If you follow our blog at all regularly, you will realise that we haven’t made it home yet in our blog, and there has been a long lull in our writing. We indeed are settled, or I should say settling back into our home. We’ve been too busy unpacking, planting the vegetable garden and visiting with family and friends to write. But we are looking forward to writing about our final few weeks in Europe/Iceland. Cam.

Wind power.  Love it, or hate it.  Controversy abounding about this energy source seems to have polarised people’s views.  Here in Ontario, most of us talk about wind power in the abstract sense – few of us live within sight of wind farms.  But there were very few places during our cycle through northern Germany where you couldn’t see a wind turbine.  In fact, for much of our cycling in this region, we could see vast wind farms – with so many turbines that I had to stop my bike to be able to count.  I got up past 40 once before I gave up.  And I, for one, like to count wind turbines (just ask my kids).

If you have no interest in renewable energy and just want to know where we cycled and what we did, you can skip down to just above the map below.  Otherwise, read on about the world leader in renewable energy …

Germany in general and northern Germany in particular (that’s where the wind blows best) has seen a HUGE growth in wind power over the past 15 years.  It is in part due to the dominant political climate in this part of the world that looks towards renewable energy for energy self sufficiency, and that actually cares enough about climate change to do something substantial and ambitious to reduce emissions.  But the German story is something much more than this and it deserves a bit of attention.  I had intended to write a fairly substantial piece on the German renewable energy story, but in light of the fact that my last entry (green Freiburg) was rather long and thick in content, I will stay short here in hopes that one or two readers will still peruse my entries :).
Germans have always been uneasy about nuclear energy, though they leaned heavily on it in the late 1900s.  They also relied heavily on coal – some domestic and much imported.  Oil and natural gas were imported.  Hydro is all but non existent.  And of course, Germany’s well known manufacturing base is hungry for electricity.  A visionary in the late 1990s by the name of Herman Shear (passed away just a couple years ago) started agitating for a renewable future for Germany and by the early 2000s (he was then an MP) his plan was really taking hold.  The cornerstone of his “Energiewende” (energy turnaround) plan is the Feed In Tariff (FIT).  Under the FIT, independent renewable power producers were guaranteed access to Germany’s electricity grid, and were given 20 year fixed price production contracts.  Their price per kWhr of generation depended on the technology.  Roof-top solar PV got the most, ground-mounted solar next, industrial scale solar next, wind and biomass next most.  The prices were set to provide significant incentives for producers to invest, and recognised the different build costs of the technologies.  The prices also reflected the reality that solar produces when it is needed the most (mid day) and the idea that roof tops were otherwise useless areas (whereas fields and yards can and should be used for other things).  In all cases, purchase prices were more than what the Germany utilities were selling for – so it was subsidised as green energy, and as a significant job creator.  Importantly, the purchase prices dropped over the year to reflect dropping production and installation costs.
Germany had very ambitious targets for wind and solar PV.  And in every case, they blew their targets out of the water.  They would reach the 5 year goal in the 1st year, for example.   They would surpass the entire EU target all by themselves.  Superlatives abound.  Money poured into solar and wind manufacturing, and new green collar job creation boomed.  Germany had, in only a half decade, established itself as the world leader in renewable energy policy, technology and manufacturing.  They are now surpassed only by the USA and China in terms of new production coming on, but these two economies are of course much larger than Germany’s.  And almost all of this growth owes to the FIT.
Dalton McGuinty’s liberal government in Ontario took note of Germany’s success and in 2008 created a Green Energy Act that was modelled very closely on the German approach.  We too call our incentive the FIT.  In fact, Ontario Environment and Energy officials toured Germany and met with Herman Shear in their research.  So if any Ontario readers wonder where all the roof top solar PV and the steady growth in wind power comes from …. thank (or scold, if that’s where your politics are) Herman Shear and his progressive colleagues.  Yvonne and I installed 15kW of solar PV on our two roofs 5 years ago.  We produce much more than we use on an average day.  On a sunny summer day, the two roofs produce 90kWhrs, while our (one) house uses 5kWhrs.  Our investment will pay itself off in a year or two from now.  The rooftop solar PV (micro)FIT started at 82 cents/kWhr (we got in then).  I believe it is now down in the 35 cent range.  This drop recognises the substantial drop in equipment cost and installation efficiency – which is another sign of success.
Anyone who reads the word “subsidised energy” might rightly worry about rising electricity costs.  Germans were worried.  In the end though, the cost of electricity in Germany related to the FIT program rose by only about $50/yr for an average household.  This was the cost of vast improvement in energy security, weaning off nuclear power, and tens of thousands of new high paying jobs.  It is worth noting that after the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan, Germany decided to close out all nuclear power – even if the plant had service life left.  This has ironically resulted in a return to domestic coal power (and increase in CO2) while the country awaits further roll out of solar, wind and biomass power.
We met many Germans during our travels this year.  I would ask them what they made of their renewable energy leadership.  Surprisingly (to me, anyway), most did not know they were leaders.  And also surprisingly, most that did know just laughed, and told the story of the huge offshore wind farm in the north sea that ran out of money before the electrical cable that connected the turbines to the shore (grid) could be installed.  They were hugely cynical.  I asked some Germans in Germany about this and they acknowledged that they are cynics by nature and are their own worst critics.  There is some push back against the FIT in Germany for sure, but the basic approach steams ahead.
OK, I’m done on the FIT.  And YES, this is my short story!  🙂  Those with an interest in the German story should read Chris Turner’s “The Leap”.
Jake’s Holland blog leaves us hunkering down during a huge wind and rain storm in a fabulous little greenhouse that we found in a little campground on the east coast of Holland. 

We made our way to the town’s harbour to take the ferry across the Eems inlet the next morning and discovered a large group of people waiting to board some zodiacs.  Their leader was wearing a t-shirt with “Hansa Green Tour” written on the back. 

