Potatoes for dessert – we must be in Germany

Bernauer Strasse

Some days before we witnessed New Zealand's run-of-the-mill win over France in a minor rugby game, we were in Berlin. As you are. It had been a toss up between Prague and Berlin - in the event, the promise of Nefertiti's head and the prospect of seeing a city that had defined the ideological divide before history ended proved stronger than the alternative, and so we found ourselves on Bum Air - my sister Bridget's perfect description of budget airlines - en route for Berlin ...

It even comes in colours

A day or so later we found ourselves having potatoes for dessert, and revising - at least from the point of view of food - whether we'd made the correct call. Under no circumstances would you visit Berlin for the food - unless you were addicted to a diet of starch in its various guises, the occasional piece of meat (likely as not, as with the piece of pickled pork I had at lunch on day 1, the size of a car) and huge quantities of lager. Appropos of which, it is generally considered a dubious reflection on your sexuality poor form to order lager in glasses smaller than half a litre; from time to time you will stumble upon a restaurant or cafe that is good enough to offer you 333 cl glasses, but that's as good as it gets. And slugging away from a bottle on the metro at 9 am is not the preserve of the terminally alcoholic - I saw the Governor of the Bundesbank doing it one day. (Clearly, I just made that up.)

Trabi tours

On the other hand, there are more museums than you can shake a sausage at (over 170), including one that is actually for sausages, and they are unremittingly excellent. In fact, if there's a word that means more than excellent, than they are that, too. We had a week there, so had time to visit most of the significant ones, including the Nueus, Altes and Bode museums and - my favourite - the one that houses the Pergamon Altar and the Ishtar Gate. Nefertiti's head was every bit as ... I don't know: moving, striking, unsettling - as you'd expect of an icon of such stature, and the Berlin Green Head wasn't that far behind. There were many fewer people than we'd encountered in the Louvre, so we had more space and time to wander around listening to the outstanding audio guides that are de rigeur in European museums.

When in doubt - chocolate and churrios

From time to time we'd tire of wandering through millenia of different civilisations, so we'd wander out for more protein and lager. It got a bit tiring after a while, so we defaulted back to Nepalese and Italien, just to make sure we didn't get scurvy.

Perhaps more impressive than the museums of the ancients were the various ways in which Berlin is making sense of its recent past. The DDR museum was weirdly compelling, with its Trabants and accounts of life in the East, but much more intense were the parts of Berlin in which the city has commemorated the Berlin Wall and the days of the great divide between East and West, most notably at Bernauer Strasse. Berlin is a city of paradoxes: high culture + lousy food; densely urban + wide open spaces (where the Wall and the death strips once were, and on which reconstruction continues). For those of us who recall the time when the world was framed by the divide between the East and West, it is still disturbing - and often distressing - to be at the sites where that divide took material form. Some, such as Checkpoint Charlie, are a little bit garish. Others, however, like the Topographies of Terror and the Berlin Wall Monument at Bernaeur Strasse, really rock you back on your heels. There is a photo of Hildegaard Martin at the former. She was an epileptic, and she was 6 when the Nazis sent her to a camp for the 'mentally infirm'. It is not known when she died, but it is known that her father sent a letter to the Nazi authorities asking whether or not he would be able to visit her for Christmas. As a father of two daughters, that one upset me. For the two daughters in question, of course, the Cold War is something of historical interest, rather than the defining political schism of their times, so that, too, was a bit odd.

The Holocaust Memorial

There is some extraordinary, old video footage of the days following the erection of the Wall on 13 August 1961. One shows an elderly woman trying to jump from her second floor flat on Bernauer Strasse: West Germans are pulling her legs trying to get her down, and East Germans are pulling her arms, trying to haul her back into the flat. In the event, she escaped (with both hands and feet intact). 

And the city is full, full, full of memorials large and small - to the Jews, to those who died trying to cross the Wall, to those who assisted the Jews and the escapees from the former East. Two stay in my mind. One was a small bronze marker on the footpath outside a house which commemorated a Berlin Jew who had been transported to the camps. It was just there, a tiny little thing. The other was a bronze of 7 Jewish children - 2 taking a train to life, the other 5 taking a train to death. Curious thing about that one was that one day we saw fresh flowers placed in the hands of the children going to their death; the next, however, the flowers had been moved to the hands of the German children. The Holocaust Memorial, too, is remarkable: it's dark and labyrinthine, and the deeper into it you walk the more lost and anonymous you feel. 

So, Berlin was sobering. For a big place, it was also considerably more relaxed and convivial than I found Paris or London to be. It's far less buttoned-up than the former, and altogether more sorted than the latter. Now, if they could just take care of the food ...

