June 25th: starting at my home in Laubegast, a dozen of friends say bye-bye, some present me such important things like a cigarette box, a hair brush, a pencil for writing postcards, it's a fun to meet and play a little uke on the river before going on the big journey. About 9pm meeting with a friend in the countryside (Uckermark, North of Berlin)

June 26th: meeting with another old friend in the countryside

June 27th: Arrival in Trelleborg, meeting Scandinavian mosquito at the Bay of Skanör (West from Trelleborg, South from Malmö), they are as worse as their reputation. certainly because of the still lake and some never ending sunset. I try to smoke them away with a good pipe tobacco. .

Ferry arriving Trelleborg, Sweden

June 28th: meeting Benny from the Ukulele Orchestra of Sweden at his Golf Club - he has a job there - in the evening a session with Uwe, another member of the band, at his home.

Blue Moon in the Malmö Bay


Meeting with the mosquitos





Ferry leaving Sassnitz, Germany

June 29th: in the evening arriving the most Northern spot of Öland, on of the both Islands in the East of Southern Sweden. There is an old lighthouse, it works automatically nowadays, so no lonesome man has to stay in the tower anymore. I make use of the so called "Allemannsrätt" "All men's right" - the right of everybody to stay at any place in the countryside without permission as far it does not bother others)

Castle ruin from the Middle Age, near Borgholm


Wind mills all around the island Öland

June 30th: after a huge traffic jam on the highway to Stockholm arriving in the evening in the capitol of Sweden, check in a youth hostel which is an old sailing ship. It is in the middle of the historical old town, in one of the many ports. Therefore the town is called Venice of the North, many folks sitting on the docks everywhere, there is a touch of Paris, too - a good place to relax from the "Allemannsrätt" camping, and to have some Internet facilities for writing emails.

Sea Cloud II iin the harbor of Stockhom

July 3rd: arriving in Vadstena, on the shore of one of the two big lakes in Middle Sweden, camping at Borhamns Vandrahem, enjoying a magic

A singer from Hungary, living in Stockholm, she guides me to the hot spots of music


Stockholm rocks & rolls...

July 5th: after three days in the countryside I arrived in Oslo…

July 6th: Norin from Holland (escaped from the war in Kosovo) is my room mate, he wants to buy a car for he could go to a job with. I am driving him around, but the good luck is not on his side that day, then we stuck in a traffic jam in a very long tunnel… not a good feeling sitting down under the town, perhaps under the Oslo Fjord … Visiting the Thor Heyerdhal Museum on the big Island near the harbor

July 7th: Driving to Kongsberg, Jazz Festival… The first thing I discover in the little town is a stand with ukuleles! Next I see a young women with a baby and a little bag which only can contain the same little instrument, later on a man playing it on the road, we talk and play a little together… Concert of "The Synthetics" - Jazz band from Birmingham, USA, already met in Oslo, then a local jazz band - kids from age 8 to 11 or so, amazing performance with their teacher. In the evening a gig of old blues legend Louisiana Red, the old man needs help when walking, but his performance is still as wild as ten years back. After the show his wife immediately starts selling Cds while I am sitting next, he asked about the content of my little blue box, so I gave him a little lesson in Ukulele Blues, engaged him to try, but his wife seems to be more the boss now than when he was singing the blues….

Norwegians capitol has got some footprint from Gypsies and immigrants from Africa and Asia


A few beggars try to make their luck in the more hidden streets


A few tourists shot any picture they can... and sometimes themselves...

July 9th: Driving across a big National Park in the Province Telemark, alpine mountains at the West coast, many big lakes, waterfalls, very long tunnels, visiting friends on a very small island near the bigger Tysnes, going fishing, having trips through the Fjords and Laguna, building up a new Ukulele Band, performing a very short song with the lyrics: My hat it has no corner, no corner has my hat, and if it would have corners, it wouldn't be my hat" - in English, Norwegian, and German. We have a lot fun those days. Turning on TV in evening for to see how German football team plays against Uruguay, humble on a channel that has a feature on ukulele enthusiasm in the US, and keep watching this, of course...


