Settling in at the church waiting for the concert.
It’s a 400-year-old church on one of the little islands in the river Seine. I had a bit of time to stroll around and snap photos before we all sat down.
I can’t help thinking of fault lines back in California when I see this dude.
A few weeks later I would show these pictures to Ann and Andrew. Of the first one, I said “I can’t help thinking of the Bay Area when I see San Andreas…”
Andrew replied, “Hah, well that’s hardly his fault. Oh wait! it is.”
When I showed them second picture, of the plaque donated by the city of St Louis, Andrew said “Wow, thanks guys. Classy American gift…”
I said, “Oh come on, there’s not a lot going on in St Louis, and a plaque is a nice gift.”
Ann said, “Tell that to my dentist…”
Aaaanyway. The conductor walked to the podium and there was a brief introduction, then a couple of short pieces I wasn’t familiar with but enjoyed. Then the full choir shuffled out and the requiem began.
Nice shed you’ve got here! Must keep the rain out a treat!
It was wonderful. An absolutely “bucket list” experience, and one that I didn’t even know I could have before yesterday. This music, in this intimate old church, in the heart of Paris… Oh là là!
I noticed that among all the people in the audience, I moved around the most. I couldn’t help tilting my head and tapping my fingers on my leg. I didn’t want to bother other people, but … come on y’all, it’s great music. I suppose if I spent more time in churches I would feel more hushed and reverential, and less like I was at a show that could be visibly appreciated.
Some well-dressed people in the audience stuck their phones up and tried to record large chunks of the performance. Like, not 30 seconds or so, but entire five-minute movements. It was a little strange because I thought only Americans were that gauche.
The performance relaxed me, beyond the relaxation I already felt from the weekend. When I emerged from the church I was like, “aaaaahhhhh,” and walked slowly around the little island with my AirPods quieting the city sounds. And then, ice cream was right there, so why not!
This is about an hour of waiting in line for a few scoops of ice cream. I’m sure it’s tasty but, I’m going to go with a different vendor, thanks…
One scoop passionfruit and one scoop dark chocolate.
I also knew it was a holiday from work tomorrow. Usually I would spend part of Sunday reviewing notes and email, to be ready the next morning. The thought that I didn’t have anything to do at all except stare at the canal and eat ice cream, with the Requiem echoing in my head, felt unfamiliar in a way that was almost sad.
It really is true that people live their lives stretched out, across the events of the previous days and the looming demands of the next ones. The feeling that I didn’t have to leave the present moment at all – not just for the next hour, but for the rest of the day – was spooky. I wasn’t even planning to change locations soon, like I usually would on a bike tour.
Why walk around in the crowded streets when you can cram your butt onto a barge, standing cheek-to-cheek?
Why walk around in the crowded streets when you can cram your butt onto a barge, standing cheek-to-cheek?
Look at all them tourists goooo!
As magical as it was, I didn’t want to linger on the island for the whole evening. I unlocked my bike and rode back near the apartment, and sought out yet another bakery I hadn’t tried. There I found a slice of quiche and a little chocolate eclair.
That’s 17 bakeries open after 7:00pm, within a 5 minute walk of the apartment.
That’s 17 bakeries open after 7:00pm, within a 5 minute walk of the apartment.
I was being careful with the amounts of things I ate, because I noticed some weight loss on the Rhineland bike tour and I wanted to keep the momentum. It felt easy to hold back, when I knew I was completely surrounded by amazing food, so close at hand that I could walk in any direction for less than one minute and find something great.
An ex of mine (who shall remain nameless because she was rather unkind) once said, “Being in Paris consists of a lot of ‘seeing of beauty.'” Since this was my first non-work day in the city, it was time to go do some of that!
I stripped all my luggage off the bike, leaving one bag with the camera in it. Everything else could stay locked behind this insane apartment door:
Out in the chaos of people, I made for Seine, the river at the center of the city.
