SNOW! We are all super excited to look out the train window and see snow right now. It started with a few snowflakes in Copenhagen this morning, then a bit of snow on the ground, and now some real snow on the ground and in the air.
Yesterday morning, we left our (now) good friends place in Paderborn, Germany, to make a two day train journey to Stockholm, Sweden. As we often find, things work out quite well. We COULD have potentially tried to make it all the way to Stockholm yesterday, but had decided to stay in Copenhagen to make sure we had some leeway for any delays with the train. We had three trains booked yesterday - all the changeovers went well, but the last train ended up being delayed by about an hour. Luckily for us it was our last train of the day, unluckily for others, they were hoping to catch a train to Stockholm, and instead of being able to catch the 6pm train, they then had to wait until 9:30pm….with a very early morning arrival. We arrived in Copenhagen and after having dinner, we checked into our hostel - right on the water in Copenhagen. The building could host 1200 people and was a well oiled machine. We had booked the place through airbnb and had a private room. We checked in, each picked up our set of linens, and used our key card to get on the elevator (which would only take us to our own floor and could barely fit us….presumably to avoid some big partying scenes). We did a tour of the foosball and pool table, communal kitchen, bar and other hangouts and then watched a quick Christmas movie and went to bed. A shame to miss the Copenhagen night life, but it will be saved for another time. In the morning we took the long way to the train station along waterfront boardwalks which had unique workout hardware and kayak ramps falling into the river built into the walkway. We saw a group dipping (we have to go back) and then came across one of many floating saunas. We got the low down on the logistics from a member sitting there who had just been in the water….and formalized our swirling thoughts of a great sauna at Duke’s. Stay tuned for winter 2025 community sauna at Duke’s….! From the very brief glance we had, it looks like a pretty incredible city.
Typical train ride. Waterfront in Copenhagen - boardwalk, kayak slide, sauna and dipping hole!
Sète, France
In our last blog post, we wrote briefly about Sète, since we had just arrived. We loved it. Our host’s place (highly recommended: https://www.airbnb.ca/rooms/23779312?guests=1&adults=1&s=67&unique_share_id=3cd9d007-cb6d-4cc7-bedb-fefb1e1502d2) was perfect. They had bikes for us to use and were a 30 second walk up the street from the waterfront trail where you could walk down to some beautiful little beaches. I got to ride an awesome cruiser bike (not sure of the official name), which was really fun. The last time I had ridden a bike like that was with my brother in Munich when the kids were 5 and 3. There were a few too many jokes about me looking like the wicked witch of the west in the Wizard of Oz! In a 5 minute walk you could get from our place to small grocery stores, fresh fish shop, bakery and convenience stores. In 5 minutes biking, you could get to all the great big long beaches. A great first experience on the Mediterranean. We biked up some super steep short little roads to some great lookouts, swam and beached every day and generally just had a really nice relaxing time.
Sand castles. Climbs to the top. Biking. Sunsets. Articulating bus (check!). More biking. More beach time.
Annecy, France
From Sète, we travelled to Annecy, France. Technically in the “Alps”….or maybe more the “pre-Alps” I was told. It is a beautiful little city on lac d’Annecy, which is surrounded by small mountains and little mountain towns. There was a great 40km bike trail all around the lake which we took advantage of on our last full day there when we rented bikes. We were warned the first hour we would have some pretty big hills and then the rest was flat - but after our biking with my brother in Beaune, the hill portion passed before we noticed, and we all said….wait - was that all the hills? The rental process was pretty different from in Canada. Give them your license, grab a map, and take all 4 bikes, locks and helmets for the whole day. No waiver, didn’t (couldn’t) leave a phone number. Just left my license and took the $5000 of gear for the day. Partway around the lake we got to see at least ten or so paragliders coming down from the mountains and landing in a landing zone right beside the bike path. We stopped and chatted with a couple of them and have definitely put that on the list for a return trip. It looked incredible. I could definitely see getting pretty into that. It looked so free, smooth, calm and as close to flying as I could imagine. It involves a great workout by hiking up first thing in the morning and then an incredible ride down. I got a card from the guy for next time……!
The first morning in Annecy we went for a row with one of the 4 rowing clubs on the lake. The club was a 10 minute walk from our airbnb, and Jeremy and I just went on our own for a morning row while the kids had a quiet morning. We had had a busy day of travel the day before, and Robin and Gavin are not quite ready to jump into a 17km steady state rowing practice with adults yet. There was no playing catch, follow the leader or any maneuvering of any kind - just some beautiful, steady state rowing. This was the first activity (other than the occasional bar at night) that we left the kids out of, they loved it. We had no wind and some great sunshine. It was the club’s first practice after 3 weeks of way too windy conditions, and they were excited to get back on the water. It was also the first time that season that they were getting experienced rowers to row with new rowers (they start our segregated and then combine at a certain time in the season). Since we didn’t know the waterway, they matched us up with some experienced rowers and we got to row in a straight quad (4 person boat with no cox and two oars each) with a couple super competent great guys. We rowed about 17km and the guys in the boat filled us in on everything we had to check out in Annecy while were there - it was perfect.