This of course caught my interest!  I learned that these energy professionals were touring solar, wind and biogas sites across Germany and Denmark and were meeting with local officials to study policy approaches.  I then found the trip description on their website and laughed when I noted that the tour gave a prize to the participant with the lowest transportation carbon footprint.  Charging stations for electrical vehicles had been mapped out across the route, and a tow truck was following the tour in the event that a participant ran out of charge.  A significant portion of the participants were apparently driving Teslas, and the rest “just” regular lower end electrical vehicles!  Welcome to northern Europe!!  The tour was in town (Delfzijl) to see Holland’s latest huge wind farm that was built on the shore of the inlet.

The journey across the Eems inlet that separates northern Friesland (Holland) from Northwest Germany took only about 30 minutes.

Emden turned out to be a fabulous little city.  The inner port was dotted with maritime museums, the tall ship above, and a great little fast food fish stand where we gorged on lunch.  A large international film festival was starting the next day, and walking streets and cafés abounded.  We spent most of the afternoon trying to line up tours of a wind turbine manufacturing plant and an actual wind turbine.  On the latter, you can climb 60 or so metres up a wind tower to an observation deck located just below the nacelle.

They were however not offering the tour during our time frame.  I know this because I used google translate to translate back and forth emails about 3 times with their German-only speaking contact 🙂  I was very persistent with our contact at Enercon’s HUGE production facility in Aurich and managed to get us a tour at 9AM the next morning.  Aurich was about 40km away though so we needed to set off in the late afternoon from Emden.

I used the satellite photo feature on google maps to locate a forest right near the Enercon production facility in Aurich.  We weren’t too sure how discreet the forest site would be for camping so planned our arrival to have just enough light to set up the tent before jumping in (yes, that’s about 11PM!).

We camped only 1.5 km from the Enercon factory so thought that the 15 minutes we’d left to get there would be ample.  But it turns out that the “factory” is actually a huge campus of factories and support buildings, all with significant security, so it took quite a while to navigate to our tour desk.  The four us met with 2 other Enercon employees visiting from their Spanish operation and our very energetic and extremely knowledgeable guide, Timo. Unfortunately, cameras are not permitted inside the buildings for competitive/security reasons.  I say unfortunately, because the visuals of the production of 55m turbine blades in different stages of manufacture are really quite breathtaking.  This facility produces blades for their 3MW Enercon 121 turbine model, which means that the rotor diameter is 121m.  The hub sits atop towers that are anywhere from 100 to 150m high!   Enercon makes blades for their other turbine sizes in 9 other factories around the world (though 6 of them are in Germany).  Their largest, with blades 70m long sitting on 135m towers crank out an amazing 7.5MW.  One of Enercon’s competitive advantages is that their blades can be “feathered” in high winds (change the pitch) so that they don’t need to be shut down like some competitors’ do (they DO need to be shut down above 30m/s which is storm like).  The generators that sit in the hubs were produced in the next factory over, and the towers and hubs in other facilities in northern Germany.  Enercon bought the local train company outright so they could customise it to get their blades to the port 45km away.  This business is not for the faint of heart!
The factory is massive, of course, and was a hive of activity.  Blade manufacture is still done almost entirely by humans.  In this case, 3 shifts of 300 workers work around the clock, producing 1 blade per shift.  So that is blades for 1 turbine each and every day.  There were about 35 stations that the blades moved through … and at 55m long you can imagine that the task of moving the blades from station to station is not insignificant!  Blades are a combination of fibreglass, resin, and lightweight plywood.  And when spinning at such high velocities, there is no room for error.
Our guide was full of great anecdotes, and quite enjoyed describing his ultimate boss, the Enercon owner/founder, Aloys Wobben.  This fellow is now relinquishing control due to his age, but he is apparently both very laid back on the shop floor (wanders around, just watching and smiling, blending in) and very demanding of his team.  In earlier years he would be working on design issues at home on a Sunday, and when he thought he had a break-through he’d call up his senior team to come over to the house to provide feedback on the new idea.  Telling him that you’re in the middle of Sunday dinner with your family was not an option!
Eventually the tour moved outside and I was able to pull out my camera.

I was impressed by many things on the tour.  But mostly I came to realise how complicated, high tech and large scale (physically) the wind turbine industry is.

From Aurich we continued east across northern Germany … right into an Enercon wind farm!

A full afternoon of canal-side pedalling brought us to near Varel where we camped.  At this point we actually had a “deadline” to arrive at Yvonne’s Aunt and Uncle’s farm in Denmark where they and Yvonne’s mom would be waiting for us.  Sadly, we were out of time for riding in Germany so planned to catch the train across the rest of northern Germany, then north from Lubeck to the tip of the penninsula at Puttgarden where we’d catch a ferry north to Denmark. 

This would normally be quite straight forward, even though the trip involved 4 different train connections.  However, it became pretty clear to us the next day on our first train leg out of Varel that this was not just any day.  It was Friday afternoon of a weekend with a beautiful forecast!  We could barely move with our bikes  amidst the throngs of travellers at the Oldenburg train station and wondered how we could possibly fit into the next train with our bikes – especially in light of the many other folks standing beside us with their bikes.  At that point a Deutsch Bahn official approached us and asked us if we’d made a booking for our bikes on the intercity train.  No, we hadn’t, and now it was impossible because they were all sold out, and you have to reserve at least 24 hrs in advance. That meant we’d need to take a series of regional trains, and our journey would extend from 7 hrs to 9 hrs, including the many waits at stations.  Lesson learned.  For anyone planning to take bikes on trains in Germany, here’s how it works:
Intercity Express trains: no bikes allowed
Intercity trains: reservations required
Regional trains: no reservation req’d, but sometimes you need to pay for bikes
We arrived in the port of Puttgarden at 9PM and quickly cycled to the ferry terminal to see if we could catch the 9:20 ferry to Denmark.  Just in time.