I got a recommendation from friend Cara to try the hot chocolate at Angelina. It looked amazing but there was an equally amazing line, and the wait for a table was 70 minutes. So I hopped across the street to Tuileries Garden, and did some “seeing of beauty” instead.
This park is rather long. Note the tourist dragging his suitcase. Common thing: Pack up to leave your hotel room, then roll around for the day until you get on a train in the evening.
This park is rather long. Note the tourist dragging his suitcase. Common thing: Pack up to leave your hotel room, then roll around for the day until you get on a train in the evening.
I wandered the gardens with my “courtyard” playlist adding to the atmosphere — mostly stuff by Harold Budd and Stephan Micus, with the Coil album “The Agelic Conversation” mixed in.
I passed two large fountains ringed with chairs, and every chair was occupied, with crowds milling around them. There were at least three cafes partially under shade, and each had a line about 20 people deep. It was more like being in the middle of a farmers market than being in a park. Perhaps it’s some kind of post-COVID travel boom, but it really feels excessive, like, how do the actual residents of Paris even put up with this?
I also saw people – I couldn’t tell if they were locals or tourists – sitting with their feet deliberately across a second chair just to get a little more comfortable, even though literally hundreds of people, including elderly, were all around them and any one of them would have probably sat down given the chance. I was thinking, “Is this Parisians saying ‘screw you’ to the tourists, or is this tourists saying ‘screw you’ to each other? Maybe both…”
When I reached the other side, it was time to launch myself into the streets again to find that big pokey-uppey thing everyone’s heard about:
Cool! Now if someone dares me to prove that I’ve seen the pokey-uppey thing, I can show them this picture, which looks totally fake and exactly like all the other ones. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!
Meandering back to the north, I encountered a protest in progress.
This is a march about … Hmm. About apparent side-effects from the COVID-19 vaccine? What?
Several people were carrying anti-COVID-vaccine signs, but they were mixed with others I couldn’t parse. To be honest, I wasn’t sure what the protest was about. But it was very French.
After that, I found some more buildings to stand in front of:
Whoever’s buried here must be, like, important and stuff!
Whenever I step out, I bring an angel along to keep my drapes from falling off.
Some time after that I saw this poster on a wall, and was intrigued. With a little help from my phone I realized it was a concert happening the very next day, and I could still buy a ticket for it.
Back in 1992 I was gifted a CD with Mozart’s Requiem, and I played the heck out of it. It fed into my lifelong obsession with music. It’s one of the most popular pieces of “classical” music in the world, and for good reason.
I paused my random bicycling to eat another decadent snack, and try to buy a ticket with my phone. The interface was just a little bit broken. Perhaps that’s why there were still tickets!
We know they’re adorable, but they’re kinda causing problems, so quit leaving your food everywhere, huh?
One of the things I wanted to see was the Labyrinthe du Jardin des Plantes. Not much of a puzzle, but a refreshing walk:
I was starting to run out of daylight, but there was one more garden I could visit on my way to the apartment: Place des Vosges, the oldest planned square in Paris, commissioned by Henri IV in 1612.
When you’re pressed for time because there are so many things to see, and one of those places is a gorgeous park that’s been sitting around being gorgeous for 400 years, and one of the best ways to enjoy a park is to stretch out and read a book for the whole afternoon, but it’s already evening, what can you do?
All I could do was stroll around and take a few photos, and imagine that I’d been lounging on the grass all day.
I was too excited by the city to stay indoors yesterday, but today it was time to catch up on sleep. I woke up half a dozen times, and kept thinking “nope!” and dropping back onto the pillow.
The final tally according to my watch was eleven hours.
Around noon, I threw all my clothes into the tiny washing machine under the counter, puzzled over the French interface, then got it started. As it churned I did some writing and work at the table. It was Friday, and that meant I could put in a workday today, then have the whole weekend free to go exploring.
Three hours later I realized I needed food, and though I knew it would be possible to find some kind of food no matter what time it was, I wanted to catch a bakery before they all closed. I picked one at random, and cycled out.
