Even on my first visit to Lindos, I noticed the countless pubs in old captains’ houses. But we didn’t have time for a night shift. This time we didn’t have time for sightseeing, we only came here for the nightlife. Check in at the hotel, down to the old town and into the night!
How did the crisis in Greece actually start? Not even the Greeks could explain it to me. Over-engineering, over-bureaucratisation and a good measure of wastefulness were certainly involved. But how the hell can you drive an entire country so hard against the wall in such a short space of time? (more…)
Holiday Flat In Cilento
While looking for a new holiday destination in Italy, we came across the Cilento region on the internet. We have been travelling all over Italy for years – but we were initially unfamiliar with Cilento. The pictures we discovered of the region promised a dreamlike landscape.
According to the information, you can combine a beach, cultural and hiking holiday in Cilento, which starts around 100 kilometres south of Naples. We booked a great holiday flat in Marina di Camerota right on the beach online. We travelled to Cilento from Munich by car – which takes a little time, but a stopover in Florence is also worthwhile. (more…)
Fuerteventura @ Flag Beach!
Flag Beach organises a barbecue. The night afterwards is long, weird and unhealthy. The wind finally comes on Saturday, but I don’t get out of bed all day. Sunday the name finally fits: Fuerteventura @ Flag Beach. The wind has finally shifted and is blowing stubbornly with 15-30 knots sideshore from the south.
Many stay on the beach today. Wrong kite sizes or fear of the gusts. They should all be sent to the Brombachsee for a cure. The gusts are pretty rough, but compared to the Brombachsee they’re still pretty nice. I still sometimes ride my 12s hanging on the last end of the depower. (more…)
Kitesurfing In Sotavento
The morning after is terrible, breakfast unthinkable. A wind-seeking Italian from yesterday reports good wind. We drive another 120 kilometres to Sotavento and are among the first on the water at midday. The next six hours are a dream. In an initial 15 knots of sideshore, we take quite large kites and fight our way through the battlefield of popping kite students.
Everything is perfect. Dominik’s first ocean kiting. High jumps, laminar wind, 200 metre wide beach, space until you drop. Almost perfect. At some point Dominik feels sick because of the last night shift. Or because of the McBreakfast. In any case, he gives the tip that it’s better not to throw up upwind of your own kite. Downwind would be much more appropriate. (more…)
Provence
The Sommières tourist board calls me to Provence to create a new website. At dawn, before the first motorway service station, a fox commits hara-kiri on my bumper. As thanks for my toughness, he takes a fog light with him into nirvana and now lights the way home for the hedgehogs.
The journey eats up the kilometres, in a frenzy all the way to Avignon. After 11 hours, we arrive at dusk. The papal palace is dark and the bridge is already closed. In the chilly October, we wander through the almost deserted old town. (more…)
Kitesurfing On Rügen
Let’s go to Rügen! The wind had been dead for weeks and the entire summer was non-existent anyway. On our first night on a farm, we experience a small harvest apocalypse. Huge combine harvesters flatten all the fields within a radius of one kilometre until four in the morning. It was probably the first rain-free night on Rügen this “summer”.
The next morning it’s raining cats and dogs again. The chalk cliffs disappear into the grey. Then the wind finally arrives. It is too strong and onshore at Wieker Boden. We cross over to Ummanz and head out to Suhrendorf beach. (more…)
Dresden
Ask me about the most beautiful waterfall in Fiji! Ask me where the sea turtles swim in the Dominican Republic! Ask me about the best of 92% of all gyros stands on Rhodes! Ask me about the most beautiful volcano in New Zealand! But when a couchsurfer asks me: “Which city in Germany should I visit?”: I just stand there like an ox in front of a mountain.
For the blog generation, no spot on the map is whiter than their home country. After much deliberation, I have to admit that I only know three cities in Germany well. That has to change. A customer calls me to Saxony. The afternoon and evening belong to Dresden. (more…)
Efcharisto Rhodes!
Thank you Rhodes, it was wonderful! Even if the wind could have blown more: it was always good. Unfortunately, my diabolical plan didn’t work out. I ate at least one gyros a day on average, but not one every day. Some Greeks simply don’t offer fast food.
We spend the last few days in Rhodes Town. During the economic crisis, Trivago sells 4-star accommodation with 5-star dining at the Grand Hotel for next to nothing. The buffet is amazing. Just round the corner you can pay more for a few disgusting orange juices that aren’t freshly squeezed in Erdinger wheat glasses. A weird world. (more…)
Living Like God In Greece
Greece has produced countless gods throughout its history. There are just as many ways to live and eat here. Only the differences in quality between Greek restaurants are even greater than those between German web designers. There is everything for nothing and nothing for everything.