The newest boygroup...


Fishing Blues - Norwegian Fjords

The light in the Fjords and Islands alternates every moment by the change of clouds and sunshine




"Sundowner-Dram" to drink, and "Moonshiner" to sing at the evening of bye-bye from Don & Helge, the Island Hillbillies

July 14th: At the harbour of the little old town Alesund on the West coast of Norway the sun seems not to set at all. You still can read a magazine at midnight The town has burned down in 1904, rebuilt then under the influence of Jugendstil (Art Nouveau) -it makes it nowadays to a pearl at Norway's Western coast. You can experience the sunset in the harbour as well as top on the hill in the middle of the town - or both! The sunset actually is never ending in this time of the year.


Evening in Alesund (about 11pm!)


View from top on the hill in the middle of town (about 11pm!) - playing a little bit ukulele there, too, asked for CDs 5 times in one hours but didn't take them with me...

Art nouveau facade in Alesund


Antique car are always in Scandinavia beloved, the more in streets of Alesund


A lot of blond at the dock of the bay, but more exotic bells than expected in this Northern country as well

July 15th: The ferry across the Molde Fjord is leaving when I reach the port, I am just a minute too late. A few raindrops wash my car which has already made 4000 Kilometer since starting the journey. I arrive Trondheim in the afternoon, the town seems to be a little grey, not only because of the clouds. It's an industrial town. Most important historical point tis the old cathedral Nidaros, near by the most Northern synagogue of the world, house by house next Salvation Army and other Christian community.


Norwegians piss on EU... Something is different in Norway - Middle Europe is Third World for Norwegians concerning prices - most things are as expensive as twice in Germany. No chance to get a bottle of wine except in the "Vinmonopol" - there is one in the city of each bigger town, cigarettes cost 780 Krones (about 10 Euro)...

Rocks of Lofoten Island.

July 18th: On the way up to the North the native Sami people sell their handicraft, instruments, reindeer soup, self-made socks - and postcards etc.


Fog climbing the big mountains along the Fjords

Frame drum of the native Sami people

July 19th: Arriving North Cap - the most Northern point of Europe - one hour before midnight, there is no sunset in this time of the year, just the clouds give it a little bit of evening feeling, otherwise it was bright as in daytime.


July 20th: A cold, foggy, then a rainy morning... I go by ferry to the next island in the East, assuming to find more relaxation there, meeting reindeers on every road, spending a lightning night at the northermost mainland lighthouse: Sletness Fyr

You are not lonesome there at midnight. Thousands of travellers meeting at midnight, and shopping in the big temple of souvenirs, nice looking but absolutely useless things...


On the way to the North Cap, Norway

Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer... using the roads as if they were made only for him

July 21th: Visiting Karasjok, the Norwegian capitol of Sapmi (Fennoscandinavian natives), Lappland near the borderline to Finland.


You can meet more reindeer than people here, and sometimes you meet Rudolph himself...As I was told then his real name was" Hünni"

80 km danger of elk... but less chance to get one in front of your camera. At least I could see one crossing the road...

July 23rd: In the mountains it started raining. Every time it stopped once, it started again more heavy than before. So I could only sit in the car and drive, or sit in the car and ty to sleep a little. After this kind of torture I started next morning again with rain, but as it stopped I had a stop at a magic place...


Hiljainen Kansa - Quiet people



about 1000 figures, maybe some added by visitors?

Hiljainen Kansa - Quiet People: titled by the artist Reijo Keila, created in the mid 90s, but most of the dresses look very new, some better than what I am wearing...


I loved to play some ukulele in front of this quiet auditorium. Guess these people love it as well...

July 24th:

Best is to follow your own nose, or some intuition... And not blind to other's advice. Then you may find places you never heard about before, really worth a visit.



