Eurotrip 2024 (picture heavy, open thread at your own peril... and bandwidth)

[Gorth]

As mentioned a while ago, I went to Europe this winter (summer in the northern hemisphere). Took a number of pictures. Decided against flooding the What You've Done today thread

Didn't take a lot of pictures from the 3 hour stopover in Changi Airport, suffice to say, it's worth a visit if you've never been there (I've been there about a dozen times by now).

A bit of amusing trivia about Denmark... it's flat, it's wet, it has 7000 of coastline with beaches (not including the overseas territories). Usually green with a grey sky. I got lucky, 2 weeks of mostly sunshine and 20-22c temperatures. Same as the winter in Brisbane, in Denmark they just call it "summer". Most places you go, even in the middle of nowhere, you'll find bicycle paths!

 

 

Yes, the lane I'm standing on while taking this picture is a bicycle path and I have it coming if someone crashes into me here. Pedestrians have no more business being here than on the road

 

I spent the majority of the two weeks in my old hometown on the west coast of Jutland, a town called "Esbjerg", old fishing and ferry town (used to have regular ferry routes to England before the channel tunnel), now mostly a port for shipping and offshore oil rig maintenance as well as a connection point for the offshore windmills and natural gas pipes from the North Sea. The maritime museum (next to the 4 white statues) have a number of saltwater aquariums showing North Sea wild life

 

Went here several times, my favourite ice cream place the last 50 years!

 

[Gorth]

Typical street picture from my old hometown. Can't really call it the "older" part, as it's not even two centuries old

 

What Danish beaches looks like

 

Note the offshore windmill farms generating electricity out on the North Sea!

 

 

A notable "feature" of the west coast beaches is leftovers from WWII. German bunkers can be found many places. From simple gun emplacements to observation towers and command centrals

 

Of course I had to crawl around inside one of them

 

 

Part of the west coast (southern part) is protected by dikes. This is what the landscape looks like on the landward side. Often marshes and wetlands. Notice the absence of livestock. You don't really want to go wandering around out there, away from the road.

 

 

 

Some beaches also have this legacy from WWII... an estimated 10000 live landmines that were never recovered after the war. It's recommended not to stray from the marked paths

 

 

[Gorth]

My childhood memories were mostly of a steel grey sky and a steel grey ocean...

 

A flood marker. The metal rings have years on them, showing the water levels at particular years, when the sea came for the inhabitants

 

My old high school in a town called Ribe. The school was founded in 1180's and celebrated its 800th anniversary during my second year there

The school library has old handwritten books, illustrated by monks (all kept in fireproof safes)

 

The school originally trained new priests and was built by this church, itself built (commenced, took decades to finish) around 1160... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ribe_Cathedral

 

Now Ribe, unlike Esbjerg, is indeed an old town

Beautiful place with lots of medieval houses with channels and water locks everywhere

 

 

 

 

Across the street from where my parents used to live (more than a decade ago) is another old church... it's part an old building from the late 1100's (the large granite stones) and a new, modern part built in the late 1400's

 

I'll add some pictures from my trip to Hamburg over the weekend

[Malcador]

Too much nature. Disgusting.

[BruceVC]

Great photos and very interesting, I love seeing these types of holidays  and trips from places I have never been to 

Keep the updates coming, where else you going to after  Hamburg?

[majestic]

1 hour ago, BruceVC said:

Great photos and very interesting, I love seeing these types of holidays  and trips from places I have never been to 

Keep the updates coming, where else you going to after  Hamburg?

@Gorth I think what Bruce is trying to ask here is how much time you will spend partaking in the joys of the Reeperbahn. /scrn

[Gorth]

1 hour ago, BruceVC said:

Great photos and very interesting, I love seeing these types of holidays  and trips from places I have never been to 

Keep the updates coming, where else you going to after  Hamburg?