The All Blacks v France: minute by minute

French bus to the game

Last weekend there was the small matter of exacting bloody revenge for Cardiff 2007 a wee game of footy between France and New Zealand. There were other more pressing things we could have done, I suppose - mow the lawns, clean the car, watch the paint dry - but on balance we thought we'd best pile in the Pépémobile and chug on up to Lyon to watch the game with members of the opposition. (Actually, we'd been looking forward to this ever since we jacked it up at our first major family get together chez Jean and Nanou in February. It's been a long time coming ...)

Here's the roll call. Representing the infidel Les Blues: André, Mino, Marion, Julien, Françou, Patrick, Patricia, Marc (later, once the dust had settled and we'd sailed off victoriously into the sunset), Nanou, Jean, Céline, Alexis, Pauline, Romane, Sylvain, Leo, Thierry, Lancelot et Lilian. That's a whole team plus subs. We could only muster a front row and one loose forward: Cam, Rosa, me and Papy (who saw the light long before everyone else did and decamped to the good guys for the day). Missing in action was Elsa (who's currently supporting Les Rosbifs from Londres, and who would probably have played as well as Morgan Parra did). And on the fence was Ema - as usual ...

Well, it turned out to be a brilliant time on all fronts (although I concede that the locals may dispute this, given that they narrowly lost a match that went down to the wire - not). Highlights:

Leaning tower of Lyon

#1: Marion's Guided Tour of Lyon. This, I strongly suspect, was intended to get us to drop our guard and to sap our energy. The old quarter of Lyon is stunning: all Roman walls, 12th century churches, grizzled cobbled streets - and Islamic gargoyles. (There is a wonderful story about a gargoyle which adorns the old Catholic cathedral. When this particular gargoyle was repaired some years ago, the artisan - as a mark of respect, and consistent with ancient ways of doing these things - modelled the creature's face on that of his Muslim employer, Ahmed Benzizne. Some locals saw the witty, reconciliatory side of this - others didn't. Googling Ahmed la gargouille will keep you happy for hours.) Once we'd chugged around, and eaten what was euphemistically called lunch but which was in reality an attempt to add 10 kilos to our otherwise svelte frames, we were ready for a wee lie-down.

#2: the pre-match entertainment. You can keep your 80s music, cheer-leaders and bad commentary from Tony Johnson. Here, they know how to do this stuff properly: the night before the game, dinner on the terrace under the gently setting sun comprised endless bottles of the local stuff, glorious Lyon sausages (roughly the proportions of small dogs but far better tasting) and moderate consumption of a few local eau de vie. At which point a career in lying down permanently beckoned ...

The props are already buggered

#3: the seating arrangements. André very kindly arranged some seats out in the garden from which there was a very good view of the locals' backs. Fascinating as this was, we were thoroughly relieved when the natives invited us in to sit on the good seats.

#4: the game. 'Nuff said. Actually, nowhere near enough said. After 10 minutes I was ready to return to back-watching, but happily, things improved - for us, anyway. 'Us', of course, is a bit indeterminate these days, but watching France vs New Zealand does tend to throw one or two things into rather sharp relief. Papy's view (which was not unanimously supported on either side, I would have to say) was that what we wanted was a good, entertaining match. I simply wanted to win, frankly. And so did André, Patrick, Lancelot, Sylvain, Thierry Julien, Alexis and co. Lilian would have, too, had he not been engrossed in a board game. As to the women - well, they were preparing the after-match function in the main, so I couldn't speak for them (anyway, that practice is bad for your health - as I've this very minute found out as Ema has pointed out that, in fact, 3 women - the binationals - were parked in the front row for the match).

#5: the after-match function. This is really a story of two halves. The first half involved the Frenchmen launching themselves into a very cold pool as the price to be paid for having lost. There was a pre-match bet about this and I was tremendously relieved that the ABs won for this reason alone, as I'm not sure I would have stood comparison with other bodies that have been revealed during the World Cup. Frankly, I thought André, Patrick and the others did France proud on this front.

How to celebrate defeat properly

Two charlottes - and an orange thing

The second half entailed (surprisingly, this being France and all ...) more food. And more wine. On this particular day, the notion 'ladies bring a plate' translated into ladies bringing not one but FOUR legs of lamb (slow roasted, and served with flagolets) and two charlottes. Regarding the latter, Em's sister Leo had done a stunning job of covering all her bases by making one French charlotte and one New Zealand one. Needless to say, the NZ charlotte scored 5 tries to the French one's 2, but in the end rugby was the winner and everyone took 3 years off their lives by demolishing both. (Having been asked to make a New Zealand dessert, I whipped up that well-known Kiwi contribution to world cuisine, an orange cake. There was some confusion about this, understandably, which wasn't helped by me responding 'Arabia' to a question which I thought was about where the cake came from, but which was actually about where I came from. I can see the difference now (I'm quite round but not very orange), but it wasn't all that apparent at the time.)

