Exploring Germany | FindPenguins

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Trip start
April 9, 2024
Exploring Germany Traveler
How good to camp again!
May 8–10, 2024 in Germany ⋅ 🌙 10 °C
Richard and I enjoyed a quick 3 day tour down to Talsperre Hohenwarte, a reservoir on a nearby river. We had some sweaty climbs, a river-hopping boat ride, and the sweet joy of sleeping in our first shared home (⛺️).Read more
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Exploring Germany Traveler
To the Fairy Falls
July 3, 2024 in Germany ⋅ ☁️ 16 °C
This day ride was to Amselfall, the barest trickle of water over moss and fern in a small forest valley. After enjoying the peace and a little meditation, I decided to follow the earthen path in the direction of home. I’d come by the paved cycle route but was eager for more of the forest’s hush. I quickly noticed that the trail was lined with clovers: surely a sign of Fairy affirmed luck! Well, after bumping along over root and stone, shirt and skin catching on stretching arms of spiked raspberry bushes, my delightful path vanished. Before turning around, I enjoyed a few mouthwatering explosions of those sweet red berries.

26km round trip.Read more
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Exploring Germany Traveler
Castles & Time
July 11, 2024 in Germany ⋅ ⛅ 24 °C
“Ich habe Zeit”
“Time is more than money. Time is life.”

A quarter of a year we’ve been living in Jena and still I’m wrangling with a troubled sense of home. For all that I yearned for a more rooted life, it’s been quite the adjustment to settle back into “normal life” after so long on the road. Questions of identity, purpose, direction, and connection demand to be answered as I relearn how to structure my days beyond route planning, riding, and camping under the stars. Now I spend my time trying to wrap my tongue around the German language, hoping for a doorway into the workforce, and feeling like a school kid on the playground trying to make new friends.

I had a brief conversation today that reminded me of the light at the end of this tunnel. I was standing in line at the bakery where Richard works, hoping for a (vegan) chocolate croissant and maybe a sneaky kiss, when an older woman walked in. I motioned for her to go ahead and order first when she said, “Ich habe Zeit. / I have time.“ Only after the words, “Ich auch / Me too” passed my lips did I realize the significance of this small, otherwise unremarkable exchange. Firstly, I’d not only understood but had the words to respond to a conversation with a stranger! This felt like a huge win after feeling like a big ol’ dollop of oil with German words running like water, repellent, over my confused head. Secondly, I realized that I *do* have time. Time that, of late, I’d been spending bemoaning how long it was taking for life to “fall into order.” How long it was taking to get a job, build a community, acquire that elusive, bone-deep feeling of being “home.” So instead of staring at the walls and dizzying myself with cyclical thoughts, why not do what I do best: spin my legs!

So off I went to “The Old Castle of Dornburg,” about a 45km round trip journey. Being in Europe, it was almost entirely on cycle paths snaking alongside the river. Heavy-headed sunflowers and flashing poppies courted the paved path and interrupted the green stretches of early corn. The final climb was rewarded with sweeping views of the Thuringian Valley. I poured myself a cup of home brewed coffee and tucked into the croissant that started it all, feeling grateful for today’s invitation to rebirth.

Hopefully I’ll be back soon for many more wee adventures in my new German home.Read more
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Exploring Germany Traveler
Visiting an 800 year old church
July 12, 2024 in Germany ⋅ ☁️ 26 °C
Only an 11km ride from my front door stands the ruin of an 800 year old monastery. Zisterzienser Nonnenkloster was erected in the mid-13th century and now sits squat in the middle of small town Stadtroda. It’s odd looking at those red, weather worn stones knowing they’d been pulled from the earth and stacked toward the heavens nearly a millennium ago. And now, to the drone of midday German television, I feel the grass underfoot and look to the blue skies where a grand ceiling once reverberated the lilting songs and prayers of nuns and priests.Read more
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Exploring Germany Traveler
Off to Weimar
July 19, 2024 in Germany ⋅ ⛅ 29 °C
I enjoyed a 70km look to Weimar and through Apolda. The sun was shining and so were the smiles of all the bikers out and about.
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Exploring Germany Traveler
A Midwinter Dream: New Bikes!
February 9, 2025 in Germany ⋅ ☁️ 2 °C
After over nine months of working and saving, Richard and I bought our dream bikes! Think chunky tires, hearty (but light weight) steel frames, and massive cassettes set for climbing the steepest hills. Richard’s new companion is a Bombtrack Hook EXT named Gonzales. Mine is a hot pink Genesis Vagabond 20 who has yet to whisper their name.

It’s still pretty cold here in Jena but we braved the sub zero temperatures and did a 50km loop ride in the area. Highlights were a black turreted castle from the 1500s where we thawed our icicles—toes—with a fireside coffee; and a surprise forest road that sent us home mud splattered from helmet to pedals. Safe to say the bikes absolutely hold up on more gnarly terrain.

Now we keep working, saving, and dreaming up for our European summer bike adventures. Northern Italy? Austria? Norway? Finland? Let’s see where the wind takes us.Read more
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Exploring Germany Traveler
Cold wind—Hot coffee—Snowy descents
February 18, 2025 in Germany ⋅ ☀️ 0 °C
The hype about my new bike is real, so real that I’m motivated to get out for some ch-ch-ch-chilly riding. Today I followed the cycle path to Weimar for a delectable coffee from Röstbrüder. I’ve enjoyed this route once per season observing fields of sunflowers in summer, trees of burnt umber and fleeting red in autumn, and now the white crunch of glistening winter.

I decided to try a new loop home rounding this route to about 60km. This included windy road sections and a fun, snowy forest descent. A deer and I caught each other off guard in the dusk and shared a mutual jump. My battery was flying toward dead for the final 20 km, some of which was relatively remote riding (for Germany), in an area that was new to me. So I was beaming it to get back home before I lost navigation and the sun set. Thus not pictured are a family of fluffy highland coos and many mystical frozen ponds surrounded by dancing golden reeds and bobbing brown cattails.Read more
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Trip end
April 9, 2025