[HN Gopher] I walked across Luxembourg
___________________________________________________________________
I walked across Luxembourg
Author : shoobs
Score : 352 points
Date : 2023-08-22 04:57 UTC (18 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.ioces.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.ioces.com)
| frank_bb wrote:
| [dead]
| dveeden2 wrote:
| Max Fosh: "I Rode A Barbie Bike Across An Entire Country"
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGqTzcQjD2c
|
| This was across Luxembourg as well.
| xcdzvyn wrote:
| Max Fosh is a national treasure
| [deleted]
| klondike_klive wrote:
| This looks fun - but I just can't get past the Clarkson-like
| delivery that everyone seems to have these days.
| shoobs wrote:
| A few months back I dragged myself away from Tears of the Kingdom
| and went on a four day hike across the entirety of Luxembourg.
|
| I planned my route using open source GIS tools, and did the cross
| country walk over a long weekend back in June.
| draven wrote:
| I see you used QGis. Last time I tried it there was no easy way
| of plugging a router. I switched to QMapShack. It's a bit more
| complicated to use the IGN service for the maps (whereas it
| works out of the box with QGis) but there are several options
| for routers. The offline one (Routino) requires downloading
| data but it works well. I use it all the time to plan 2-5 days
| treks in the French Alps. Having the actual elevation profile
| for a given segment is really useful.
|
| Just thought you might want to try this setup for your next
| trek!
| shoobs wrote:
| Thanks for the recommendation. I used KML files and manually
| connected them, but a router would've been handy. I'll give
| it a shot.
| BitterPanda wrote:
| Love it! I use organic maps on a daily basis and it is an awesome
| tool even if you're just commuting.
| darkwater wrote:
| TIL about it and I'm gonna try it for sure. Yesterday I had a
| very bad experience with a "Garmin Connect" generated route for
| gravel bike, by checking it in Organic Maps I could probably
| have avoided the issue.
| mcv wrote:
| I have it too, but often forget to use it in favour of Google
| Maps, but Google Maps is terrible for anything not in a car or
| train, and OSM always has fantastic detail for hiking trails.
| Every vacation I find myself switching to Organic Maps.
|
| This vacation it helped us find a trail to a really beautiful
| waterfall in Switzerland.
| SSLy wrote:
| Google Maps whole use case is finding restaurants and pubs in
| new places, and that's about it.
| BitterPanda wrote:
| Organic maps has the same feature and they also have
| opening hours which is cool, Google Maps still has a lot
| more but for an Open-Source project it's quite decent
| mcv wrote:
| Even that it's not great at. It's not showing them all,
| it's not showing the link to the restaurant itself upfront,
| but neither is the menu it lists the right one.
|
| If they actually wanted to make it easy to find the right
| restaurant for you in the area, there's dozens of things
| they could do to make it easier for people.
| tguvot wrote:
| Had a roadtrip in Europe 15 years ago or so with my wife. We
| planned to stop in Luxembourg for a lunch, but because we failed
| to find a parking we had to leave the country
| [deleted]
| janosdebugs wrote:
| Parking is a problem in a lot of European cities. Trains are
| probably a better choice for such trips in Europe.
| davidktr wrote:
| Parking where you want can be a problem. You won't have
| issues if you use a parking garage or park in the outskirts
| and then use public transportation.
| Wicher wrote:
| Parking is a problem? Just find a fence or lamp post and loop
| a lock through your front wheel and frame triangle. It's
| free.
| Ylpertnodi wrote:
| "Free" parking, as far as bicycles go is often: how much
| can you afford to purchase a new one [after it gets stolen,
| despite the lock(s)]?
| dagw wrote:
| _Trains are probably a better choice for such trips in
| Europe._
|
| Having 'done' Europe both by train and by car, the trips end
| up being very different. Trains are great if you want to hit
| the major cities. With a car you can visit all kinds of small
| villages, rural areas and interesting nature that you cannot
| really reach by public transport.
| ghaff wrote:
| Some places--whatever the continent--are certainly more
| amenable to not having a car than others. But, generally
| speaking, people also just generally adapt. If you're in a
| lot of cities without a car, you just mostly avoid taking
| trips outside the city very often because it's a pain to
| do. You tend to orient your activities around low friction
| most of the time.
| kredd wrote:
| Depends on how long you go for? I usually pick a city for
| a week as a base, then use a combination of trains, buses
| and sometimes bikes to check out the outskirts. It adds
| to the adventure, even though it's definitely more
| difficult. Surprisingly I haven't been stuck anywhere,
| but generally I make sure I have plenty of time and
| options available to get back.
| devoutsalsa wrote:
| I did a Scotland road trip in February 2020. Through was
| hitting like 3 to 5 castles and/or historical sites per
| day. I think I drive about 6000km that month. It was
| fantastic.
| cubefox wrote:
| Which is fitting, as parking is not a big problem in rural
| areas.