There are many, many, many bakeries to choose from.
There are many, many, many bakeries to choose from.
So many delicious things! I pointed at stuff until I had at least two meals, then pedaled back to the apartment. The first thing I devoured was a cookie:
Two kinds of quiche from two bakeries, plus other goodies.
Two kinds of quiche from two bakeries, plus other goodies.
The quiche was next. I ate it while spending half an hour trying to figure out how to activate the drying mode on the weird clothes washer installed in the kitchen.
More work, more snacking, a brief walk around outside… Then it was sleep again.
I woke up early, checked the time and listened to the announcements, then tried to nap a bit more. The captain’s voice blared out from the speaker on the wall inside my room, declaring that we all needed to be out and gathered in the hallways, and making my heart bounce off the top of my skull. No more sleep for me. In half an hour I was out sitting next to my bags in a hallway with only 5 hours of sleep.
I felt exhausted. I had to move my bags to be nearer a window and get cell signal, and from there I looked at maps and prices and found a hotel in a city 15 miles south of the ferry dock for a decent price. The weather report was good so I figured I would ride there even though I was tired, keeping the day from being a total waste in terms of ground covered.
When I moved my bags I accidentally left behind my Airpods case, and when I went back to look for it, it was gone. I double-checked all my bags and it was definitely missing. I threaded my way up the long hallway to the reception desk, passing a long stream of people exiting the boat, and asked an attendant if they’d seen a headphones case. I held up my other case to show her. She nodded, turned around, and pulled my case out of a drawer. True to that Danish sense of courtesy, someone had found the case and walked it all the way over to the lost items desk. Back home in Oakland, it would have just disappeared into a pocket.
Thank you, kind stranger who found these, wherever you are!
You need a vehicle like this, in case you need to, like, run over a beer can in the road or something.
I had to stand around for a long time waiting for cars to move, since me and the other cyclist had been boxed in by three very long tour buses parked too close for a bike to squeeze between. I moved my bike several times to make space for the buses to turn, and the other cyclist followed my lead. Finally I got a gap in the outgoing traffic, and I was down the ramp and in Denmark.
It was a pretty grand entrance, actually. The first thing I saw beyond the ship was a busy staging area full of moving vehicles, then a procession of metal cylinders in the distance, disappearing up past the ceiling of the cargo bay. When I emerged I saw that each cylinder was the trunk of a gigantic wind turbine, the blades gracefully rotating as flocks of birds sailed between them. Then the shadow of the boat ended and I felt a wash of warm sun all over my face and arms — the first I’d felt in weeks. I was so distracted I had to pull the bike over into a cargo stacking space and just hang out there, absorbing sunlight, for ten minutes. I also took the time to remove my sweater. Wouldn’t be needing that…
The wind gently guided me onto a side-road, and after only a few minutes I was well away from the ship and moving into town. I was starving so my first stop was a little cafe. The woman behind the counter had light blond hair and a deep brown tan. She reminded me of being a kid at the beach in California, running around in Junior Lifeguards class with all the other little tan blond kids. I settled down at a table outside in the sun, and ate a massive open-faced sandwich and most of a mocha.
Back on land that can grow vegetables! Eaten open-faced, of course.
Back on land that can grow vegetables! Eaten open-faced, of course.
As I ate, I chatted with my Mom and gave my impressions of the country, and learned a bit of family history.
Me
Wow, Denmark is as amazing as I remember it for biking… Bike lanes in many places, extremely polite drivers, nice and flat, and SUNSHINE!!!!
A 70 year old man held the door for me at the cafe I visited, since I had bike bags in my hands. I just saw two women in their 80’s out for a walk together with sticks and a walker, and both waved and grinned at me.
Mom
That’s how I remember the people too! Friendly, slightly reserved, and very polite! I believe “gracious” is the best word.
Me
Good word!