Normally you find the nothing for everything preferably in well-populated places. In the old town of Rhodes, you can get micro-portions of bum gyros for maxi-coal, and the ouzo always costs extra. We often ate well for little money in deserted places. Unfortunately, this is not always the rule, it also works the other way round. (more…)
Touring Rhodes
Rhodes has a lot to offer, especially in late spring. Oleander bushes bloom everywhere in riverbeds that are already dry. The mountains are high, the villages beautiful. We ride the quad bike along all the dirt tracks, no matter how dirty, heat up a dry riverbed and get lost in the middle of nowhere.
Just a few kilometres south of Rhodes Town, everything becomes pleasantly empty, wide and quiet. Sometimes we don’t see a car for hours. Every few hundred metres there is a small monastery or a chapel at the side of the road. Sometimes little shrivelled black nuns come out. (more…)
Faliraki
On our way across the island of Rhodes, we make a one-day stopover in Faliraki. Faliraki is the Greek word for “stupid wine”, a very fitting and concise quintessence of everything that is important there: sex and alcohol. The latter, of course, only to get the former.
There is nothing left of the fishing village. A thousand hotels, hundreds of bars and strip clubs and two shops selling Armani towels for four euros. Everything is empty, far too much has been built and nobody earns anything. The many Brits don’t care. Worse is always possible, and lobster is not red even when cooked. (more…)
Rhodes: History Is Cool
I join the Facebook group “I drink ouzo and help Greece out of debt”. The Bild newspaper teaches us that we are financing luxury pensions for the Greeks. 22 billion is a drop in the ocean. Every third Greek employee is a civil servant.
That calls for more blind actionism. I fly to Rhodes and immediately start my humanistically motivated aid project “Trivago sells four stars at 12 euros a day”. At these rates, it will only take roughly 780 years until we are king of Greece again. If the plan doesn’t work out, we’ll simply send Stoiber down. (more…)
Snowkiting in and around Regensburg
I’ve been kiting since 1999 and since then there has never been snow and wind at the same time in Regensburg. This week is different. We’ve had snow for a long time and the wind has given us three good days of snowboarding and kiting this week. On Tuesday I’m going snowkiting for the first time in my life.
The wind at the Regensburg windmill is quite weak and the holes in between always make for forced sessions in the snow. But it’s enough for a few first tracks. With 10 knots of wind and 15 cm of snow, I’ve never had so much fun. I buy my first helmet in the evening. Snow is harder than water. (more…)
Kitesurfing in Tenerife
The trip was worth the journey. Even though I only had three good days within a week in December, it should be enough. On the penultimate day, the wind arrives at Tejita Beach with a gust of 20-28 knots. 20 kiters dash through two metre high waves.
The first wave at the start was intentional. I discovered a stain on my body and wanted to get a good wash. My jumps get higher, the landings get dirtier and dirtier. The best crash landing led over 10 metres of air directly from behind into a two-metre wave that was just breaking. It was almost no longer funny. (more…)
Rainy kite in El Medano
After three days in the doldrums, the wind finally arrives on Tenerife. In the morning, I see five rainbows in quick succession from the balcony and know that something is going to happen today. I pack my stuff and beam up to El Medano – once again I can’t find the exit.
On the beach, 300 tourists are building rafts as part of an occupational therapy programme. When it starts to rain, a quarter of them crowd into the three containers at the Playa Sur surf centre. Then the wind slowly picks up. I frown. Almost full offshore. No rescue.
Autumn kite on Lake Brombach
Autumn is here. The outdoor seating areas are closing. You don’t bump into anyone drinking coffee anymore. I don’t like autumn, especially not after a rather uneventful and cold summer anyway. Nothing moves, I’m bored. The only great thing about autumn is the wind.
Today it’s arriving in full force at Brombachsee. The locals are right: yes, on good weekends the lake is pretty full. But firstly, it’s still bearable compared to most other good spots. Secondly, I don’t mind at all if it gets even more crowded, the way some top dogs defend their clearing. (more…)
Kitesurfing on Corsica’s east coast
Everyone says kitesurfing on Corsica’s east coast is not possible. There’s never any wind and when there is, it’s too little and when there is enough, it’s completely offshore. None of that is true. I was here for 10 days in July. I was out for several hours on four days. I had a 12 and a 19 kite with me. I only used the latter. But it works.
My kitesurfing spot is about 15 kilometres north of Aleria. A wide sandy beach, no trees, but no bays either. No rocks and plenty of space. The wind forecasts from Windfinder.com are practically never right. There are no fixed times, the wind can come at any time of day and from any direction. (more…)
Corsicana
I realised that I didn’t actually spend a single day – or at least half a day – just lying on the beach on my big trip. There was always a cave to explore, a mountain to climb or a lagoon to explore. As long as there wasn’t enough wind for kiting, of course. It’s different here and it’s good.
