August 12, 2015
Flensburg, Germany: Meeting Lou
YOU remember the days of penfriends, when you were forced into writing to a foreigner in another language? And if you could think of something to write, you didn't have the words to write it.
A friend still remembers a German who started: "I am a stripling of 12 years".
Well, e-mails have changed that. And since a definition of a cycle-tourist is someone with friends all over the world but none at home, cyclists are excellent e-mailers and journal-keepers.
For the past year, I've been writing to and talking on the phone to an English girl living in Flensburg, as far north in Germany as you can get before Denmark. Its forgotten notoriety is that it's there that the last Nazi government set up after the death of Hitler.
Lou and I have been following the same university course. And today we got to met. Not special for you but a big moment for me.
I left in the sweetness of dawn and for a while the world was opal and shadowless. And then the weather fell out with itself, a disagreement which meant the sun shone even though it was raining. And, happily, the sun won and the rain went off to sulk for the rest of the day.
The countryside is changing again. It is markedly rolling, never high but never flat. There are the same contentless villages with yellow signs as bookends, and the bike paths are making more effort to please.
Today's novelty: two ferries. In Holland they were commonplace but here in Germany they're rare.
They're not so glamorous, these ferries.They're not white, clinker-built river boats of brass and varnished woodwork. They're wide barges with superstructure on one side, like an aircraft carrier. There, the admiral sits and navigates his way across. Often that's in silence, because there's no motor. Instead, hawsers position the ferry to catch the current. And since the ferry is tied to an overhead cable, the current pushes it from one bank to the other.
The fare, if there is one, is just loose change
I reached Flensburg just after noon. It's a small port, mainly pleasure boats these days. It lies on an inlet from the North Sea. We're far enough north that, shallow though the land may be, the inlet is referred to as a fjord. Denmark is only a dozen kilometres away.
"A lot of Danish people come over the border to buy things in euros," Lou told me. "They're cheaper here. A lot of shopkeepers have learned to speak Danish because of it."
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Tomorrow I will be spending Danish crowns. I paid for my meal in cash tonight, to lighten my load of euros. I shan't need them again on this ride. It's quite a landmark.
And I find it exciting that in a few days I'll achieve my dream of seeing the mermaid in Copenhagen harbour.
Today's ride: 97 km (60 miles)
Total: 3,711 km (2,305 miles)
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