vanlife

Packing their customised Volkswagen T4 with only the bare necessities, a duo from south east England took off for the continent and turned their motorised dream home into a six-year long roadtrip. They’ve documented their adventures in a guide book and travelogue called The Rolling Home—happily in its third printing—and just because they’ve settled back in Cornwall, they’ve not lost the taste for the nomadic life and still live in their van.

borscht belt

Via the always brilliant Nag on the Lake, we’re invited on an idyll odyssey with Pablo Iglesias Maurer inspired by a lot of vintage postcards depicting resorts of the Catskills and the Poconos during their heyday fifty years ago juxtaposed with their present state of wrack and ruin.
The ephemeral nature of the missives served their purpose—much like snapshots on social media—but isn’t meant to rubbish those destinations and experiences now abandoned, while at the same the medium romances both the nostalgia and the decay. What do you think?  Surely the portrayals are all the more awful for those with a connection to the places. We’ve a sudden urge to watch Dirty Dancing and inspect the facilities at Kellerman’s. Be sure to visit the links up top for a whole gallery of rather sad then-and-now transitions.

stockenten oder libellen

In Brandenburg not far removed from Berlin, there is a unique and protected natural reserve known as the Spreewald (the forested lands of the river that runs through the capital or Błota, the swamp, in the regional Sorbian language) shaped during the retreating phases of the last Ice Age and irrigated, kept from flooding at bay by a labyrinthine network of over one hundred and fifty “navigable” canals (Fließe) spanning over fifteen hundred kilometres in all.
Many visitors to the area avail themselves on a punting tour through picturesque villages like Lehde only accessible by water (with no motorised traffic allowed) but a lot of tourist stake out their own adventures in kayaks readily available for hire and paddle through the landscape on eye-level with ducks (deserving of their own ethnographic treatment) and various tribes of dragon-flies and privileged pushing along as silent as a cloud to some remarkably peaceful scenery.
We ended up taking little footage of our drifting through the reeds due to a bit of gun-shyness with our not water-proofed cameras that was probably for the best after all in terms of travel time not to mention sites we are hardly worthy of seeing, plagued by mosquitoes and my inferior piloting as we were, but it was an experience that we’d recommend without stint to anyone and we’re sorry for the limited opportunity to explore—we’ll have to return for a longer stay one day soon.

sabbatical

We here at PfRC are taking a short leave-of-absence—or at least a reduction in posting frequency, over the next few days for some housekeeping and a short but much needed vacation. Stayed tuned for more adventures same time, same station.

cross-roads

Though I can’t say for certain that many hikers will cross our path, we discovered that our new home, remote and rather secluded as it is, lies just behind the intersection of two of the European Long Distance Routes (the nearest point of reference shared by both trails is the City of Coburg), marked and maintained hiking paths that follows ancient trade and pilgrimage routes. From north to south, one stretches from Lapland through Finland and Sweden through Germany and Austria to the Adriatic coast, and from west to east, the other spans from Spain following el Camino de Santiago (der Jakobsweg) through France, Luxembourg, Belgium, Germany, the Czech Republic onto the shores of the Black Sea in Bulgaria. What an amazing journey to embark on and to think we are at if not the centre-point at least a nexus of sorts.

vee-dub

Car guy Jesse Bowers shares a gallery of impressions from the Bob Baker Volkswagen Customer Appreciation Show, that happens every spring in Carlsbad California and is a forum for collectors and dedicated caretakers of vintage VW buses. There are only the older models to be found in the States as an import duty has been levied against Transporters for years, customs classifying the van as a truck. Let’s hope we’re on the right side of any coming trade-war.

7x7

teardrop trailer: veteran and prisoner-of-war designs for a camper-caravan realised after eight decades

what wizardry is this: BLDGBlog contemplates spells against autonomy

it’s dangerous to go alone – take this: Zelda fan automates his home controlled by playing the ocarina

no wine before its time: Moldova declares wine to be a food, a status that beer has enjoyed in Germany for centuries

don’t be jimmy: Colorado mass-transit just adopted an awful, crass mascot as an negative example for passengers, very unlike NYC’s good-mannered feline

ronald the grump: Sesame Street characters respond to news that they are being defunded

inter-city express: passenger train passes through residential apartment block in Chongqing 

all-terrain

This amphibious caravan from the German company Sealander really caught our attention. Not only is it a sleek and stylish trailer to be pulled on a hitch with a complete camping kitchen, bedding and storage, but when the opportunity presents itself, converts to a personal yacht with an outboard motor to punt around a lake. We’ve stayed a quite a few campsites where such a flexible arrangement would have been ideal.  Check out the links above for more details and a full demonstration.