Going from extreme hills and 90mph winds to this is quite a shock. Camping in the Faroe Islands weather would have been a disaster, but there are campsites all over Denmark, more than anywhere else I’ve seen. I wonder if grandpa got an interest in camping from memories of Denmark? Or was he too young?
Mom
Your grandad was only five when they came here, so I doubt it.
Me
Hmm, well perhaps even at the age of five he had some interest in camping already cultivated.
Mom
Part of his growing up was in San Francisco very near Golden Gate Park where he spent a lot of time. Later there were many trips to Muir Woods.
Me
I did not know that!
Mom
Also, my uncle Happy, Denny’s father, was in the class above my mother at Berkeley High, so later they must have lived in Berkeley.
Me
I assume Berkeley is where grandpa met grandma?
Mom
I think so. Mother had a friend Essie in her dance troupe who was his cousin, so it was through her that they met.
Did you visit Copenhagen the last time you were there? That was where your grandad was born.
Me
It’s on my itinerary! I fly out from there.
I was now both nourished and totally wired, and it was time to ride. The Danish countryside did not disappoint, and I stopped constantly for photos.
It was wonderful. A enchanting reminder of just how relaxing and healing a bike ride can be. The sun warmed me, the air was fresh, the wind was behind me, the hills were gentle, the cars were shockingly polite and no one was speeding, and there were nice separated bike paths and birds and farm animals all around.
I stopped near a field and saw a mound of apples, left out for horses and cattle to find, and picked a few out for myself.
I sliced it with my pocket knife and used the backpack as a kitchen table, and stood there eating perfectly ripe apple by the side of a field on a quiet country road for half an hour.
I don’t care who you are, I could convert you to love bicycle touring in one week by getting you a long-wheelbase recumbent bicycle and putting you at the northwest end of Denmark, and giving you a phone and a sweater and telling you to cycle to the southeast corner. By the time you arrived you would be in such a state of nourished relaxed sun-tanned bliss that bicycle touring would forevermore be part of your life.
I also passed through a bunch of little towns. I felt very slightly disoriented by the transition between houses and countryside, and when I realized why I laughed to myself: I come from a place where farmland is in one region, and communities are usually pressed together in another. Mostly because of the presence of suburbs defined by the automobile, but also because parcels of farmland are generally bigger back home, with the houses on them set way back from the road.
There are parts of California where one can cruise from farmland to houses to farmland in the space of a few miles on a bike, but they aren’t typical. I was getting the impression that in Denmark, it’s like this by default, everywhere outside major cities.
I learned later on that this is the pattern in the north of Denmark, but suburbs and sprawl appear as one goes south, making the experience more like California.
Also, you know how I could tell this was a low-crime area relative to Oakland? Two things: Unlocked bicycles are everywhere, and even the young women out jogging alone look up and smile hello as I ride by.
One woman was out walking her dog, and she saw me and made her dog sit down on the grass next to the sidewalk so I could pass more easily.
I saw people out and about, but even as I entered an actual city, I consistently saw fewer people in public than I was expecting. Were the Danes still largely sequestered due to COVID restrictions, even a year and a half after the pandemic? Perhaps the vaccine roll-out was slower here than back home? Or was life just slower here?
By the time the 15 miles was done I was in fine spirits. The city had a quaint central area, and I took a bunch more photos, then checked into the hotel without trouble and re-fitted the bike for an evening out. From there I imported and sorted photos in a cafe while enjoying another tuna sandwich.
In spite of the lack of sleep on the ferry, I felt awake. On a whim I decided to see a movie. The local cinema was showing a recent American release, “Dune”, in English with Danish subtitles. I rolled the bike over and almost wondered if I should bother locking it to the rack or just leave it standing there like most of the others.
Everybody milling about with snacks, before the movie.
The movie itself was kind of disappointing, but I still had a good time. It was a very posh theater experience, and hanging out in close quarters with a bunch of Danish people felt oddly comfortable. They stood very near each other and made a low hum of conversation, sounding more like a classy dinner party without a band, instead of a bunch of strangers in public. It was interesting comparing it to the standoffish Icelanders I’d been dealing with. In fact, I couldn’t remember seeing that many people so close together anywhere in Iceland, except inside a few of the tourist-filled restaurants in the capital city, and the noise in those was appalling.