The 1hr journey put us into Rødbyhavn Denmark a little later than we’d wanted to be looking for camping (10:30PM), but we were excited to get to Denmark.  Yvonne’s late father Flemming was Danish and her mother Betty is an honourable Dane – she speaks Danish, cooks Danish, thinks Danish, and has visited Denmark probably 40 times.  Yvonne travelled to Denmark almost every summer as a child, and the kids and I have been 4 times, thanks to Yvonne’s Dad’s desire for his family to stay connected to this fantastic part of the world.  Making this all possible over the years was Flemming’s sister Marianne’s wonderful farm 1hr north of Copenhagen where we would stay.  More on that in a later blog entry.
We weren’t really too sure what we could find campsite-wise in the falling darkness, but after 5km of rather random cycling we stumbled into the absolutely perfect freedom campsite – in a little park surrounded by thick forest, with a picnic table to boot!

We had about 210km to cycle to the farm, and decided to try to do it in 2 days.  We’d been talking about putting in a really full day to try to beat our best day from Holland, and this seemed to be the day. 

As soon as we hit the road we knew we’d chosen the right day to ride … we had the wind at our back, and were riding between 25 and 30 km/hr for long stretches of lovely bike path.  Yes, Denmark too has fantastic cycling infrastructure, and Yvonne and I had cycled through Denmark when she was pregnant with Kaia and knew we’d be treated to highway-side paths all the way.

Yvonne had popped a spoke the day before and it became apparent that we had to have it fixed, but didn’t want to lose too much time on our record distance attempt day.  A very obliging guy in a bike shop in Vordingsborg fixed it for free while we dined on sandwiches at the edge of the supermarket parking lot, then away we went.

We’d done 60 km by lunch, and were feeling pretty good until we hit a really hilly and side-windy section of about 20 km. Record-setting was in doubt until things levelled out again and we got the speed back up.  We watched our previous best of 104 km roll by with a whoop, then 110, and cruised into Køge on the coast at 120.  But by the time we’d cycled around the port, found dinner, and another freedom campsite, the odometer looked like below.

We’d actually decided to take a campsite that night to charge our google map-enabled phone, but they wanted about $40 for a little piece of grass.  We all agreed that we could probably get enough charge into the phone during a bakery stop the next morning :), so we headed to another urban forest.

We got an early start the next day because we still had a long way to go and wanted to arrive in time for dinner at the farm.  It was a fairly non-descript sort of day/ride, though I very clearly remember our lunch – that we made on a table just outside a fabulous bakery (OK, yes, I’m obsessed …).  We cycled north past the western outskirts of Copenhagen and finally hit recognisable turf in the city of Hillerød.  Aside from having all the great attributes of Danish towns (like walking streets, cycle shops and bakeries), Hillerød is known for Frederiksborg castle built on top of the ruins of a 1500s castle during the early 1600s by Danish King Christian IV.

We were pretty excited at this point.  We had but 25km of cycling left to reach the farm, and we knew it was all through a large beautiful (Gribskov) forest.  The well-marked gravel paths would take us right to the farm gate, and we knew the last few km very well.

We found the tiny path that cuts off the cycle trail towards the farm and all started ringing our bells to announce our arrival.  Børge and chocolate lab Bruno were the 1st out, then Betty and Marianne as we rode the last 100m through their field.  Their farm feels like a 3rd home to us.

Earlier in the year’s journey, I had wondered whether our cycle tour through a relatively familiar Europe could hold a candle to the exotic locales of Nepal, Indonesia and Vanuatu.  Of course, they are very different, but the cycling was everything and more than I’d hoped for.  We rode very well as a family and Kaia and Jake really found their legs. We had only 1 flat tire and 1 popped spoke over seven weeks on four bikes.  We ate well.  Yvonne and I drank well. The depth of history and the associated architecture astounded us.  It was wonderful to reconnect with friends we’d met during other journeys.  We were so independent, being able to easily get anywhere we wanted, and because we were willing to freedom camp, we spent no time worrying about or planning where we’d stay each night.  We were outside 98% of the time, including sleeping in our tent all but a few nights.  We were active, and became fit.  But perhaps what stands out the most was the inspiration we all received by the remarkable initiatives the Germans, Dutch and Danes have put in place to help people get out of their cars and on to bicycles.  It truly is a pleasure to cycle in this part of the world.  We included this part of the world in our journey because we wanted to see and document their leadership in sustainable transportation and renewable energy.  I did not get as far as I wanted to in documenting the energy story, in part because of the language gap for me in Germany.  But we were (excuse the tired expression) blown away by the cycling and public transit infrastructure.  After weeks of riding, when we thought we’d seen it all, we’d each day discover new innovations that made our heads race, thinking of possibilities back home.  Yvonne will pick up on this thread in our next entry.
As I write this a full 5 weeks after completing our journey, my knees still keep me off my bike.  But I trust they will heal soon with more rest, and I’m rearing to hit the trails and roads around Peterborough and Haliburton.  Cycling rocks!

Cam

We “landed” at Yvonne’s aunt and uncle’s fabulous farm in Denmark a few days back after our longest cycling days of the trip. Our days have been more relaxed of recent. Our bicycles were sold yesterday and we are off to Iceland this Sunday. Yvonne’s mom Betty joined us at the farm and will travel with us through Iceland. We arrive back in Canada June 21st, in time for Kaia to attend her graduation. Yes, clearly that’s a bit cheeky 🙂 It really does feel like we’re coming home, now. Bittersweet for sure.

