The blossoming apple trees in the "Altes Land" and myself
Local houses selling produce of the Altes Land
The view of the blossoming apple trees is amazing and the air is so pure you try to inhale and inhale like trying to believe you are here, that you are in Hamburg, in northern Germany and there are loads of plants, a blue sky, no rain and that the sun is shining (I actually got sun tanned). But once you see how organised the bike tour is, how good the roads are (the bicycle path I mean), you know you are in Germany.The Altes Land, in April-may is beautiful. I really thank our reader for the recommendation. As I said in previous posts, I am not normally a nature person, I feel more comfortable in the city, but our trip to the Altes Land was something very special. The fact that we rode with the bikes around 50 km made it even more special.
Once we entered the fields, we found ourselves in "Königreich" (literally "The Kingdom") one of the 7 districts of Jork, capital of the Altes Land (you can see the sign in the photo). Then we kept on pedalling until we reached Jork itself. The houses are very nice and interesting, but you can notice they are recently renovated and I did not like them that much. There was a festival and one band was playing AC/DC's "Highway to Hell".
We crossed a few more small villages where I caught a glimpse of the typical houses of the Altes Land (more about that tomorrow) and then we rode through some fields of apple trees and some houses built between small canals (small I mean between two and 5 meters wide), and some of them had home-made bridges to cross to get in and out of the house. After some more pedalling with the bikes, we decided to stop and have lunch. In the path where we were, we found a small bench and we sat to unpack our sandwiches and fruits (that's me in the first photo with the bicycles and my mask).
It was amazing, how, around 15 people, when they passed next to us with their bikes, said to us: Moin! ("good morning" in the dialect of Northwestern Germany) or "Guten Apetit!" ("bon appetit!" in German). One woman even took our photo as she rode next to us!
Once we finished and we took a small rest, we continued with the tour around the Altes Land.
3 comments:
schöne bilder...ich glaube, das war ein sehr schöner trip! ja, deutschland im frühsommer, wenn alles blüht und die sonne scheint, ist sehr schön...! ich vermisse es manchmal...
viele grüsse,
sascha
und schrieb noch mal über den 1.Mai in HH - hast du Bilder gemacht? ;)
Jork is a amazing place, the apple festival hold on 11-12,oct.is a lot of fun, the tons of apples, colorful pumpkins, lovely country old fellows band and the delicious apple cakes, all bring you the memory of old farming time.
It is been a while since we did our last bicycle tour. Now that the cold weather has arrived, it might be even less likely we venture out. But perhaps a trip around the Elbe or in Blankenese.
For sure next year we will go again to the Altes Land.
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