gas, food, lodging

Thanks to the resplendent Kottke, we learn about one man’s personal odyssey and motivational master-class to escape the tethers of mortgage and utilities and being roped to particular plot of real estate (the German and French terms Immobilie betray its Latin roots as something that can’t be moved) and live off (or along perhaps) the grid with a custom camper van.
The entire process is assiduously documented for any of those that might be inspired to do the same, plus follow on adventures cross-country. I particularly liked the poetic juxtaposition in that one of the places he visited was the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, California—not only for the sheer delight in realising and then reveling in the fact that one probably would have never seen this place if not for a motoring lifestyle—articulated and embellished endlessly by the heiress to the rifle manufacturer’s fortune in order to confuse and confound the spirits of those who had been killed by fire-arms that haunted the mansion with stairwells to nowhere and labyrinthine architecture: minimalism in contrast to interminable elaboration. Of course, Lady is in a class by herself—but this installation is nearly, nearly as well outfitted.

saplings or wingdings

While on our recent holiday in France, we noticed quite a few very majestic trees that ornamented the campsites and other grounds. Judging from the seed-pods, I thought they were perhaps vanilla but a friendly British couple told us that they believed they were Indian Bean Trees. We brought home the gossamer seeds from an old husk and set them aside for a few weeks. Meanwhile, I began noticing several cultivars, especially around Wiesbaden.
The plant is native to the American south—that sort of Indian, and with the taxonomical designation of Catalpa bignoniodes after the Muskogee and Cherokee for it, wing-headed for the distinctive shape of their big, heart-shaped leaves, which unusually secrete their own nectar. The wood of the tree was chiefly used for railroad ties, as it was solid and resistant to rotting. H did a bit of research, and after a patient few days (approximately a week before the first green shoots appeared, being kept in terrarium-like, hot-house conditions), we started to get a few seedlings, and then more and more. I know that one day, they’ll out-grow house and home but we’ll be sure that there’s a little grove of them in the future.

offworld colonies

Messy Nessy Chic transports us to the Mojave Desert where NASA and visionary artist and Andrea Zettler share the other worldly landscape for the elective and investigative outdoors activities.
While the space agency is field testing accom- modations for the Moon, Mars and beyond, Zettler is expanding on a dream to camp like alien with these fantastic self-contained pods that recede into their surroundings. Zettler’s science-fiction æsthetic is an exploration that certainly has the potential for cross-over into the realm of applied engineering and design, as well as the social needs of people living in isolation. Learn more about the Wagon Station Encampment in the deserts outside of Joshua Tree at the link up top.

campfire stories ou dame de la moselle

Our trip started with a bit of a fright and a mystery. Just back to the campsite just short of midnight after watching the football finale—and admittedly surprised and respectful that France, our and their host, had taken their defeat at the hands of Portugal with such model sportsmanship and rather than rioting, there were cheers and fireworks for the winners.

We were in Metz, not the game‘s venue in Paris but perhaps as we were more fearful of the former rather than anything else, this nightmare fuel did not really have the chance to settle in or register much further, and H, having arrived a moment before me, warmed me not to be scared of the ghostly apparition with her back to us in a white slip.  One never gets better than such grainy evidence.  Click to enlarge, if you dare.

Like something straight out of a horror movie, the figure was communing with something and oblivious to us. H clicked the door lock which reports a heavy clunk and flashes the parking lights. This only caused her to position herself behind the camper.

Now, with her out of sight, I was creeped out by the thought she might crawl under the bus to get me. The Lady in White however ambled on towards the shores of the Moselle where the campgrounds were more densely packed (we were in the last pitch) but strangely, no one was about to notice her.

