Cities in the Sky

Yet again I’m a day late writing this!

Yesterday we woke up a little earlier than the day before in the hope of arriving before lunchtime. We set off to Bern along a ‘red’ road (an A road really, though most countries on the continent use ‘A’ for motorways), after a petrol stop in Luzern. A little way along, and we were in the most beautiful countryside I’ve ever seen! It’s quite a pity we were on the bikes, as there weren’t really any opportunities to stop and take any photos. I’m sure the memories will last though – streams and waterfalls along sheer rock-edged valleys, rolling hills and heavy forests, log cabins nestled alone up in the hills surrounded by colourful flowers and flags – astonishing.

After a fair while, we were joined by several other bikes, which was entertaining! We had a little staggered convoy going, I quite enjoyed it! The bikes in front of us turned off and we were joined by some more from behind, and so I was the leader of a little biker gang for a few miles at least!

We stopped in a little village in the Emmental region (hoping to get some cheese), but apparently picked the wrong restaurant to eat in. We were greeted by a crazy German (?) lady who most likely hadn’t had a visitor for a long time, who kept making funny noises with her mouth and apparently didn’t sell lemonade! We each had a cola and promptly left, to get lunch in Bern instead. The lady waved us off and we were on our way.

The view of Bern when we arrived was very impressive indeed – a small group of old buildings raised up on a steep-sided hill located in the centre of a meander of the river, with a single bridge to access it. It turned out this was just a tiny part of the city, but it was a very pretty tiny part!

We parked up in the city and sat at the nearest restaurant, which happened to be a pizzeria. We each had rather delicious pizzas; we were both very impressed. We then walked up the street a little and stopped in an internet café to check email, weather and so on. Interestingly, it was in the cellar of another shop – it seems that buildings and their cellars in Bern are completely separate, in order to jam in more shops! It was very… eclectic.

A bit more of a walk, and we were in the main part of the city. I wasn’t too impressed – it was just your average commercialised town centre, and the only buildings worth seeing were hidden underneath cranes and scaffolding. We had a rest in a park, and listened to a little live Spanish-sounding jazz whilst watching two people play giant chess. When we were rested, we carried on and found a giant chess set of our own. This took up the best part of the rest of the day. The winner is not important.

A little bit more of a walk along the outer edge of the hill and we came to a bridge out of the city, with a castle/chateau at its end. I wanted to snap a few pics so we crossed it, and were greeted by a mob of Africans! Apparently it was some kind of “Côte d’Ivoire” festival we’d stumbled upon. We bought a scrumptious mango smoothie (since by now we were very thirsty) and were on our way.

Since it was getting late we headed back to the bikes and took the motorways back to the campsite. Dinner consisted of a chocolate éclair and two stamp biscuits for me, and just an éclair for Helen (we were still quite full from the huge pizzas we had at lunch!). Then it was sleep time.

Overall, I quite liked Bern, if you ignore the busy commercial bit. The city is beautifully situated, the area in general is spectacular, and it’s generally just plain nice. Strangely enough, though, it was the ride there that I preferred!

Yesterday ended quite late, so I’m writing this on Saturday morning when I have some light!

Helen woke up early to have a shower and do everything that needed doing, while I snoozed in my sleeping bag. It was hard work, but I got through it. I eventually woke up and we had breakfast and so on, and prepared to leave for Zürich.

This excursion was a little different, we went on the bikes assuming public transport would be a little poor in the Alps! It turns out they do have pretty good trains, but I quite enjoyed the ride anyway.

Once there, we cheekily parked up in a shopping centre next to a few mopeds, changed into ordinary clothes and set off in search of tourist information so we could figure out where we were! It turned out to be in the central train station just up the road, and they had some pretty good maps and information available.

Next port of call was an internet café so Helen could send an email to her Dad about some bike problems. We were going to eat there too, but for the first time on the trip we found the food unappetising!