To round out the stop in Annecy, we spent a good chunk of one day hiking up to Mont Baron. It was about 14km and about 900m of elevation gain and it took us about 4 hours. After all the walking training with Paige at the beginning of the trip and subsequent travelling around, as well as the biking - this was a super great walk and we all felt great the whole time. The kids were running ahead for the majority of the time. Now…despite us feeling like we were moving along pretty well on that sunny Sunday, I don’t know if we passed ANYONE on the way up….and we had tons of people running by us! There were a ton of super fit folks in that town. Despite the water temp of 9 degrees, there were tons of people kayaking, swimming, rowing, biking, running, climbing. I cannot imagine how busy this place would be in the summer, but from what people said, it is a bit of a zoo. The city provides free buses to anyone all busy season to the surrounding towns and trails just to get more people out of the city as it is so busy. Anyway, definitely an incredible off season place to visit.
Saint-Quirin, France
So. We picked this place to go to SOLELY because our kids saw pictures of the airbnb while they were looking over our shoulders and they begged to stay at this one. The reason was that it had a net suspended above the kitchen that you could lounge/sleep on. So AirBnB hosts - if you want the pictures to sell it - this is the secret for kids. It was not really on the way to anywhere, and was in a remote enough location we really kind of needed a car…..but - we went anyway! We spent three nights there and it turned out to be a beautiful little town with tons of trails all around it and a little church on a hill that we went in multiple times to admire the stain glass, the lights at night, and to light a candle in memory of a family friend who recently passed away.
We rented a car through Turo - which is kind of like a car rental version of airbhb. It went smoothly - was much more cost effective than renting through a car company and avoided all the logistics in the car rental office. The couple we rented from met us at a subway station one stop from the train station, went through the vehicle with us and uploaded current pictures into the Turo app, took a pic of our license and away we went. The drive was about an hour and a half - and if we didn’t know any better I would say we were in cottage country in Muskoka, with just a bit windier and narrower roads.
The first day we were in town, we wondered if anyone else was actually in town. We went for a 5km walk, right through town and then around some trails and actually only saw 2 people the whole time. We eventually did see a few people though and went out for a drink in the only place open in town. There is definitely no grocery store, post office or library in this town! We did get the impression it was a bustling little place in the summer though. This was another great little stop on our travels and we would recommend it to anyone looking for a little quiet time, a great view and some time on trails that feel like home.
Paderborn, Germany
Last but absolutely not least since our last blog update - we travelled to Paderborn, Germany. This was our first time out of France in almost a month. It was a great spot to stop before heading north to Scandinavian countries. We chose Paderborn because our good friend Katja’s long time friend Dorothee (friends since an exchange in high school) lives there with her husband Ralf. We had met Dorothee and her daughters last spring when they came to make maple syrup with us at our house and Dorothee had suggested we come to stay with them while we were on our trip. What a wonderful stop this was. Dorothee and Ralf welcomed us into their home for the weekend. Both their daughters are away doing post secondary studies. Wow - it was so nice to be in a home again. Dorothee picked us up from the train station and smells of dinner greeted us when we got to their home. The kids immediately gravitated to the games and books Dorothee had taken out. We spent the weekend making cookies, doing the morning bakery run, going to a Christmas Market and enjoying some Glühwein from the local Lions Club, walking around downtown Paderborn, visiting the Computer Museum (so cool), playing some Christmas songs on their violins, playing cards, going to dinner at their friends house and having many great visits getting to know about them. It was fun to see some pictures of Dorothee and Katja when they were in high school and on visits since….and we got to ride in their beautiful camper van that they have taken to many of the places we’ll be in the coming couple of weeks. Ralf dropped us back at the train station on Monday morning, refreshed (save for the late night on Sunday night) and ready to head north! Thank you again Dorothee and Ralf for the great visit, your generosity, humour and experience in Germany!
Next - we have family to hang out with in Sweden! We are meeting Dave and Dani (Jeremy’s Dad and wife), Nikki (Jeremy’s sister) and Katie and Hugo who live in Stockholm (Jeremy’s step sister and partner). We hear of lots of snow at home, and are looking forward to some snow and skating in our world too!