I ventured that maybe it was her time to return beneath the waters. A few days later, it elicits a shudder. To dispel this visitation, please enjoy a few brighter impressions of Metz. Subsequent campsites were markedly less fraught with fright.

vacances

PfRC will be taking a much needed sabbatical for calmer shores. Stay tuned, same time, same station, for ongoing adventures. Thanks for visiting and adieux nos amis!

berchtesgadener land oder alpine redoubt

We learned that the name of the town Berchtesgaden means “hayloft-hayloft,” once in Latin and again in old German—the denizens having forgot what the original toponym meant, the settlement still known for the same feature and utility, and though that was an apt introduction for our weekend tour through the beautiful but haunted Alpine landscape on the Austrian border.
We encamped near the shores of the serene Königsee and once through the souvenir-stalls, enjoyed the amazing views of the towering mountains protecting this body of water—which awkwardly bore the redundant designation “Lake Königsee” for the tourists—not quite yet hoarding and given it was so vast, there was never a high density of holiday-goers. On the peak of the Kehlstein, visible from the lake and later, illuminated from the campsite—it was eerie to think about being looked down on even though Hitler visited the mountain-top retreat built on the occasion of the Fuhrer’s fiftieth birthday only a couple of times, stood the Kehlsteinhaus, known in most contexts as the “Eagle’s Nest” (conflated with the Adlerhorst near Bad Nauheim).
The structure has been given over to a charitable trust that runs a restaurant and not much mention is made about the place’s past in order that these places not be made pilgrimage destinations—an effort that does not seem quite so effective, given the throngs of visitors and the infrastructure in place to manage them all. Thanks to a rather ingenious bus pass whose network had a stop nearby, there was no need to decamp and find further parking and were chauffeured around quite at ease. A second bus took us more than a mile up the mountain on quite a harrowing journey, alighting before a long tunnel that led to a bronze elevator—the original, that hoisted us up the final hundred meters.
The views were breath-taking and we were treated to absolutely perfect weather. Descending below, we went to the Documentation Centre—a museum that is dedicated to the story of this area during the Third Reich, built on the razed ruins of the Obersalzburg half-way down the mountain side. This compound housed the elite of the Nazi party, and constructed over an ancient salt-mining operation, sits atop a system of cavernous bunkers, which had all the life-support and connectivity capacities to allow the regime to retreat underground—an Alpine Redoubt (Alpenfestung)—and continue persecuting the war.
Only a retaining wall of Hitler’s favoured residence, the Berghof, remains. It wasn’t that the outstanding beauty of this place was besmirched by its past but we did need something to cleanse the palette with so much to think about, and so went back to Königsee and took a little cruise down the lake.
Our guide played the flugelhorn in front of one flat rock face to have his tune echo and resound through the valley and told us more about the natural history. The trip took us to the very picturesque church of Sankt Bartholomä, named for the Apostle Bartholomew, patron saint of dairymen and Alpine farmers—and having miraculously, the ability to make things either very heavy or light as a feather, depending on what the situation called for.

alta-vista or happy-campers

Caravaning in England and locating a place to rest and recharge for the next day’s adventures always presented surprises. On the whole, we were afforded some breathtaking views without even the need for craning one’s neck and the pricing structure—for the off-season—was fairly reasonable.

Many of the campgrounds we found were on the periphery of working farms, like the one pictured above in the rolling pastures outside of Lewes in East Sussex, which reminded me of the old Windows OS start-up screen or this other terrace near Boscastle in Cornwall. There were friendly warnings to visitors not to disturb the livestock, and brilliantly, one pitch near Glastonbury did not allow children and was incredibly peaceful.

pour, oh pour the pirate sherry

PfRC will be taking a much overdue sabbatical soon. This time, we will be crossing the Channel and exploring south-west England. Stay tuned—same time, same station—for further adventures.

we don’t need no stinking badges

Dangerous Minds shares an amazing assortment of alternative merit badges from artist Luke Drozd that awards decorations for subversive areas of study like espionage, home-dentistry and a host of paranormal abilities. Far from advocating delinquency, this collection of accolades—which does not discriminate between what mischief boys and girls ought not to emulate—it shows that demerits can sometimes be their own reward. What sort of life-skills would you like to see included in order to advance up the ranks?

soup-and-sandwich syndicate

For a few years, we’ve had one of those sandwich-makers to take camping with us, but having received a “panini-press” for the holidays, we’ve aspired to create some soup and sandwich combinations for indoors as well. Lately, we tried Cheese and Leek soup with egg and cheese toasts.