Just by the docks is a chunk of land with a preserved “old town”, with turf-roof houses, occupied mostly by government and tourism organizations. The passengers – me included – busily took photos of it as the ferry churned the water and rotated around to anchor at the terminal on the opposite side of the harbor.
Unlike loading in Iceland, this time the bicyclists were last to roll off the ship. We had to wait for the trucks to unhook from the floor and slowly creep out ahead of us. The good news was, the ship had been loaded so all the vehicles bound for Denmark could just stay on the upper decks, and relatively few of us were disembarking here.
The first thing I did was swing around the north side of the harbor and check out all those turf houses. I wasn’t surprised at all to see that they had been rebuilt with modern materials and then altered to support turf. At first I thought it was a bit anachronistic but, considering that houses looking very similar had stood on this same land for centuries and the form they were emulating originated from around here, was it really?
Locals know the old town area as “Reyn and Undir Ryggi”. The area at the end of the peninsula is “Tinganes”, a.k.a. Parliament Point. The reason there are so many government buildings here is that the area has been a seat of government for over a thousand years: Around the year 900 the Viking parliament first began meeting on this spot every summer.
I eventually emerged from the twisty maze of old town and found the coffee shop I’d spent a few hours at the last time I was here. Their “swiss mocha” was just as great as I remembered, and I took a selfie to boast about it with the family back home.
I lounged around there for a while catching up on work, then located the AirBnB I’d booked on the south side of town. I was a bit wired from the mocha so I got back on the bike and went creeping around town with the camera.
When it started getting dark I figured it was because of a change in latitude from the ferry ride, but I glanced at a map and reminded myself that the Faroes are about as far north as the southern coast of Iceland. The darkness was just the advancing seasons.
Some time in the depths of the evening, snacks in hand, Skyrim soundtrack back on the headphones, I blundered across the Gamli Kirkjugarður (old cemetery) right down by the harbor. I had no idea this was here, and it’s awesome.
Pretty sure this is the scariest picture of me I’ve ever taken.
When I finally got back to the AirBnB, I sat down with the remains of my caffeine energy and tried to plan a bike tour that would show me some of the islands but also get me back to the harbor in time. The first thing I learned was that the amazing three-way underground tunnel that just opened is off limits to bicyclists. Drat!
It makes sense, really. The thing goes 190 meters (620 feet) down under the ocean. The ventilation isn’t great, and can you imagine a cyclist huffing and puffing their way back up from there, breathing car exhaust the whole time?
It was quite hard narrowing down the route. I had to sit in the living room staring at tunnel and ferry maps and scrolling over elevation charts, weighing the annoyance of covering the same ground twice – which was inevitable on these islands – with the majesty of the views at the far corners of the country.
There was definitely a part of me saying “Why not just skip this? It’s like Iceland except less hospitable for biking, with more aggressive drivers and wetter weather. Aren’t you done with this Nordic stuff yet? Don’t you want to be some place where it’s warm, at least some of the time?” I could use the sunshine, yes. But because of the ferry, I had six days to see the islands. I couldn’t do any less, and I didn’t have time for more.
I already had an AirBnB booked for the next two days in a town called Hósvík. When I made that booking (back on the boat) I thought I would need a day to recover from the ride, but after staring at maps all evening I realized scales were different here relative to the country I just left. Hósvík is just 32km (20 miles) outside of Tórshavn, and probably less than 150m (500 feet) of climb. I had to guess because my mapping applications refused to give cycling directions, and the walking directions don’t go through tunnels that are passable to cyclists. I’ve also learned that the locals stare at you like a lunatic if you ask about biking anywhere. They’ll give you an estimate of time, but a good estimate of distance or altitude is beyond them.