Björkö Wärdshus - a little countryside Hotel on the Kvarken Islands, with Sauna, at least three cats, very quiet, nice people, relaxation.



"Björkö Panike" or "Langgrundet" - this is the question! Langgrundet is shorter (3,3 km), for "Panike" (13 km) it's too late

Magic at midnight - Kvarken Archipelago.

Kvarken Archipelago, Northwest of Vaasa, Finland, protected by Unesco World Heritage, Ice-age relics and endemic species


From top of a wooden tower you can watch and get a glue how the developing of new little islands by nature is still continued

July 25th: Heading for Helsinki, but I do stop in Jokela, 45 kilometer before the capitol, visiting Juha and his family. He is the manager of all ukulele events in Helsinki - and of course he is an ukulele enthusiast himself. We spent the evening playing and jamming, talking about special instruments and manufactures, workshops, concerts, artists. About Finland and about Germany, about beer and the never ending prohibition all over Scandinavia, about the "beer revolution" he is working on, about God and the world.

July 27th: Thousands of lakes in the East of Southern Finland, and obviously some of the hottest days. Good to be out here...


Windmill in Southern Finland


Sometimes you find interesting places fallowing such a sign, not seldom you only see a souvenir shop bigger than anything else...

July 28th: After a hot day in the lake area, from East of Helsinki to the borderline of Russia, I have a jam session with Juha and Seppo,are professional in beer brewing as well. Since the heat makes us lazy we taste some of the self-made beers.., but play some ukulele nevertheless...

The corn seems to be ready for harvest End of July


Camping near Puumala - first real sunset, followed by a dark sky with stars and full moon.

July 29th: Still far from home I got the message a good friend of mine has died - very unexpected. He was just my age... As a painter it was a world of colours he left us.

Gestrandete Schiffe und die Anmut des Morbiden kennzeichnen viele Gemälde von Rainer Wriecz. Am Abend des 26. Juli hörte sein Herz auf zu schlagen.

July 30: 30 Juli: In the happiness about leaving the Helsinki Beer Festival not so late, I left my ukulele in the ticket room of the main railway station of Helsinki... I just realized it when the train was too far to go out and back to Helsinki...


Fruits and vegetable - market at the port of Helsinki


Music shop in Helsinki - This is the only word in Finish I can understand...

July 31st: The ferry from Helsinki goes early in the morning. The Superstar is really a very big ship, and out on the sea you get a feeling what Rock & Roll meant to the early sailors - and how difficult it is to walk on board, or to go for P.

From Estonian capitol Tallin I go on without any stop except for traffic lights, down to Latvian capitol Riga. I also want to keep out of the big town and its traffic jam, but there is no sign where to go. Finally I see myself in the middle of the city, but luckily find a way out then, so I go on to Tukums, where a friend lives I met two years ago travelling all around the baltic countries. This time I went through three capitols in one day...


Oh Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz...

The happy end: Back in Helsinki next morning, my ukulele was found!


From the Finish beer and antique car country to the Latvian beer and antique car country. My job is only the documentation of the upside down activities...


Some ukulele lesson in the evening... and having Lithuanian sauna makes the long day complete.

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August 1st to 4th: The former Prussian village Nidden (Nida) has not changed much since my last visit two years ago. Still very beautiful girls, just others now... The village has become an artist's village in the late 1920s. German writer Thomas Mann let build himself a house in the traditional way after he got the money from his Nobel price. Painters and visitors from former Königsberg (now Russian enclave Kaliningrad) made the place attractive for tourists. Then the 2nd World War made it a field of fights, and the Russian Army made it a forbidden Island for many years. History has left its footprints here in may ways, from Napoleon to the Car, Curonian people lived in neighborhood with the German settlers etc. etc. Since the Baltic countries came back to their independence in the 1990s the island has become a booming place in tourism again, but is not intended to be a copy of Disney World etc... Guess I must stay here a few days longer than at any other good place of my big journey before I go home...