For the soup, ingredients for four bowls call for:

• Salt, pepper, parsley, bay-leaves nutmeg for seasoning
• 100 millilitre (about half a cup) of dry white wine
• Six slices of wheat bread for toasting and for the croutons 
• A heaping tablespoon of flour
• Butter
• 100 gram (4 oz) container of heavy crème 
• 1 litre (4 cups) vegetable stock from bullion 
• Around 600 grams (about a pound) of leeks, washed, peeled and cut into thin rings 

For the toast:

• Bread and butter from above
• 2 eggs 
• Sliced cheese (Gouda or Gruyère) 
• Spinach leaves or lamb’s lettuce (Feldsalat) 

There’s no cheese left out of the cheese soup, of course, but that’s where it gets a bit tricky. In German markets, there’s Schmelzkäse that’s made for soup and I suppose it’s like the pasteurized processed cheese food that’s available in the States, but looks some much less estranged from natural cheese and is much more appetising. In any case, use about 500 grams of your local-equivalent. In the soup pot, braise the rings of leek in butter for three minutes, dusting the leek with the flour afterwards. Introduce the white wine, vegetable stock with the bay leaves and allow it to cook on low heat for another ten minutes or so. Remove the bay leaves and breaking the cheese product of choice into small cubes, add that and the heavy crème to the pot and allow to cook for an additional ten minutes, stirring often and making sure that the cheese is melting. In the meantime, cut two slices of the bread into little cubes and braise them in butter in a separate pan (you can save the pan for the eggs) for about three minutes until crisp and set aside on a paper-napkin to dry. Prepare two eggs sunny-side-up and in your sandwich-maker/pie-iron/panini-press, make the toasts with the egg, cheese slice and leafy green filling—sort of like a croque-monsieur. Season the soup with nutmeg, salt and pepper to taste and garnish with croutons and parsley.

mountain high, valley-valley low

One of these days, we ought to sit down and plot all the routes we’ve taken to cross the Alps, as each time has seemed different and unique and taking the Splüngen Pass was certainly a memorable first. Not navigable during Winter, the roads took a zig-zag ascent up the steep mountain face, whose sharp curves were populated with serene looking cows that gazed at the passing cars unbothered by blind-corners and hairpin-turns.
The sentry-station at the summit was unmanned and seemed long-abandoned though not in ruin and lay at a nice geographical pocket of flatness to admire the peaks of the Bergamont Alps. We descended into the estuary of Lake Como, fed by the run-off waters of River Mera to return to a comfortable and picturesque campsite near the village of Sorico. I learnt that this terminus of the mountain range represents the easiest point for migratory animals to ford the Alps and there were scores of exotic birds to be seen at this cross-roads of African and Asian pathways.
I also learnt that the River Mera was named in honour of a wandering monk who roamed the hill tops over Sorico and venerated as a sort of miraculous rain-maker in times of drought for Lake Como below. Perhaps Hermit Mera was a little over-zealous at the moment as the deluge was unrelenting and the forecast did not bode any better. As a result, we decided to respectfully depart for sunnier weather on Lake Garda.

kapellmeister o frazione

Nestled in just the next sheltered cove over from Manerba, ringed by high cliffs, lies the fair village of Salò.
If it was not enough that this picturesque point had the same colourful and violent heritage as the rest of Lombardy during the early Renaissance, allying with the maritime Republic of Venice, hence the Saint Mark’s Lion, played a role in the burgeoning textile industry that was to eventually led to the Industrial Revolution, devolved into the Hapsburg Empire of Italy after the Napoleonic Wars and fostered the invention and refinement of the violin family—crafted and given language by native Gasparo de Salò, the community has another distinction of more recent times.
Elevated to the status of a city in conjunction with this promotion, from 1943 until 1945—when Il Duce was hanged by the next until dead from a lamp post in the town of Dongo, another place we’ve visited (leider, nur auf Deutsch)—Salò was designated as the de facto capital of the Nazi occupied Italian Socialist Republic, founded under extreme duress by Benito Mussolini.
To the south, Rome was still regarded as the Eternal City but administrative functions of the government and the fascist leader himself were removed to an ensemble of villas on Lake Garda in the north to be closer to Wehrmacht forces, who really controlled the puppet state and to be able to move easily between Milan and Venice.
Although sovereignty was only nominal, fascist factions were able to craft effectively an ideal (to their minds) totalitarian state, an achievement that had been blocked by the monarchy previously—and perhaps Mussolini did make the trains run on time.