Really just back to Denmark, showing a bit of the island off the coast Esbjerg (west coast of the Jutland peninsula) and parts of an iron age settlement excavation (more of interest for those into very old history I think, although I enjoyed the family picnic to the site as a kid)

 

Edit: Sadly, it was only two weeks, including time to get over the jet lag. Most days were spent with my family and also at the cemetery, finally getting to spend some time at my mothers grave (since I couldn't attend her funeral). Not showing pictures of my family or cemetery

 

[Gorth]

1 minute ago, majestic said:

@Gorth I think what Bruce is trying to ask here is how much time you will spend partaking in the joys of the Reeperbahn. /scrn

Not to worry, got a handful pictures from St. Pauli/Reeperbahn too, although daytime only (because forum rules)

[BruceVC]

23 minutes ago, majestic said:

@Gorth I think what Bruce is trying to ask here is how much time you will spend partaking in the joys of the Reeperbahn. /scrn

I didnt know what that was but I looked it up, yes that does look interesting but Im more interested in culture and historical sites and what countries have  around this. It might sound silly but just things like cobblestone streets and very old towns similar to previous photos Gorthfuscious provided

Red light districts are standard in most cities, nothing really different or things I havent seen before. Remember I went to Vegas 3 times 

[Gorth]

The German Autobahn... always worth a visit in itself. My brother did the driving though. Not just because it was his car, but because 20+ years of driving in the left side has made me doubt my own reflexes if something happens at high speed. My brothers Tesla is no slouch either, with an impressive acceleration

 

Long stretches of flat road with no speed limit....

 

Slightly more "affluent" and conservative part of Hamburg. Bear in mind, most of the city is reconstruction, built after WWII

 

 

 

Yes, this building looks like it caught a plane in the side and is struggling to straighten itself out again...

 

It wouldn't really be a harbour city without access to water...

 

 

All very nice I suppose... but not really what my brother and I came to see

 

[Gorth]

The more interesting parts (imho) is the smaller streets, cheap hotels places unlike those I find in Brisbane

 

 

 

Yes, that's 50 Euro for a three bed hotel room. Won't find that anywhere in Brisbane!

 

 

 

As mentioned previously, my brother and i visited during day time. I've seen the place at night (20 years ago) and it can get quite rowdy

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Gfted1]

What does the painted green message in the middle of the street say?

[melkathi]

You mean the "FÜR 1,5 degrees Celsius"? probably something for the cyclists to keep the footprint low.

 

Edited August 27 by melkathi

[Gorth]

I thought it was something for only 1.5 cent (ie a fraction of a Euro)

Honestly no idea without being able to see the first part of the sentence

[majestic]

I don't think you need the first part of the message, and it is entirely possible that it is the entire message. That's a biking lane and it reads "for 1.5°C", which is a reference to the Paris Climate Accords and its 1.5° C target.

[Hurlshort]

The bike lanes are my favorite part of this trip.

[Azdeus]

11 hours ago, Hurlshort said:

The bike lanes are my favorite part of this trip.

Yeah, US city design is all kinds of f'd up, I get some kind of fremdschämen looking at past US road layouts.

[Hurlshort]

8 hours ago, Azdeus said:

Yeah, US city design is all kinds of f'd up, I get some kind of fremdschämen looking at past US road layouts.

The tough part in the US is each city, county, and state is really operating separately. So you might have a city that gets its act together and has decent bike paths, but as soon as you hit the city limits, the county takes over and it is a totally different organization. They rarely work well together, either.  

[Malcador]

Looks very clean at least, the idea makes me uncomfortable

[ShadySands]

They've started putting separated bike lanes wherever they can fit them and people are still riding in the roads here. I can't really be too surprised, the people here can't drive very well* so I shouldn't expect them to ride responsibly either. 

 

* We've been having a major problem with people running red lights and all the accidents that creates because yellow means pedal to the metal and red means stop... unless you don't want to.

[Azdeus]

11 hours ago, Hurlshort said:

The tough part in the US is each city, county, and state is really operating separately. So you might have a city that gets its act together and has decent bike paths, but as soon as you hit the city limits, the county takes over and it is a totally different organization. They rarely work well together, either.  

The massive lobbying on part of the car manufacturers doesn't help either. I saw a video on youtube from either Climate Town or not just bikes talk about how even emergency response units and fire departments are doing their part in working against it too. Fire departments especially are concerningly in love with their ginormous trucks.

8 hours ago, ShadySands said:

They've started putting separated bike lanes wherever they can fit them and people are still riding in the roads here. I can't really be too surprised, the people here can't drive very well* so I shouldn't expect them to ride responsibly either. 

* We've been having a major problem with people running red lights and all the accidents that creates because yellow means pedal to the metal and red means stop... unless you don't want to.

