Upwards

I'm sitting in the main street of Hirtshals having intercourse with an unprotected Danish wifi signal - I do hope my precious MacBok Air doesn't catch an incurable virus.

Yesterday afternoon after a snack in Groningen I crossed into Germany and stopped in 3 cities: Oldenberg, Bremen and Hamburg. Oldenberg had a church whose circular and modern interior didn't match its rectangular, traditional exterior. The Dom at Bremen is impressive and like many Lutheran churches still displays much of its Catholic origins: the raised choir/sanctuary is now treated as a separate chapel and the nave seating is arranged around the pulpit - now the centre of action I presume. There was an impressive looking organ at the west end and a summer series of recitals, as indeed there was in Oldenberg: the Germans still take their organ tradition seriously.

It was evening by the time I arrived in Hamburg and I expected the churches to be closed. The Jacobikirche, however, was advertising a recital on its Arp Schnitger organ at 8pm - about an hour off - and I thought this was too good to miss even though I had no accommodation sorted. A check of the satnav showed a camping about 10 miles to the north just off the motorway, so I decided to chance it and stayed for most of the recital, leaving about 10 mins before the end in order not to ride in complete darkness. (I haven't adjusted my headlamps!) And what a sound! Apparently Bach played this (and all the organs in Hamburg) when he was in the city with a view to getting a job in one of them. The job at the J-kirche was, however, offered to someone unknown because he was able to pay the sum of money asked! There are 4 manuals and a 32' flue in the pedals, so it's a big spec. The positiv doesn't couple through but it doesn't need to - the sound is huge, rich and almost fat - nothing like the Ralph Downes and similarly influenced reconstructions we have in the UK. For instance the mixtures are low and blend in, rather than tinkling away on top. And the flutes were huge. Anyway, I sat transfixed for nearly an hour before making a dash for the campsite.

From the sublime... The campsite was adjacent to an Ikea superstore, underneath the flight path to the airport, right next to the A7 autobahn, and there were powercables overhead with a view of a huge pylon. The noise was incredible. But to be fair the actual site was very nice and nearly full - obviously used as a convenient stopping point. I set up in the dark and fell asleep pretending the noise was the sea, and, amazingly, slept really well.

I wanted to follow Bach's route from Thuringia to Lübeck, but decided that if I did so I could end up meandering around and regretting not seeing some new coutries. So I hope to do that later in the week and today headed north into Denmark, stopping at a couple of service stations (yukky food!) and am now right at the top of Jutland under a cloudless sky and am booked onto the evening ferry to Kristiansand in Norway. It arrives one minute before midnight so I've "Done A Richard" and booked a hotel for the night. The current plan, then, is to spend a couple of days in the south of Norway, then cross back to Denmark or ride through Sweden and get the ferry to Germany where I will rejoin Bach's footsteps.

Oldenberg 

Dom at Bremen

Inside the Dom

Organ at the west end

Centre of Hamburg

Jacobikirche

View before setting off this morning