After this we wandered the streets for a café to eat at, but everywhere was very expensive. We ended up having a Panini back at the station.

Next we figured it was time to explore a bit more of Zürich, since we’d only seen the main high-street so far, which was just like every other high street in the world. We headed out of the station north, towards some nice looking gardens and the sound of a jazz band, and stumbled upon the Zürich museum. We felt like we should probably get a little culture and stepped inside. 3 hours later, at closing time, we left! It was very interesting, especially the arms and armour exhibit and the pre and early history exhibits. Everything there was to do with Switzerland and Zürich, and their history, and it proved absolutely fascinating.

After we left, we went through the park, over a bridge and walked more or less the whole length of the river towards the lake (or “see” as the Swiss call it). The buildings, save for churches and so on, were generally unremarkable along the waterfront. Off the waterfront, though, the streets turned very steep and winding and the shops and buildings turned very eclectic and colourful – it all looked absolutely splendid!

We followed the route to the lake, which turned out to also be quite amazing! The sun over the water, and the tree-covered hilltops surrounding the lake were amazing. I’d pile on more praise, but I’m reserving all that for Geneva…

A few photos later and we headed back towards the bikes, which proved a little difficult due to the odd little roads and very steep hills. We rode back to the campsite, de-kitted, had more Bratwurst for dinner then went to bed.

Well, I’ve managed to find a few minutes to upload some more of our travel journal. I also found a few more minutes to Geotag the photos and re-upload them with the new data. Now, when you click on one and go to Google Web Albums you’ll see exactly where it was taken, and if you look at the album view you’ll get a nice overview of the route. Very swish!

In other news, it turns out I’m very desirable. I put my CV on Monster.co.uk just over a week ago, and have been on the phone almost constantly since then - everybody wants to get me a job! I’ve had two interviews now, and both of them have come back (the next morning) with very generous offers. I won’t say how much, but I will say it’s more than Tim I’ve got a bunch more interviews with many more interesting companies in the coming week, so it looks like I’ll be employed very soon indeed!

The upshot of all this for you guys is that these companies want to see sample code and demos, so I’ve been working on CITS a little more recently. I’m mostly just refactoring stuff behind the scenes to give employers some pretty code to look at, but the bits that I’m refactoring will make it much easier to add more buildings in future, and will hopefully fix some of the problems I’m having with getting buildings to knock each other over. I’m also working on prettifying the interface and adding a special ‘tweaking’ GUI to make balancing the game that bit easier for me. Isn’t making games fun?

Today was another day of travelling, and the day began at 4am when there was thunder and lightning and rain! We had left the panniers on the bikes in the hope it wouldn’t rain, but it did so we had to dash out and get them. After trying to get some more sleep, we got up at 9 is, hastily packed, and left.

The route we had chosen was over some hills on some fun curvy roads – luckily on hair pins! We were rewarded with amazing scenery of valleys with towns nestled between the greenery. Once past this, it was motorway to Switzerland. However, there was a huge queue to get into the country, with loads of crazy cars reversing back the wrong way up an on slip road to avoid the queue! We sat it out which didn’t take too long. There were guards sorting the lorries from the cars. But once past this we got to the border where we were told to park up and were asked where we were going. We said Luzern on the autobahns and had to cough up 60 Euros (which the guard insisted was pronounced “sixteen”) for 2 windscreen stickers. Oddly we got given 10 Swiss francs in return.

After this we were safely in Switzerland and stopped for a baguette. The Swiss roads are busy, full of roadworks and littered with impressive tunnels, some of which were over 3km long!

We arrived at the campsite and set up. We are right down next to a lake, and when the cloud lifts you can see a giant mountain with snow on. It is all very scenic. We had dinner at the campsite café; very yummy! I had a chicken noodle wok thingy, and Ben had Bratwurst and chips; just what we needed after our long drive. Then we settled in with our books, played cards, and went to bed as it got dark.