Good on you

One thing that drives me nuts when I watch americans on roads, for instance when watching cleetus mcfarland, is that you all ****ing drive in the leftmost lane ALL the time, with people undertaking and stuff like that. That'd never fly over here. We have some idiots that do the same here, which is why I have an airtank and foghorn to be installed on my car

[Gorth]

Just the last handful pictures that I had on my phone... these are from the small island Fanoe, off the west coast of Jutland, a few Km from my old home town. The island is home to two tiny villages, which has supposedly lived in a mortal rivalry for centuries. At least up until the island got a regular ferry connection the to the mainland. The ferry trip to Nordby (the northern village, which is the one with the ferry connection)

 

 

Looking at my old hometown from across the water... the power plant (the rather dominant white building with it's 250m tall chimney) is scheduled for being taken offline and demolished in a few years time. The previously shown windmill farms being able to provide the energy needed.

 

It used to be a major fishing town with a lot of related industry, but now it's mostly servicing the offshore oil rigs and windmill parks in the North Sea

 

 

The streets are narrow and the houses small. Doesn't deter the ubiquitous German tourists

I wouldn't want to live here during floods though. No walls or dikes protects the people here...

 

 

 

 

And lastly a bit of a time jump... back a few thousand years. The remnants of an Iron Age settlement. The green lines on the sign outlines where the houses were. Only the floor and larger stones making up the foundation remains today.

 

 

 

 

 

Man... the sheer number of family picnics we had at this place. So many memories associated with it

 

[Amentep]

13 hours ago, ShadySands said:

They've started putting separated bike lanes wherever they can fit them and people are still riding in the roads here. I can't really be too surprised, the people here can't drive very well* so I shouldn't expect them to ride responsibly either. 

 

* We've been having a major problem with people running red lights and all the accidents that creates because yellow means pedal to the metal and red means stop... unless you don't want to.

They added some bike lanes here and they're being hogged by joggers who don't want to get behind slow pedestrians on the sidewalk in some places.

Also shrunk a four lane road to two lanes + middle turn lane + bike lane and people have already wiped out the partition and hit a biker.

EDIT to say, this Eurotrip sequel has less comedy hijinks in it than the original.  Nice to get a sequel out on the 20th anniversary of the original, but really needs more comedy hijinks. kthnxbai.

 

 

just kidding, nice pictures, glad you had a good time.

[BruceVC]

Great photos, they captured nicely your holiday and where you grew up

I do have a question, I looked up Esbjerg and its a small town with 100 k population and  it looks like a very traditional Danish town. Life there I imagine was simple but pleasant 

So how did you become an Anarchist? What motivated this rebellion against established society 

 

 

 

Edited August 30 by BruceVC

[Gorth]

On 8/30/2024 at 3:24 PM, BruceVC said:

So how did you become an Anarchist? What motivated this rebellion against established society 

It's a long story really... You'll get the tl;dr; version

First off, I'm out of your archetypal "working class" family. My paternal grandparents were a day labourer and a seamstress working in the textile industry and my maternal grandmother was a farmhand. The less is said about my maternal grandfather, the better

Esbjerg at the time of my birth was a Socialdemokrat stronghold, only threatened by the libertarian party, because the industry was surrounded by farmland on the land side and independent fishing men on the sea side...

But, that wasn't really what formed my world view, that was a number of experiences in my teen and pre-teen years. A friend on the street I lived in hung himself in his parent garage because he got bullied in school. Said school couldn't care less, trying to sweep it under the rug. Hear no evil, see no evil etc. I also mentioned at some point, growing up with my mothers half-brothers (only a few years older than me). They were left with an orphanage after their parents died and stayed there until the police raided the place and closed it. Systematic sexual abuse of the children, physical and psychological torture being the norm.

At 14, I was convinced the world was inherently unfair and the 95% served only one purpose, being fodder for consumption by the 5% that wielded real power. Most people having little or no choices in life, many never getting a real chance to even get a foot in the door of life.

At 15 I would have been a prime candidate for any orator able to channel anger against the world. I could have seen myself at that age being a member of Hitler Youth and Hamas. Anything destructive. Often wishing someone would finally getting their act together and finally push the button (the MAD button). I was also a bit disappointed when the cold war ended and it looked like the world was doomed to suffer the slow death of entropy and social media.

Eventually I just resigned to let the world mind its own business and I went about minding my own business in return, not having any high thoughts about power structures and the way the world is run. For me, politicians serve themselves first, their party second and their constituency some distant third.

You might have noticed one of my pet peeves is people in power being held accountable for their actions and resentment towards those who "game the system" to avoid paying for power abuse.