You will find what is perhaps my most ambitious blog entry of the year below. If you don’t know me well, you will see below that I am passionate about sustainable energy, transportation and urban planning. That is my excuse for the detailed entry. People have from time to time asked us about the intent of this blog. There are many intents. The driving motivation behind this entry however is to share with anyone who is willing to read, the exceptional leadership shown by Freiburg. We, especially in North America, have SO much to learn from cities like Freiburg if we hope to divest ourselves from fossil fuels as politicians around the world are now (and finally) agreeing with scientists that we must do.
Cam

————————————————————

For those who follow clean tech (green energy, electric cars, etc) and sustainable urban design, Freiburg Germany is rather iconic.  It has entire neighborhoods that are energy producers, and it is home to solar module manufacturing and extensive solar PV research. Cycle and transit use is very high.  This was an obvious destination for our cycle tour, and we were pleased to learn that it was beside the Black Forest which we had also been looking forward to visiting.  Also enticing was the city’s well known old time charm; it was founded in the year 1120 and boasts numerous walking streets.  Although heavily bombed in WWII, the city has rebuilt the downtown core and instead of widening streets for cars, many downtown streets were built just wide enough for trams, bikes and pedestrians.

A little bit of history is very helpful to understand how this city of 200,000 has progressed so far environmentally.  During the 1970s, a nuclear reactor was proposed about 20km outside of the city.  Germany, like much of the world in the 1970s, was waking up to the bleak global environmental reality, and in particular to the challenges of nuclear power.  A huge public outcry over the reactor took hold in Freiburg and was ultimately successful in stopping it’s construction. 

Perhaps even more important than the actual prevention of the reactor though was the political coming of age of Freiburg’s citizenry.  They had discovered their voice, and there was no turning back.  Politicians in Freiburg know now that they must listen to their constituents. Freiburg is what it is because of strong and ongoing grassroots interest.  And because of its very progressive Green Party mayor who has been elected to a second 8 year term.  Alas, democracy is alive and mostly well in Freiburg.  I say this with more than a little envy and resentment after watching just the opposite sort of political (un)accountability unfold in my home town of Peterborough in past years.

The movement away from nuclear energy forced Freiburg residents to answer the “if not nuke then what?” question head-on, and in doing so their commitment to renewable energy  and energy efficiency was born.  Years later, acid rain in the Black Forest from coal produced electricity production and growing concern about climate change strengthened their resolve.  Then along came the national government’s very aggressive green energy policies of the early 2000s and solar power exploded in Freiburg.

We were very lucky to have connected with some Warm Showers hosts in Freiburg.  Upon arrival in town we immediately cycled over to Peter and Sabina’s flat.  Peter is a transplanted Brit who has traveled the world many times over as a publisher of English as second language learning resources.  His partner Sabina was born in Bremen Germany but grew up in California and now teaches English at the University in Freiburg.  They’ve been in Freiburg for about 5 years now, and open their home to passing cycle tourists through the warm showers network.  Peter gave us a fantastic walking tour of the nearby neighbourhoods.  He understood our particular interest in sustainable urban design so was able to illuminate some fantastic stories that have unfolded in Freiburg.

We walked through the district of Vauban which was built in the 1990s on old military barack land.  This area features 3 story blocks of flats that share ample green spaces in lieu of private yards. 

Cars are not allowed in the neighbourhood. Instead, there are parking garages in the surrounding areas.  But because Vauban is directly connected to town with a frequent tram line, and because Freiburg’s cycling infrastructure is so well developed, most Vauban residents (many with families) choose not to purchase cars.  In fact, car ownership (per capita) is only half of the German average.

Many of the rooftops in Vauban were covered with solar panels (thermal and PV) and most of the neighbourhood buildings get their heat and electricity from a biomass-fed combined heat and power plant.  This approach of using the “waste” heat from electricity production produces fantastic efficiency results.

Peter emphasized that Vauban’s sustainable approaches did not happen overnight.  Instead the moves forward underwent extensive and rancorous debate and ultimate compromise between different views and interests.  But importantly the citizens had a meaningful voice throughout.

Adjacent to Vauban is the “Solar Settlement” and Peter toured us through this neighbourhood too.  This community generates more electricity than it uses, and the rooftops in the photos below leave no doubt about how this is accomplished.

One of Peter’s passions is wine.  Perhaps the Brits are not well known for their distinguishing tastes of fine wine, but Peter knows his wines and sits as a volunteer advisor on ensuring continued success for local Frieburg vineyards.

Peter also volunteers with high school youth at risk and had a meeting with them that afternoon so we thanked him for the tour then set off on our own to discover Freiburg’s downtown.  Many things struck us about the downtown, but one thing stood out more than any other:

Freiburg’s transportation plan explicitly aims to improve mobility while reducing auto traffic and benefitting the environment.  Wow …. a transportation plan that explicitly sets out to reduce automobile traffic!!  The plan also clearly prioritizes environmentally and health friendly modes such as walking, cycling and transit.  Finally, we had arrived at the city we set to find in our German cycling adventure.  Cycling lanes and covered bike parking abounded.  Trams and busses were going by at all times in all directions – usually with lots of folks inside.  Beautiful walking streets were packed with shoppers, walkers and diners.  The city was intentionally planned to be compact so that it was both a) not far from anywhere to anywhere and b) had sufficient density of people to make the investments in transit and cycling infrastructure economical.  We would learn the next day of an amazing transit pass, too.  We were all smiles as we were surrounded at each intersection by other cyclists.  And they were cyclists of all sorts, shapes and dress.  Older folks.  Kids.  Suits, dresses, jeans, chic 30-something get ups, and only a small amount of lycra.  Bikes typically were not fancy.  Many just 1 speed (Freiburg is pretty flat, though).  But almost all had the European styled wrap around handlebars. 

We will have much more to say about cycling cities in later blog entries when we share what we saw and learned in Amsterdam, Groningen and Copenhagen.

The big catholic church downtown was breathtaking.  It mostly survived the WWII bombings.