Today we travelled from Luxembourg to a little town called St. Dié. The route was pleasant since the French are much better at road signs than the Germans or Luxembourgians… Some very nice scenery along the way too – I had no idea the East of France was so nice!

We stopped off in a little village called Corny for lunch, which was quite nice. I can’t say it was much different to any of the other little French villages I’ve seen, but the croque-monsieurs we bought were the best of their kind! So much better than ferry-bought ones.

We arrived at the campsite which turned out to be much more expensive than we were anticipating, and set-up camp. After a bit of fiddling and so on, and a trip to the local L’eclerc for a bulb and some chain lube (neither of which we found), we set off into town for dinner. We found a lovely restaurant – very quaint and pretty and shared a pizza and gnocchi, both heavily laden with gorgonzola! It was delicious. Now we’re just trying to decide which campsite to go to in Switzerland and how to get there!

What a lovely day we’ve had! Possibly the best so far. Had a lazy morning, then got up and caught the bus into Luxembourg. We had a map with a guided walk which we followed. First stop was the Panini shop – yummy! Then followed a lovely walk.

The city is built around a deep valley, with older buildings in the valley, then ramparts around the edges of the valley, and newer buildings out around that. The views over the valley were amazing, I think Ben took about fifty photos (83, actually – Ben). Our walk lead us through several squares, then along the ramparts, then steeply down into the valley. There we stopped for a beer and a sangria in a quiet pub overlooking the river, quiet until a Danish football club turned up!

We left and our walk continued along the valley, then steeply back up to the beginning again. Along the way there was lots of greenery and old buildings nestled between trees. It was very picturesque. Once the walk was over we had an ice cream then looked for a place to buy dinner. I was really craving chicken so we bought some and some fajita ingredients!

After relaxing in the sunshine in a park for a while, we caught the bus home. I did some washing then we cooked dinner; onion, pepper and chicken cooked in the sauce pan with cold tortillas, cheese and a salad melee. They were possibly the best fajitas ever, maybe due to our sense of achievement at cooking them on the tiny cooker.

We’ve spent the rest of the evening deliberating over where to go next – one night in a campsite southeast of Nancy, then onto Zurich.

It will be hard to top Luxembourg I think; beautiful place, romantic atmosphere, friendly people and sunshine! Definitely worth another visit and we highly recommend it.

Fortunately the forecast was more or less correct, and it didn’t rain in the morning (though there were some menacing-looking clouds hanging about). We packed up and headed away from Koln. Unfortunately the route to Luxembourg is a little odd, since Germany’s motorways don’t entirely link up with each other. Also, they seem to have very inconsistent road numbering and terrible signs, so finding our way was a little tricky! Once we were well on our way (and I knew what was going on again), roadworks forced us onto minor roads in Eastern Germany, much to my annoyance! It proved to be quite fun though – riding through tremendously beautiful hilly countryside, on twisting country roads – excellent!

We stopped off in Bitburg (apparently the home of Bitburger Pils, a famous (ish) German beer) for some food then went about our way. We had to improvise a route again due to terrible signage and roads that change numbers spontaneously, but after a while made it to Luxembourg (the country).

The north of the country is stunning – beautiful forests on winding mountainous terrain; it was a joy to ride through, and made a change to the motorways we were used to. As we wound south, however, it turned into more of a building site, which is a shame.

We ended up riding through the centre of Luxembourg as the people in charge of making signs apparently just can’t be bothered to point them at anything useful, and caught a glimpse of what we’ll see tomorrow - it looks quite nice actually!

The other side of Luxembourg (the city) proved to be a bit stressful. The directions mention a turning off the motorway (not which junction or how far along), and the sign is only visible to traffic heading north, so we had to drive the length of the motorway twice! Luckily it’s only 15km long, but it was still annoying…

Anyway, we found the campsite (Kockelshure) and it’s lovely and quite cheap! We bought some chilli con carne from the shop for dinner, which was interesting to cook given our equipment… Now we’re getting some sleep for another adventure tomorrow!