Lynn, Rose, Alan and I are staying at a lodge run by the Norwegian Hiking Association. The accommodation is pretty simple but the food and drink are great! Norwegians know where to put their priorities. Today we went for a fantastic hike in the alpine area near the lodge. We took a boat up the lake for 35 minutes, then spent about six and a half hours walking back. We climbed up from the lake to a ridge that led, after more climbing, to the peak at 1754 m, a gain of 763 m. There were great views of the snow-spotted peaks around and several lakes trapped between the mountains. I was just starting to wonder whether we'd see any wildlife (apart from gulls) when we happened upon a little herd of reindeer hanging out on ... read more

Yes, you can surf in Munich, and I don't mean on the WWW. There's a point where one channel of the Isar comes running out of a tunnel and creates a standing wave. When I stumbled on it today there were 6 or 7 people in wetsuits taking turns surfing on it. The best ones were able to stay up for several passes back and forth across the wave before bailing. This welcome break came in the middle of a day devoted to museums. Man, does Munich have a lot of great museums! It helps that the city was the capital of a large, wealthy kingdom for several hundred years. The Wittelsbachs, the royal family, loved to build huge buildings to house all the goodies they bought or were "given". I'm back on my own for ... read more

Since we left Dillingen we've had another pleasant couple of days cycling beside the Danube. The route changes between following the bank of the river and passing through woods and fields. There are many picturesque villages along the way, and we stayed in one (Marxheim) two nights ago, then, last night, in a larger town (Ingoldstadt) full of 18th century buildings. All week the forecast has predicted sun until Friday, then furious thunderstorms on Saturday. Based on this we decided to take the train from Ingolstadt to Regensburg today. Well, there was a bit of rain overnight but when we woke up the sun was shining! We took the train anyway - having paid for it already - so that would have lots of time to explore the town, which has lots of amazing churches and ... read more

I left the sunny Mediterranean world, and temperatures in the mid-30s, yesterday for cool, rainy Germany. A bit of a shock! It was great to see brother Dave at the airport - our flights arrived at almost the same time. We picked up our bikes - they're a bit clunky, but should be OK for riding along the Danube. We decided to stay a second night in Munich before starting the ride, since Sunday was forecast to be pretty wet (and, as I write, it's coming down pretty hard). Call us wimps, but we didn't fancy getting soaked on the first day of riding! We'll start out retracing some of the route Lynn and I rode in 1987. When I looked at the map I found I even remembered the names of a couple of the ... read more

Today I took a day-long tour to the two capitals of the Macedonian kings. Alexander and his father lived in the new capital, Pella, down on the plain but they returned to the old capital, Aigai (surrounding the modern town of Vergina), for ceremonial occasions and to be buried. No one knows for sure where Alexander's tomb is, but by some miracle the tomb of his father, Philip, was found at Aigai undisturbed in the 70s. It yielded an amazing wealth of objects, including the golden box in which Philip's cremated remains were placed and a beautiful wreath made of gold leaf, formed into oak leaves and acorns and my favourite: Philip's greaves (bronze shin protectors) which were mismatched because of an injury to one leg. Unfortunately I can't post a photo from Aigai because this ... read more