Freiburg actually has created a self guided “green tour” so we set off on our bikes to take in a few sights with what remained of our afternoon.

One of the stops we didn’t get to was the large football (soccer) stadium whose roof is literally covered in solar panels.  This idea apparently came from the football club itself, and fans who donated money to cover the cost got 1st dibs on (limited) seasons tickets. 

Wow.  Similarly, many university roof-tops are covered in panels that were financed through a scheme that allowed profs, staff and students alike to be share holders in the green energy venture. Another innovation in Freiburg is the solarization (is that a word?) of the full (and closed) landfill site.

In addition to a heavy dose of solar energy, Freiburg draws from six wind turbines. This part of Germany gets more sun and less wind than northern Germany, but the community wanted to increase its renewable portfolio, and these turbines are actually communally owned (citizens invest and receive energy producer dividends).

With our heads buzzing with inspiration we cycled back to Sabina and Peter’s to find dinner ready to go on their backyard wood BBQ.  Drinks, salad and sausages went down so well over some great conversation with these very engaging hosts.

The next morning brought some pretty awful continuous rain so we enjoyed our comfortable surroundings with our hosts and got caught up on some blogging.  We were very relieved to see the weather break because our green tour in the afternoon was on bicycle.  We had contacted the “Innovation Academy” the day before because we had learned they knew very well the green ins and outs of Freiburg.  I don’t think they had ever been contracted by a family before, but they were more than happy to share their wisdom … for not an insignificant price.  The first part of the tour was actually a 40 minute PowerPoint overview of the city’s initiatives and some stats on their successes.

The presentation was actually excellent, and Steffan kindly gave me a pdf copy to use in my teaching.  He touched on energy, transportation, planning and waste management, all of which Freiburg excels at.

We then headed outside to meet our cycling tour guide Luciano.  Luciano is involved in many aspects of sustainability planning and was able to take us to key representative sites around the city to better appreciate the strategies.

Luciano then changed the focus of the transportation story to road design.  Like North American cities, Freiburg’s urban planning catered to cars in the 50s and 60s.  But over the past few decades planners have changed the profile and nature of many of Freiburg’s streets to decenter the cars and provide for safe walking and cycling.

When most people think about “greening” the energy system, they think of renewables like solar, wind, hydro and biomas. But the “low hanging fruit” of green energy is not energy production, but energy conservation and efficiency (that is, it is cheaper to save energy than build new generating capacity). Freiburg has been REALLY ambitious in both retrofitting the old building stock and creating very high efficiency standards for all new buildings. Through incentives/subsidies entire neighbourhoods have been insulated, windows upgraded, air leaks sealed etc. The poster child for Freiburg’s retrofitting though is a very nondescript apartment building in the Weingarten district from the 1960s.

The final focus of our green tour was urban planning. Progressive cities the word over recognize that it is smart for reasons economical, environmental and quality of life to plan compact cities where people can live, shop, and work without having to get in their cars. Connections to the city center are provided by frequent transit. Sometimes referred to as “New Urbanism”, these medium density neighbourhoods typically feature retail on the ground floor, commercial on the next floor, and then two or three floors of residential. Green spaces are shared. We all had a big but dark chuckle during the initial PowerPoint presentation when Steffen was explaining this concept. To help us understand, his presentation showed international photos of the opposite to compact design, and up came sprawling Toronto! Any of the newer subdivisions in my city of Peterborough could easily be substituted. Steffen then remembered we were Canadian and apologized. That’s OK Steffen … no apologies necessary.

We had visited Vauban earlier with Peter, so with Luciano we went to the newer neighbourhood of Reiselfeld. Whereas Vauban emerged through a rather messy, citizen driven process, Reiselfeld was planned by the city government.

One of the key aspects of this neighbourhood design is the concept of shared public spaces. Instead of people having their own private yards (discourages interactions), green spaces are shared. There is enough room for being social and for quiet contemplation. Apparently this is one of the main reasons for residents reporting very high levels of quality of life.

Not surprisingly, residents of Reiselfeld are keen to take advantage of the ample sun in this part of Germany.

Vending machines in Canada usually sell candy, chips, or soft drinks. We were disappointed to see many cigarette vending machines through much of the rest of Germany. But what is sold out of vending machines in Reiselfeld?

And so ended our green tour with Luciano. He knew his city, knew the environmental story, and was an excellent communicator. It was SUCH a rich 3 hours we spent with our two Innovation Academy hosts.

All four of us were pretty wound up after this tour, and were again buzzing with stories and questions when we arrived back at Peter and Sabina’s to make our Mexican dinner. Freiburg hosts an incredible “density” of sustainable living and if you have managed to read all the way to this point (I doubt it!) you can appreciate that we are now full of ideas and many real examples to share with our Peterborough community and any other that is interested.

Thanks for your leadership, Freiburg!

Cam

We leave Holland tomorrow, to return to Germany at its northwest corner via ferry. Holland has been an AWESOME ride!

——————————————————

OK, how many of you knew that Germany had some gorgeous alpine topography?  I didn’t.  Of course, we know  of the Alps in Austria, Switzerland, Italy and France.  But Germany has its own little piece of this great feature.  We wanted to visit Freiburg in southwest Germany because of its exemplary green infrastructure and planning, and wanted to visit some friends in Zurich, Switzerland (on Germany’s southern border), so decided to head to the south of Germany to see the famed Neuschwanstein castle and to do some hiking.

As Jake mentioned, we spent another half day in Munich to take in more of the down town atmosphere.  By the time we got back and packed up our stuff at Gotz and Liza’s, it was 3PM which is not an ideal time to start a cycling day.  Getting out of a city the size of Munich on bicycles is not much fun, even when there is an OK bike path.  So many stop lights, so much traffic, and the path is always jumping between road and sidewalk.  It took us the better part of 2 hrs before we were again amongst the green fields that we so enjoy cycling in.  I, in particular, also continued my admiration of the extent to which rooftop solar PV had been deployed on homes and barns.  I will do a separate blog entry later to explain why and how Germany has made such astounding progress towards a renewable electricity portfolio.