#6: the warm-down. After all this, there was much lying around and digesting of results and food to be done. Eventually, after sundry games of Cranium and badminton, and more food for those with the constitutions of large French oxes, we flopped into the Pépémobile and headed home. And if, by chance, we meet each other again in the final, we may very well do it all over again ...

Where have all the eggs gone?

Pick the eejit

The eggs have disappeared from the cafes and bars of France. I know this because whereas on a previous bike ride across France some 20 years ago most bars and cafes had a bowl of hard boiled eggs to hand, on a 5 day jaunt I’ve just completed through the Ardéche I didn’t see a single egg. Odd.

Man-sized hairpin

But this is not a blog about eggs, fascinating as such a thing would doubtless be. It’s about 5 days hauling my sorry 47 year old behind up and down the gorges of the Ardéche (pull back a bit on the map, and you'll see where the Ardéche is in relation to Grenoble) on a bike with a tent and sundry other comforts lumped on the back. The short story, should you wish to look it up on Google earth, is that I rode from Grenoble, across the the Rhone Valley to Tournon-sur-Rhone, down through the heart of the Ardéche to Val-les-Bains and le Pont d'Arc, then back up through Privas to Valence. I did the sums: 40 hours in the saddle, and just on 400 or so kms. The stats, as ever, tell you very little. I hope the following bits and pieces will (and if you've really got nothing better to do, there are more photos here).

Why I do this kind of thing

The Ardéche is an old, gnarly part of France in which the cutesy little villages, rolling meadows and fields of sunflowers associated with much of the rest of the country have no place. Instead, it’s dry, knotty and often inhospitable countryside for the most part, full of fields of thyme and lavender, and high hills and steep gorges – meaning the entire ride seemed to comprise long, slow climbs (20kms from Tournon-sur-Rhone to Lamastre on day 2) and long, rapid descents. The exception to the latter was the 23 km descent from Mezilhac to Val les Bains on day 3, which took well over an hour to complete, in part because of the 10 minutes stop to admire the perched (on the side of the gorge) village of Antraigues sur Volanes, but mostly because the stretches between hairpin corners seemed never to be longer than 30 or 40 metres or so. So, brake, release, brake, release was the order of the day. Killer on the wrists and fingers. (On the other hand, the 2 km descent from St Julien Labrousse, which I cleverly took in order to carve a few kms off the ride, was so steep I could not actually stop the bicycle at all on the descent, no matter how hard I weighed on the anchors.)

And another ....

And this is ancient country: so much so that in parts the bones of the earth seem to be showing through. There were stretches on which I felt utterly alone in the world. Parts of New Zealand have that primeval feel; in the Ardéche it’s even older and more spectral and malevolent. You feel you have to watch your step. This is old Roman country, and there are places in which I did not wish to loiter, and certainly would not wish to spend a night in a tent. Old, forgotten churches and seemingly abandoned villages - like Gras (look at how many other villages are on the map, then click on the wikipedia link in the 'traffic' box for good measure) - which feel like a cross between Transylvania and a particularly good Sergio Leone Western. Strange things crop up from time to time; wild (and exceptionally large) goats grazing loose in the Ardéche gorges, and even wilder (but somewhat smaller) old women, sometimes almost indistinguishable from their charges, minding small herd of goats grazing at the side of the road and staring right through you as you ride past. In short, make sure you’ve gone to confession before you venture down here.

Les gorges de l'Ardéche

The people are another matter entirely. They are Ardéchois first and French some distance behind that. Except for Josianne and Phillip, who run a chamber d’hote in Mezilhac, a col at the top of a 1,100 m climb, who are Marseillais first, second and third. This means that they pronounce the French ‘un’ with an ‘ing’ sound, so that ‘pain’ becomes ‘peng’, ‘vin’ becomes ‘veng’, and ‘fin’ becomes ‘feng’. It’s indecipherable, even to other French. Funny accents (listen carefully ...) they may have, but even though they were full for the night, they invited me to put my tent up in their paddock when I arrived late in the day, gave me a cold beer, and fed me dinner and breakfast the next morning – and just as I was leaving, Josianne handed me some morning tea in a small plastic bag (for the record: an orange, 2 biscuits, 4 pieces of Ardéche nougat and 2 slices of pain d’epices). I have long since stopped listening to stories about impolite French people – the place is full of people like Josianne and Phillip ...