Sometimes there is wind, but the forecasts are practically never right. In any case, there is also more wind than expected on the east side of Corsica, mostly side-onshore. I was out briefly on four out of seven days with the 19 Assault. Some fun on the water in the setting sun. Then a game of volleyball and the evening begins with a barbecue, wine and a beach fire. (more…)
A good story
I’m going travelling again. For the first time in many months, the web designer is also feeling the effects of the economic crisis. It’s about time, and it feels good. A friend is having a party for no reason in the foothills of the Alps. After a three-hour drive through the worst holiday traffic jam, I arrive in Kaufbeuren in the early evening. The address says it all: Schönblick.
Celebrating for no reason is good. No destination, no plan, no expectation. Everything that is: just happens. What doesn’t happen is not missed. I know no one and expect nothing. Few old rules apply today. But few in return – and perhaps precisely because of that – all the more so. My favourite: good things only happen when you don’t expect them. (more…)
Neusiedl Kite Wars
We are travelling to Lake Neusiedl. To even ask the school whether Sabine can do an advanced kite course, you would actually have to pay a 4 euro beach user fee. There is no course. On to the north-north beach. Great: this year it only costs €5.50. Bugger: the revolving door now even has a guard.
The beach is packed with super-fit trouser-over-neoprene wearers. We set up. When the only good bloke on the beach launches Sabine’s kite, I don’t pay attention. He turned it towards the power zone. Sabine is torn 20 metres through the grass. If her harness hadn’t ripped when we jumped on her, she would have shredded the fence two metres away. (more…)
Louie Austen’s shoes
After a restful night with Georg on the Hohe Warte, I drive into the city centre. It’s raining. All day long. In torrents. I find my way along unknown paths, have no destination but get there. People ask me for directions. I unpack my best Viennese “ey” and say “I don’t know that either, madam.”
In front of the abortion clinic on Fleischmarkt, a lone anti-abortion activist stands in the rain with his poster. Tip to the operators: stupid address! Move to Himmelpfortgasse, then it will work out with the neighbours. The junkies in the underground at Karlsplatz are as crowded as ever, while the Naschmarkt is pleasantly empty in the rain. (more…)
Josefine Baker sings in Vienna
I’m travelling to Vienna. On the way, I find the explanation for the economic crisis. Because of it, the government is currently investing a lot of money in infrastructure measures. There are miles and miles of building sites everywhere, which means I can’t keep my business appointments in Vienna. Lost orders are paving the way through the crisis.
Knowing your way around many places in the world is great. It gives you a feeling of control over something that is becoming increasingly complex and actually uncontrollable. I could almost switch off the sat nav. The Viennese still punish every little mistake with wild honking, and I can find a parking space in front of Georg’s hotel after just three laps around the Praterstern. (more…)
Riders on the storm
I’m going out for a wild night with a few people from the course. There aren’t many bars. We stay in the same marvellous Marmalade Bar until three o’clock. In Barcelona, you can easily meet 10 people from 20 different countries every hour. It’s a colourful mix, there are stories from all over the world.
The next morning, the world is shaking. Sure, it was a heavy night, I think. But it’s not. The house is really shaking. The predicted storm has hit Barcelona with gusts of well over 100 kilometres per hour. Morning news: four people dead, three swept into the sea, hundreds of emergencies, chaos. I take to the streets. The storm is playing roller dominoes. The longest line I saw consisted of seven overturned scooters. (more…)
Barcelona unkiteable
Windfinder was right. The wind is coming today. As soon as the course is over, I grab my board and kite and jump on the next underground train to the beach. The Barcelonians all look at me a bit stupidly. What’s going on? It’s 17 degrees, that’s warm, you can take off your polar coats!
On the beach, I don’t doubt it for a second. The wind is fully offshore, swirling all over Barcelona and changes from 0 to 50 km/h in 5-second intervals. You can see it dancing on the surface of the water, left, right, forwards, backwards. Then sand blasting into your face again and a vertical gust from above. Kiting is the most beautiful thing in the world. Especially when you can be happy about it afterwards. I stay on land. (more…)
Restaurant and pub guide Vienna
I promised this one. Because I was able to get to know many beautiful places in Vienna with lots of good people. Lots of pubs, lots of restaurants, lots of nights out. I will miss Vienna.
Pubs in Vienna
Chic indie cinema and colourful, somewhat hip bar. You sit in the foyer, DJs play good electronic sound. Weird birds and old punk grannies sit on the cracked couches. Every now and then a sandler is kicked out. But that never disturbs the peace.[Map] (more…)
The Author
Frank Woelky, born in 1973. Kitesurfer since 1998. Since 2006, I have been combining kitesurfing and web design on trips lasting several months off the beaten track.