A pastry stop (crucial part of our afternoon routine), a few water breaks and 55km later, we found ourselves riding beside the lovely Ammersee (“see” is a lake).  The campground we’d set our sights on didn’t accept tenters, so we had to scramble a bit because it was now 8PM.  We ride very well in the later afternoon and early evening it seems (fewer distractions and we become more goal focused!) so often find ourselves still going at this time.  We ended up finding an outdoor ed. center right on the lake and got permission to camp in their fire pit area.  The manager’s son had gone to the teacher of the intermediate level class staying overnight to seek her approval.  What a different world.  I can’t imagine in Ontario a manager even considering asking for permission.  A bunch of strangers camping 100m from the class? Not a chance.

Until this point in our cycling we had not really encountered anything like a serious hill.  That was to change the next day.  We use google map cycling routes almost exclusively to find our way, and one of the nice features of these routes is that you can see the elevation profile

Climbing on a bicycle does not need to be unpleasant.  But we have all our gear on our bikes, which changes the picture notably. The kids have full bike paniers (bags on the back rack) plus sleeping bags tied on.  None of our empty bikes are light.  Yvonne has heavier bags and our tent.  And everything else is in my trailer which probably weighs about 50 pounds.  So hill climbing was a challenge.  I was so impressed with how Kaia and Jake did.  Some hills were very steep up for maybe 20 minutes at a time, and nobody got off their bike to walk.  I was flat out in effort at one point, just trying to get the next pedal stroke.

A sense of accomplishment was enjoyed and you can imagine how well the post-hills pastry break went down that afternoon!

The ride from the top of the hill in to Schwangau was lovely – flatish, great bike paths, and ever-growing mountain views.

Our typical routine approaching dinner would be to look for a supermarket an hour or so before our planned stopping point.  We’d buy dinner ingredients and make sure we had enough for breakfast  – sort of a “just on time” approach to avoid carrying too much food. Our campsite on the Bannwaldsee was typical of German campsites.  It was geared 90% towards long time trailer leases, and 9% towards short term camper/caravan travelers.  The last 1% was tenters like us, and there was only 1 other tent among the hundreds of trailers.  We really miss not having a picnic table at these campgrounds, but are rather blown away by the other camping amenities.  Like in this case the very clean and large bathrooms and showers, laundry room with a drying room, dish washing up room, little store, outdoor patio, huge party/event room (beer hall) and full restaurant.

We had been lamenting since starting cycling that our trailer was too full.  After food shopping, the cover would barely fit on.  So next morning we spread all our things out on the grass and made a pile of what we now knew to be non essential things.

A trip to the post office was next in line, and about 7kg of stuff was on its way to Canada.
  
Neuschwanstein castle was only 2km away from the village of Schwangau and the approach to the castle is outstanding.  This castle is best known for being the inspiration for Walt Disney’s castle.

The castle was built by Bavarian King Ludwig II starting in 1868.  Unlike other Kings of this area/era, he did it with his own (well, mostly borrowed) money – instead of public money.  He really was building his “summer house”, after all.  Ludwig had travelled widely and incorporated architecture from other European castles, and honoured other religions and world architecture in huge murals inside.  Ludwig started staying in the partially finished castle in 1884 but by this time had borrowed huge sums of money and become quite a reclusive King.  In 1886 parliament sent a posse to arrest him (he was apparently no longer “fit” to govern, though was later found to be not the case in hindsight), and they brought him back to Munich.  The next day his body along with the body of his chief “arrestor” were found dead in a nearby lake.  This mystery apparently has never been solved.  Sadly, all this after Ludvig spending only 112 nights in the castle that he had poured his pockets, heart and mind into for 2 decades.
Immediately following his death, the Bavarian government finished the castle and opened it up to paying guests and tens of millions of visitors have now been through.  Apparently, during the summer, as many as 6000 go through in a single day!
Even on our day in mid-May, it was busy.  You purchase tickets for very specific entry times, and your group is guided through together.  Our entry time was 1.5 hours after ticket purchase.  That was OK though, as it gave us the necessary time to hike the road up to the castle and to take the walk to “Marienbrucke” which is a bridge over the rather spectacular gorge adjacent the castle.

No photos are allowed inside during the castle tour, as this would make it difficult for the guide to keep people moving.  This is unfortunate because the inside of the castle is at least as impressive as the outside.  One huge gallery room with a stage is devoted to Richard Wagner whom Ludvig greatly admired.  It looks like it was built so the King could be entertained by various musicians; in fact, he would just enter alone and imagine Wagners’ operas being performed.  Yes, he was a tad ecentric.
Ludvig II loved this area because he spent his summers as a boy in the neighbouring and equally impressive Hohenschwangau castle.  This castle too is open to visitors.

I wasn’t sure what to make of the Neuschwanstein castle before visiting.  It had a lot of hype.  And the Disney connection didn’t exactly sell it.  But I have to say, it was VERY impressive.  The setting, the furnishing and the rather dreamlike overall architecture set it apart.

En route back to the campground we came across an outdoor BBQ chicken seller.  Our Munich bike tour guide Tony said that the quintessential Bavarian dinner was a half chicken.  And we had no food (Sunday) so …

I noted a poster on a wall for a traditional folk concert at one of the close by churches.  My family wanted to stay put for the evening so I headed off on my bike for a short trip to the church.

The concert by the MarianSingers was a mix of duets, small ensembles, and my favorite – a group of 8 men doing yodelling harmony.  Brilliant!  Equally impressive was the inside of this catholic church.