Le Pont d'Arc

There were two especially memorable meals. The first was at the end of day 1 when, in Tournon-sur-Rhone, I had the best steak and chips I have ever had. ‘Steak and chips’ sounds a bit greasy spoon, which this most certainly was not. The steak was entrécote, covered half the plate and was beautifully cooked, and the frites were mouth-watering and arranged in a pile about 10 cms high. In our family we call this sort of fare ‘man-sized’ ... The second was with Josianne and Phillip at Mezilhac, and included an entrée of potato and chestnut soup; a main of aubergine fritters and shepherd’s pie made with veal; a crème brulee with tilleul; and two local cheeses – one of which had been made from 1 of the 2 cows in next door’s paddock. And everywhere, fruit: apples, peaches and melons from producers along the way; grapes growing along the side of the road (some cultivated; some from vines growing wild along the verges of the road).

From the top

France  is an extended exercise in (a) how to build roads and (b) how to drive when you’re around cyclists. The roads have shoulders as wide as those on Ruth Richardson’s suits in the 1980s (that clip will give you nightmares, and if it doesn't there's something seriously wrong with your politics). Even in the most God-forsaken places, there is plenty of rooms for bikes. And French drivers may have a congenital tendency to tailgate and not to indicate, but they are unfailingly courteous to cyclists – none of the bullshit you routinely put up with on New Zealand roads.

Which does not make the riding any less physically demanding. There were the inevitable sore wrists, Achilles, neck and arse, although in the main this stuff is offset by the glorious countryside: the Pont d’Arc, and the walled villages of Lagorce and Gras; the fields of lavendar and the rows and rows of vines; the statue of the Virgin perched on a high rock high above Sceautres ... Only on the final day on the run in to Valence (3 or 4 hours into a hot headwind) did it all get a bit tedious. Extraordinary dry heat which seems to suck the fluid out of you: I drank up to 5 litres a day while on the bike, and then another one or two over a meal (the latter invariably tasting better and more grapey or hoppy than the former) ...

Sceautres

As those of you who have done any cycle touring will know, when you are on a bike for 8 or so hours a day time becomes very elastic. You have so much more time to see, smell (grapes; thyme; lavender; yourself …) and hear things. In a car stuff blurs by, even when you’re driving slowly. On a bike, you have enough time to see insects moving on the side of the road. Often, especially if you’re riding into the wind, you disturb animals going about their business: lizards sunning themselves on the shoulders of the road; birds feeding; livestock grazing – none of them see or hear you coming until you’re more or less upon them, at which point they tear off into the nearest undergrowth. You (or at least I) think of food and drink a lot (‘just another few kms and I can have another glass of beer tonight …’). You become expert at reading the contours of the road. And rather than thinking several hours or even 15 minutes ahead, you become very good at taking the next several seconds as they come, and using them to find that elusive rhythm between road, bike and body that enables you to go on and on for hours without tiring too much or too quickly.  

The Mines of Moria

This is an indispensible skill when you are faced with regular climbs of 15 or 20 kms or so. The thing about climbing on a bike is that the climb becomes a quest for the Shangri La that exists around the next corner. The climb up to the col at Mezilhac late on day 2 was just such. It wouldn’t do, under these circumstances, to jump out of your saddle and try and tear up the side of the mountain. Instead, the thing is to drop into a slow, regular tempo that lets you chug slowly (sometimes almost unnoticeably, which is a good thing when you come across the scary goat women) up the hill. The Mezilhac climb it took well over 2 hours, grew progressively steeper as it went on, became more and more isolated, solitary and more than a little sinister, and then suddenly ended on top of a hill: the Shangri La from which it was possible to see Mont Blanc several hundred kms away in the Alps. And just in time for the sun to set, and for Josianne and Phillip to hand out a cold beer.

Return of the eejit

So, there you have it. A brief account of a week on a bike in the Ardéche. Writing this 10 days or so after the event (and following a week in Berlin, which will be the subject of the next set of rantings in due course), I am able to report on some of the consequences of several days riding up and down long stretches of picturesque French roads. The bruising on the nether regions has largely gone away, but an ongoing niggle in the Achilles is preventing me from returning to the gym for more 'Pompeeeee!', and the wrists and fingers remain on the tender side. I should really be able to do the split-finger 'V is for Vulcan' sign thing on both hands, but while the right hand is doing what it is told, the left is behaving like a Klingon. All worth it, though, even if the Klingons are a reminder  that, at 47, the recovery period is a wee bit longer than it was at 27 ...