I'd like to give this bluesman some company with my ukulele tonight, but a heavy thunderstorm and rain made my plans nothing...


Writing diary: Also others do it...

Signs of the traditional fisher boots in the historical countryside of the Curonian Spit


Wish I was 20 again... Evening at the Curonian Laguna


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5. August: At 6 I wanted to start, but I awoke at 8 and am ready to leave at nine... Back to Klaipeda, crossing Kaunas, heading for the capitol Vilnius... Half of the way to Trakay I change my plans, since I have been visiting some of the interesting places already tow years ago when I had a round trip all over the baltic countries. I leave the highway, drive on dusty country roads, happy to have found the main road again, arriving Poland's capitol Warsaw at 9pm - after a 12 hours ride, realizing a very imposing and modern town with never ending traffic. No chance to find a parking place, to late for finding a hostel I could pay. I spontaneous decide to leave the town for camping somewhere out of town, but than go on through and arrive - 5 hours later in the old town Krakow - in the middle of the night, at 2pm. It has become the longest ride in one day - more than 1100 km from Nida, Lithuania, to the South of Poland...

Evening in Warsaw - glimmering glass facades remove the grey cement from the post war era, the metropolis of Poland experiences a enormous boom of building new sky scrapers.


The youth enjoys hanging around all around the small streets of the old town, one cafe after the next. No chance to find a legal parking place... I had to risk a stop anyway.


Important also in the capitol of Poland: Watching and to be watched!

6. August: After one night in my small car - I was so tired, I would have been able to sleep in a ukulele case - I have a sightseeing in the old town of Krakow. Third time that I am here, first time in the summer of 1989 was an illegal stop without a valid visa - but the days of the Iron Curtain was counted then. Next time in summer 2000, I got the "5 Zloty Rag" on the road. I was not intended to make tips as a street musician. Just playing for my self, an old woman stopped, listened to me, and left me an unexpected tip on my case, which was not opened for that... Now I play it again for my self, just as a ritual. Becoming hungry I take the breakfast near Wroclaw, fist time fast food from the big M... And I promise you: It was the last time, too! I can't imagine that kind of food and plastic junk is so successful all over the world... terrible... 

The highway to the West is best - and there are stops for paying twice. I try to make speed fighting against the feeling of getting tired. A very fast motorcycle runs over, long red-blond hair flying out from the helmet... This was not an "Easy Rider" - it was a flying bitch, as crazy as could... It makes me awake for a moment but does not kill my tiredness. I need a rest, leave the highway, having a nap on the parking place of a restaurant, then go inside for a cop of coffee, a nice place, decide I should take some advanced dinner here, which finally becomes good compensation for the M-food. I am happy, or one more coffee, write my diary, and since there is wireless internet connection I immediately upload to my website. I don't bother the CD of Swedish pop music band ABBA is running second time: "Waterloo", "Fernando" etc... Only 400 kilometer to my home…

The old town of Krakow - 10 years I got the "5 Zloty Rag"...


Internet next the charming of morbid - Krakow still is the perl of Poland.

August 7th: First night in my own bed, the first coffee as I am used at home...  After six weeks on the road, seven countries, seven languages, a life from a rucksack (backpack) I feel happy to be back at home... The river says wellcome with highwater, in front of my house, it rising more than three meters within a few hours, but is keeping that level now. If I would have arrived one day later I would have been still on the road while the hard rain makes them dangerous, perhaps with problems at the borderline from Poland to Germany where the town Görlitz was completely taken by the flood of the Neiße river.





And on...
The travel bug kept me after returning home on the handle, so I went in the fall is still in its southernmost tip, to Syracuse in Sicily. 2011, it finally took me to Great Britain, and one of the northernmost islands of Scotland.

Have you heard yet? Alex is back! Let's keep away from his house...


Elbe highwater after a whole day of rain in front of my house.