The following day we set off for the Bavarian Alps.  They rise  up dramatically from the farming plains, and the access point for a hike up was only 2km from our campsite. 

I had spoken to a tourist info person the day before and learned that there was a rather dramatic route up the face of the mountain.  She said as long as we were strong hikers with very good footwear we ought to be OK.  We’d have to hold on carefully to the cables that were strung up.  The kids liked the sound of this so away we went.

Not too far into the hike we came across some rather disconcerting signs.  There were warnings in German with signs of rocks falling on people’s heads (you’re supposed to wear a helmet, apparently) and other pictures showing how to fasten your harness and repelling gear for safe movement up and down cliff faces.  We were part way up the mountain already.  And I distinctly remembered the tourist info woman saying we could do it.  So we pressed on, figuring this was the management’s way of dodging legal problems if someone gets into trouble.

At one point, which was about half way up the mountain, I looked up not too far and saw a couple of people hanging off their ropes on a large vertical face that had only little iron nails sticking out for hands and feet.  Shortly after we came around a corner and saw a ladder that went up vertically for about 20 ft.  At this point I figured we had made a big mistake.  So I asked a guy hiking behind me “do we have to go up that way?”  He assured me that yes, it was the only way.  Hmmm.  But then a few moments later another guy came up and said that if we continued around the bend the regular path continued – the ladders and cliff face were only for those with climbing equipment. The first guy then apologized and said “sorry, I’ve never done this hike before”.  WHAT?  You’ve never done the hike before and you assured a family with youngish kids that they’d have to hang off a vertical face?  Thanks, buddy!
Phew.  I finally realized that this hike would turn out well.  We were all enjoying the steep trail with the cables.

We enjoyed lunch at the top.  We really felt like we’d earned it (1 vertical km up) and had enjoyed the rather spectacular trail.  Good thing there was a restaurant at the top, though. It was a holiday and EVERYTHING is closed on Sundays and holidays in Bavaria.  So we couldn’t buy groceries for the day down below.   Once again I was amused and rather amazed by the steady stream of 0.5L and 1L  beer steins that were being downed by just about every other guy up there.  And it was only about 5 or 10 degC and they were all sitting outside! 
The view back into the Austrian Alps was fabulous and I was drooling looking at the hiking map with trails galore from peak to peak and hut to hut.  But most of the high mountains were still under snow so going further was not really an option.

I was pleasantly surprised at how fast you can get going in these things.  Whihoo!

From the cable car base we cycled about 8km into the neighbouring and larger town of Fussen.

Fussen is one of Germany’s oldest towns and dates from the period of the Roman Empire.  Several of the churches date back to the 800s.  It was on the trade route between Italy and the Roman provincial capital now known as Augsburg.  It was a delight to walk around that evening.  Huge, ornate churches abound, and the city has an extensive walking district full of cafes, bakeries and outdoor seating.

Dinner that night was at the most scrumptious Greek restaurant.  I’m not sure what I liked more – the savory flavours or the medieval town ambience & architecture of the restaurant.
After a very full day we set off on our bikes again to return to our campground.

Cam

I am typing this blog from my seat on the train from Füssen in southern Germany to Zürich, Switzerland.  I have a table, electricity and a wonderful view out my window (though it’s cold and raining).  We’ve cycled about 550km so far – it’s been wonderful.
———————————————–

Yes, Frankfurt was exactly that – a pain in the butt.  But through no fault of its own.
We booked the airline tickets for this trip back in July last year.  I had been thinking about Germany since then, and in particular thinking about Frankfurt, because that was the only place I knew for sure that we would visit (that’s where our flight from Abu Dhabi landed).  I knew we would be there for at least a couple of days, because we needed to buy bicycles for our cycle touring.  And we weren’t exactly sure when our parcel from Canada with our cycling gear would arrive, so that might make us wait.  We had packed a large box back in August with cycling shorts, shirts, gloves, racks, paniers (bags that attach to racks), lights etc. and left it with friend Javier.  We needed an address in Frankfurt for Javier to send the parcel to so used the “warm showers” network to locate someone. Warm Showers is a network of cyclists who open their homes to other cycle tourists passing through their town – for a place to stay, perhaps a meal, shower etc.  The expectation is if you use the network for a place to stay, you open up your home in return.  Javier mailed our parcel via surface back in early March, so we were hopeful it would be there when we arrived.
First impressions of Frankfurt were excellent.  Within moments of arriving at the airport from Abu Dhabi we found ourselves on a bus from the airport to the city center.  From there we immediately caught a train north about 10 stops, and walked less than 400m to the city’s one campground and had our tent set up – all in about 90 minutes from the airport.  So far, so good.  Next day we set out to buy bicycles.  We wanted to buy 2nd hand, but there were no 2nd hand shops, and the buy-sell happened on the weekend with hit and miss availability (and apparently these are mostly stolen bikes anyway).  So we headed off to “Stadler” bike shop.  It was HUGE!

We were there for about 4 hours but in the end settled on 4 bikes and a large cycle trailer.  We were pleased with the purchases – we spent about $350 Cdn (including some missing racks, upgraded tires ..) for each bike, and  hopefully will get about $250-300 back for each when we sell them in Copenhagen after 7 weeks of riding.  $100 each for 7 weeks transportation …not bad!

