Memories and hints of a travelling IT professional.
Travelling on a river by canoe is great fun. But it needs a lot of preparation: you need a boat, suitable equipment, a good point to start and most of all: someone who picks you up at your destination. Canoeing on the Diemel river is in contrast easy and well organized. You’ll get a canoe, a waterproof barrel, life jackets, paddles, and the phone number of someone to pick you up later.
Continue reading “Canoeing on the Diemel”
Göttingen and Kassel are cities that are only 50 km apart and could form a nice region – if they wouldn’t have been part of different kingdoms in the past and now different federal states (Lower Saxony and Hesse). I firmly believe that they will be connected more in the future and first tendencies towards this can already be seen.
Continue reading “Kassel & Göttingen: a roundtrip by bike”
Yes, 2020 has been a tough year for travellers. The COVID-19 pandemic has hit us all very hard and travelling was nearly impossible – at least concerning the more interesting regions around the world. But even in Europe more and more countries became problematic as destinations: either because you would have to get into quarantine for 14 days when arriving there or because you would have to quarantine yourself after returning from there because of too many coronavirus infections. Business travel came to an end and for nine months I didn’t leave my one country which was quite unusual for me by that time.
Continue reading “Art, Smørrebrød and a mermaid”
Well, Danish food isn’t on the list of most served dishes around the world. Ever heard of a Danish restaurant abroad? No, me neither. But of course, the Danes have very delicious options on their menus. You would expect that a country surrounded by water serves good fish? For sure! But in the top three list, only one dish has had contact with salt water. Let’s have a look at rød pølse, smørrebrød and stegt flæsk.
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København with its 600,000 inhabitants isn’t a small but also not a giant city. Most sights for tourists are located in the city centre but for some, you’ll have to travel a bit. Getting around in the capital city of Denmark is rather easy – even as there are so many different transport systems. A little bit surprising for me was how important bicycles are for the inhabitants: riding a bike is a real pleasure as there are separated bicycle lanes and sometimes also bicycle bridges – you can get from A to B very fast by bike.
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Should I buy it or not? That is the typical question you’ll have to ask yourself when you are travelling to a major city in Europe and you discover that they are offering a tourist card (and most of them do!). The answer isn’t always simple because you need to analyze what is included in the ticket and it heavily depends on what you’re about to do in the city. København offers a tourist ticket which they call the CopenhagenCard – and it is available as a hard ticket (which seems to be fading out) and as a virtual ticket in a mobile application for smartphones.
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When getting to Denmark you might be surprised that the country doesn’t use the Euro but still has its own currency: the dansk krone (DKK), divided into 100 Øre. It is at least strongly bound to the Euro and the exchange rate that is aimed for is 1 Euro = 7,46038 DKK. In 1992 and 2000 the Danish voted against the introduction of the Euro but this topic might come up again in the future.
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The Eder is a 176 km long river leading from Westphalia (near the Rothaargebirge) to the river Fulda with the confluence being located at Edermünde south of Kassel, Germany. It is mostly known for the Edersee – Germanys second-largest artificial lake used for sports, recreation, flood protection, drinking water provisioning and energy production. From Kassel, you can visit it easily by bike on a 70 km long tour – mostly flat if you ignore the final ascent to the dam. A trip very worth to be taken!
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If you managed the trip downstream from Kassel to Hann. Münden by bike you might be ready for the trip in the reverse direction: upstream to Melsungen. The way is a bit more hilly and sometimes you’ll have to ride on ordinary streets which are also used by cars. This route might be one of the good reasons to buy an e-bike (which everybody in Kassel except me seems to have done already). The trip is 37 kilometres long in each direction and you can do it in two to three hours depending on your speed and the number of breaks you take. You’ll end up in a nice old city with lots of half-timbered houses which is definitely worth the effort.
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If you’re visiting Kassel, Germany or are travelling throughout the villages along the river Fulda you should look out for hand-painted stones: the Fullesteine. ‘Fulle‘ is the name of the river Fulda in the local dialect. A group of people takes stones, paints them and writes the name ‘Fullesteine‘ on the reverse side. They distribute them somewhere in the region and you’re invited to participate in the game.
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