March 2019 saw me in my new home city in Central Germany and a year on we are living in a time of a pandemic. Covid Home – Letter One – Letter Two – Letter Three – Letter Four – Letter Five – Letter Six – Letter Seven It felt a little dismal to see a… Continue Reading
Latest in: History/Life – Geschichte & Leben
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We rode to the old Internal Border at Kirchgandern just outside of Göttingen to eat cake and to recall the events of June 17, 1953. June 17 is also the date that marks the start of the 2020 Grenzstein Trophy which is the toughest of tough rides along the now defunct Internal Border. On June… Continue Reading
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March 2019 saw me in my new home city in Central Germany and a year on we are living in a time of a pandemic. The snippets below are observations and go hand in hand with my letters from Germany. Covid Home – Letter 1 – Letter 2 – Letter 3 – Letter 4 – Letter… Continue Reading
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March 2019 saw me in my new home city in Central Germany and a year on we are living in a time of a pandemic. Covid Home – Letter One – Letter Two – Letter Three – Letter Four – Letter Five – Letter Six – Letter Seven The current political eye watering back drops to… Continue Reading
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March 2019 saw me in my new home city in Central Germany and a year on we are living in a time of a pandemic. Covid Home – Letter One – Letter Two – Letter Three – Letter Four – Letter Five – Letter Six – Letter Seven My new home city of Göttingen is twinned… Continue Reading
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We had good cause (under the social distancing rules) to visit Goslar in the Harz Mountains. Goslar in the Harz Mountains is a town containing an amazing array of fantastic mediaeval and post medieval buildings. Although the Harz were hit hard by Allied bombing during World War Two Goslar was spared – the Nazi´s went… Continue Reading
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March 2019 saw me in my new home city in Central Germany and a year on we are living in a time of a pandemic. Covid Home – Letter One – Letter Two – Letter Three – Letter Four – Letter Five – Letter Six – Letter Seven German Chancellor Angela Merkel has coined a new… Continue Reading
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March 2019 saw me in my new home city in Central Germany and a year on we are living in a time of a pandemic. Covid Home – Letter One – Letter Two – Letter Three – Letter Four – Letter Five – Letter Six – Letter Seven Living with Covid-19 and the new normal was… Continue Reading
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March 2019 saw me in my new home city in Central Germany and a year on we are living in a time of a pandemic. Covid Home – Letter One – Letter Two – Letter Three – Letter Four – Letter Five – Letter Six – Letter Seven The idea that Germany is full of jack… Continue Reading
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March 2019 saw me in my new home city in Central Germany and a year on we are living in a time of a pandemic. Covid Home – Letter One – Letter Two – Letter Three – Letter Four – Letter Five – Letter Six – Letter Seven I have been struggling with a thought –… Continue Reading
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March 2019 saw me in my new home city in Central Germany and a year on we are living in a time of a pandemic. Covid Home – Letter One – Letter Two – Letter Three – Letter Four – Letter Five – Letter Six – Letter Seven A year ago (March 26, 2019), I went… Continue Reading
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A road cycle ride south of Göttingen took us through an area that had born witness to the ravages of one of Europe’s most savage wars. In spring like weather, we pedalled out to Jühnde on what we thought would be tarmac only, but we took a shortcut and therefore rode a big chunk of… Continue Reading
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Almost every area will have something that has been abandoned with some long since forgotten and rubbed away. On this short gravel ride, we passed two lost villages, at Kerstlingeröder Feld and Omborn. The first was badly hit during the Thirty Years War (which devastated the German speaking states) and what was left was then… Continue Reading
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With weather forecasts saying that we were in for another summers day I wanted to do something a little bit bolder just in case we plunge into the darkness of winter next. I elected to ride to the Grenzmuseum Schifflersgrund near Bad Sooden-Allendorf on the Hessian-Thuringian border. This would take me past iconic places that… Continue Reading
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We rode mostly on the road linked together with gravel sections to the southern geodetic meridian stone placed on top of a hill by Carl Friedrich Gauss in 1819 at Friedland. The gravel climb up along an old pilgrim’s route was leg breaking (20% in places) and we felt quite dizzy by the time we… Continue Reading
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We took a steady road spin out to the Hanstein Castle this day and we rode out of Goettingen along the A38 cycle path (the place to catch so many local riders) past Friedland, across the old East German border and then onto rolling country roads to Rimbach. The cobbled climb up to the castle… Continue Reading
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Two 430 metre hills dominate the approach to Goettingen from the south east and upon each a castle was built. We spun out along a mix of gravel, cycle paths and road, which included my favourite the Kopfsteinpflaster Carrousel to seek out the Burg Alte Gleichen (castle). Just after the carousel we approached the Alte… Continue Reading
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Determined to chill out this ride and not push on we stopped (on a long climb) to look at something we had spotted during the spring from the road when the lack of foliage had revealed a stone urn at the village of Appenrode. It looked like the type of stone urn that you often… Continue Reading
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I was trying to think when was the last time I pinned a number on? It must be 2006 when I raced at the lost Eastway Cycle Circuit (bulldozed under the 2012 Olympic Velodrome in 2006). Looking back it was the process of putting a number on your back pocket or doing it for another… Continue Reading
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We followed the line-of-march of the US First Army through Göttingen and we rode adjacent to the Leine River to Bovenden where the 3rd Armour fought off a Nazi Panzer counter-attack in 1945. Just a few kilometres from Bovenden is Lenglern, this is a rather generic German village where old farm houses and a sombre… Continue Reading