We were pretty excited when we left the shop, though we did not take the bikes or trailer with us.  They wanted to make sure the bikes were tuned up and needed to put our more narrow (read “faster”) tires on.
Yvonne had been tracking the progress of our cycling gear box and it had arrived in Germany two days before, and was in the Frankfurt area this day.  We were quite excited to pick up the box the next day then head back to the cycle store to do the final setups then hopefully cycle out of town later that afternoon.  HA!
The night before, it dawned on me that our travel insurance that came with our Airtreks ticket purchase had run out when we left the UAE. So that morning Yvonne bought insurance online and we were back in business.  Later that day a small irritating pimple at the top of the back of my leg started to become increasingly painful.  The trend continued into the next day, and the next, to the point where I knew I needed to see a doctor.  Sitting down on both “cheeks” was no longer an option.  This had happened twice already this trip, and in both instances some prescribed antibiotics fixed things up nicely.  So I figured a quick visit to the hospital to see a doctor, run to the pharmacy and I was good to go.  Doc took one look and said it needed to be lanced.  He wasn’t kidding when he said it would hurt a bit … no freezing … ouch!  Told me to come back the next day to have the dressing changed.  Next day, different doctor, takes one look at it and says “surgery”.  I figured a local, with some freezing.  No … full on, general aesthetic, in 2 hrs time!  You gotta be kidding me!  I came in yesterday for some pills, now am heading to the O.R.  Except I’d just eaten … had to wait 6 hrs.

Surgery went well but they kept me in for that night and the following night.  I noted from other conversations that German hospitals do not seem to be in as much of a rush as Canadian hospitals to discharge their patients.  Before being discharged the doctor asked me what I’d be doing when I got out.  I told him very sheepishly that the plan was to cycle tour.  He winced (big open wound, about 1″ from bicycle seat).  He told me that I’d be a whole lot better off with at least 4 days of no riding.  OK, I will hang around a bit more in Frankfurt while Yvonne and kids set off on the bikes.  Then I’ll train to catch up.

Through all this time, we had been trying to locate our package from Canada.  We couldn’t leave without it.  It had arrived at the correct address but because it had my name on it instead of our host’s it was “returned to Canada – recipient does not live at this address”  No!!!!!  To make a very long and exceedingly frustrating story short, we finally found someone who could put their eyes on it, in a depot about 50km from Frankfurt (on its way back to Canada).  He said they could redeliver it.  But after about 15 phone calls, emails and a trip to another depot, we’d given up hope with German Post.  So Yvonne and the kids took two trains out of town and walked 2km through farm fields to reach a post depot in the middle of nowhere.  15kg parcel on Yvonne’s head and they walked back to the train station (the passing tractor driver did not have room for all three of them and the parcel).

Next day back to bike store to pick up bikes and do final outfitting.  Now things were getting exciting!

Now fully outfitted for 6 weeks of cycle touring, Yvonne and the kids headed out to ride back to the campground … and moments later got pummeled with hail, while I rode the train back with my bike.  We spent a few hours organizing our stuff … most for the tour, big box ready to mail back to Canada, and another big box with all our backpacks up to the farm near Copenhagen to await our arrival.  About to head to post office, then realized it was a holiday and unlike Canada, virtually EVERYTHING closes.  So Yvonne and the kids set out with their loaded bikes and I headed downtown with my bike to book into a hostel for the evening.  I posted the boxes next day then found a train to catch up to my family who by that time had been riding for two days.

The package and surgery challenges seemed to occupy much of our mental energy and time during our week in Frankfurt, and we felt like we saw virtually none of the city.  We did get to know the WiFi enabled cafes downtown and the cozy ethnic restaurants around the campground quite well (campground had absolutely no cooking facilities – not even a table, so we did not ended up using our camp stove). 

We struggled a bit in our tent at night – it was still April when we arrived and we awoke to frost several mornings.  We are traveling with light summer sleeping bags so Yvonne and I had a few relatively sleepless nights (not sure how the kids slept through …?)

That aside, Frankfurt is actually a very charming city, with an extensive walking street section downtown and beautiful bike paths all along both sides of the riverfront.  Art, theater and music abound. When the sun even hints at coming out, Frankfurters (sorry … couldn’t resist) flock to the riverside in droves with their picnic blankets, food and especially their beer.

Perhaps what impressed us most about the Frankfurt we saw was its public transportation system.  The city proper has a population just a little more than 700,000 but there are 5.5 million in the greater Frankfurt metropolitan area. There are trains coming and going in every direction with multiple transfer stations.  We never waited for more than about 7 minutes for any train, and they accept bicycles.  Trains head way out into the suburbs and neighbouring communities.  Where there are no trains, there are trams.  Where there are no trams, there are buses.  All coordinate beautifully.  For 10 Euro ($12 Cdn) our family could travel all day on any of these modes.  I think the crazy complex spider web of the transit map below gives some sense of how effective it is.

We drooled over their transit system.  Most people admire the Toronto’s TTC.  And the GTA’s GO system works for many people. But they still pale in comparison to Frankfurt.  Put Frankfurt’s transit system together with the city’s extensive bicycling infrastructure and you understand why we never saw a traffic jam in Frankfurt (I know, we were there only 1 week, and there are no doubt snarls).  We were to many places in town and getting there was a breeze.  Never even considered a taxi.  One of our primary sustainability interests in our Europe segment of this trip is public transit and cycling infrastructure.  We’ll have lots more to say about these ideas in later blog entries.

The very first house we saw when we left our campground the first morning had solar panels.

This was indicative of what we’d encounter throughout Germany.  Roofs across Frankfurt – on homes, factories, commercial and institutional buildings – are adorned with solar PV.  This was no surprise – indeed we decided to come to Germany primarily to see first hand how they have been so successful in rolling out their solar, wind and biogas electrical power.

Our setbacks in Frankfurt were clearly “first world” problems.  After all, it was here that we learned of the Nepalese earthquake.  But our trip thus far had been so much without hitches, we did feel we were spinning our wheels.  Or in this particular case, NOT spinning our wheels.  It was great to watch Yvonne and the kids cycle away.  And it felt great for me to board the train south the next day to find them.  Our 2 days in Frankfurt had stretched into 8 days.  And now as I write this two weeks later, we are planning to train some sections we had hoped to cycle as a result.  We really enjoy taking the trains here, but we REALLY are enjoying the cycling and don’t want to give that up.

Cam