn’t appear in the usual assembly line fashion. After a couple of wordless inquiries pointing to my receipt, I see a quick staff conference taking place. Then, a teenager with some school English conveys to me that they have no large coffee cups. Europeans almost always drink little expresso coffees and my order has messed up the system. The kid manages to say they’ll give me 2 medium coffees, which is fine with me.

I continue ambling northeast toward Riedisheim but I’m a little behind the needed pace for arrival as promised, so I hop on the toll road for the last 100 miles and zip along at over 80 mph to roll in on time at 6:15 PM. Sophie’s address is on a dark, dead end street. I see house numbers on the block, but not her #7. I ring the bell at #9 and the guy who eventually responds says he doesn’t know where #7 is. I text Sophie and she comes out to find me. It turns out #7 is right next door where it should be but, unlike all the private homes on the block, this is a large (unnumbered) multi-unit building.

I’m welcomed in by Sophie and Arnaud. It doesn’t take very long to find out they’re a new couple, only together about a month. Neither of them speaks fluent English. Arnaud’s is slightly better but anything I say has to be spoken slowly and simply. Within an hour, our conversation has gotten more involved, complex and intense, with frequent references to Google Translate when any of us can’t convey an idea. Eventually, all three of us are enthusiastically mis-speaking words in the other’s language.

The French seem to eat well almost effortlessly and Sophie and Arnaud serve up plenty of beer, wine, juice (for me), bread and cheese, and a delicious cheese and potato dish in the vein of baked brie or raclette — followed of course by more wine. Our conversation picks up speed as we trade histories, personal lives, family, my car buying adventure, etc. Sophie and Arnaud both smoke, so there are periodic breaks where they bundle up and we all go out on their back patio so they can light up homemade cigs in the freezing weather.

Sophie, 41, works for the city building permit department, leading to repeating jokes about her spending all day at work saying “No.” Despite (or, perhaps, indicated by) the presence of the younger boyfriend, she is pretty clearly a determined woman who plots her own destiny. She tells me she’s never been married and it’s her condo or rental (I don’t remember which). Sophie is definitely no shrinking violet — which is as it should be.

After a few hours of this, we break for the night. I’ve been on the road since 3 AM so I’m definitely bushed.

Sophie has to work in the morning but declares she will only stay a half day (how French!) so we can spend the remainder together. This leads to a jokey discussion about how the French aspire to a 4-hour work week. I get up pretty early but Arnaud doesn’t emerge until after 11 AM — NOT a morning person. I spend quite a lot of time enticing Sophie’s very playful black cat.

Sophie arrives home and we make a substantial lunch, with more beer and wine, naturally. After that, the conversation gradually turns to music. Arnaud is a musician and they are both fans of rock music. We end up spending hours of me finding lyrics in French to my favorite songs (so they’ll understand what is being sung) and then playing audio of them. Most of these were issued before they were born and I’m able to dredge up many which they really like but aren’t yet familiar with. One prime example is Bad Case of Lovin’ You, clearly one of the best rock & roll songs ever produced and one that MUST be played at full volume (although I’m not enamored of anything else Robert Palmer ever did). The evening gets pretty raucous with all of us belting out off key lyrics over the music.

As darkness falls, we bundle up and take a long walk around town in the evening fog. Sophie lives right at the end of a residential area so our walk encompasses farm land, weekend cabins and then downtown Riedisheim.

On return, we scrounge up some dinner, more wine, more beer. For dessert, Sophie pours tiny shot glasses of rum. In 24 hours, I consume about a year’s ration of alcohol, although that’s still not very much. Sophie and Arnaud are very amused when I tell them my son Eric says I “drink like a girl.”

As a new couple, Sophie and Arnaud tend to be all over each other, leading me to mirthfully teach them two new American phrases, “PDA” (public displays of affection) and “Hey, get a room!”

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We finally call it a night, exhausted from all the laughing and translating. This kind of experience, where travelers are hosted by strangers without any exchange of money goes by the name hospitality exchange, or “hospex”. I’ve been doing this for over 40 years and, really, it’s the best part of travel — even though perhaps 98% of people will never even consider it. “Are you nuts? Have strangers stay in my house with me?” “Go to some strange town and sleep in a house belonging to someone I just met? They could be axe murderers!” For people who can’t or don’t want to travel, hosting hospex visitors brings the world into your living room.

These considerations keep wonderful person-to-person interactions a quiet privilege of a select few. The more both parties are willing to give and share, the more they get out of it. Many’s the time I’ve dived into someone’s kitchen, rattling among their pots and pans and spices to whip up a taco dinner for people who may never have had one. I could have zipped across France in my car, stayed in some roadside inn, never met Sophie and Arnaud, and left the country no less ignorant or more enriched than I entered it. All three of us would be the poorer for it. Instead, we’ve contributed in a small way to building one more peaceful bridge between dissimilar cultures.

As well, Servas visits and the like can make connections between generations that are all too rare outside of families. When do people in their 30s, 40s, and 70s share time together, get to know each other in a way that the large age differences melt away in a matter of hours?

The hurdle for most people is that hospitality between strangers means purposely making yourself vulnerable. That can lead to amazing experiences. Incidents of assault or theft are extremely rare. If they weren’t, networks like Servas, BeWelcome, CouchSurfing, and WamShowers would have fallen apart decades ago. Peaceful encounters and insights among strangers are desperately needed in our seriously troubled world.

Next post: https://blog.bucksvsbytes.com/2022/12/19/road-trip-europe-22-12-09-fahren-fahren-fahren-auf-der-autobahn-to-berlin/