| gpvos wrote:
| Tell that to these people:
| https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53984239 _(Romanian
| tourists swamp village loved by Prince Charles)._
| developer93 wrote:
| I was there last year, and to be fair, the road isn't
| metalled, it's mostly large white stones like gravel but
| about 5-10cm big. Even a single car kicks up a lot more
| dust than it would on a "normal" asphalt road. Not that
| I'm diminishing these peoples' problems, just adding
| context.
| mcv wrote:
| We did a carless vacation this year, and picked
| Switzerland, which is absolutely perfect for it. Trains are
| actually better to reach some places than cars are.
|
| Unfortunately to get there, we had to travel through
| Germany, and their ICE network is a complete mess of
| confusion and delay. They do seem to be good at keeping the
| total delay just within an hour (it was 55 minutes both
| times), so they don't have to pay back any tickets.
| brabel wrote:
| I did a similar trip between Prague, Krumlov, Salzburg
| and Vienna, with a few other stops in between, by bus and
| train. We saw a lot of things by just walking around and
| using local transport lines, which include stops in the
| middle of nowhere. The area between southern Czech and
| Salzburg is just amazingly beautiful. Of course, Prague
| and Vienna are also amazing cities to visit, but that
| everyone already knows.
|
| We only caught trains in Austria, and they were extremely
| punctual!
| johnwalkr wrote:
| Some people deliberately plan trips on ICE with a few
| connections. Then they are almost guaranteed to be
| delayed by more than an hour and get a partial refund.
| martin_a wrote:
| Nah, don't worry, they (Deutsche Bahn) hit the hour mark
| quite often without any problems.
|
| Funny story on the side: German ICEs are only allowed up
| to Basel, so they will not cause any delays in the Swiss
| train network. The Swiss fear that we would destroy their
| fine-tuned system otherwise. :-D
| mcv wrote:
| Some ICEs only go to Basel, but there are definitely ICEs
| going all the way to Bern and Interlaken.
|
| Which is a funny thing: Interlaken is officially a town
| of 5700 people, and yet they're got two train stations
| receiving international high-speed trains. I guess it's
| really a town of 5700 Swiss and 100,000 tourists.
|
| And the ICEs that started in Interlaken left on time. But
| once our train to Switzerland got delayed, I think we had
| to switch in Basel and take a bunch of local trains. So
| maybe you're right; maybe they're only allowed as long as
| they're not delayed.
|
| Still, I don't understand how German trains manage to
| become such utter chaos every single time. I feel a lot
| better about the Dutch railways now.
| martin_a wrote:
| I think they want to get rid of the trains going to
| Interlaken directly. At least that's what I read in the
| SZ [0].
|
| If you haven't seen it, there's the great talk from David
| Kriesel on the 36C3 [1] about how Deutsche Bahn is...
| "doing statistics" to hide their delays. It's well worth
| the hour!
|
| [0]: https://www.sueddeutsche.de/reise/deutsche-bahn-
| verspaetunge...
|
| [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rb9CfOvojk
| mcv wrote:
| The most annoying part isn't even the delays. Not by a
| long shot. The annoying part is instead of relaxing in
| our reserved first class seats with a single layover,
| we're constantly puzzling what's going on, where we have
| to change now, lugging our luggage across 4 layovers, and
| losing our reserved seats, having to stand, etc.
|
| I'd rather have an extra hour of delay than ruining a
| relaxing trip like that.
| martin_a wrote:
| Yes, I feel that. Did a rather long journey a few weeks
| ago (7+ hours). The ICE had a delay of 40 minutes in
| Hannover which they could reduce going down south. Once
| it rolls, it rolls and then it's mostly okay _.
|
| _ okay, WLAN was down, reserved seat displays were down,
| bistro was down, but the train was rolling!
| gottorf wrote:
| > "doing statistics" to hide their delays
|
| "Lies, damned lies, and statistics." The older I get, the
| more true this becomes!
| saiya-jin wrote:
| I think the reason is more bureaucratic, costs, contracts
| etc - Swiss let happily French TGV on their trails, I
| took it few times with only Swiss ticket since I was
| getting off within Suisse (so no surcharge).
| martin_a wrote:
| I think the TGV is pretty much on time, that's why they
| have no problem with that.
| developer93 wrote:
| It's funny because externally Germany somehow has the
| reputation of perfect punctuality, I can only assume that
| country stereotypes tend to be outdated.
| mcv wrote:
| My impression of German Punktlichkeit certainly took a
| big hit.
|
| In the past, my trips to Germany rarely went further than
| Oberhausen or Essen, so that was never a big challenge to
| my belief in the German railway system. After this trip,
| my brother and dad (who have a lot more international
| train experience) were not surprised at all by our delays
| in Germany. Apparently confusion and delay are the normal
| state of things there.
| developer93 wrote:
| As someone who's lived here 10 years you're spot on. I
| hear it all went to pot when they tried to reorganise DB
| to prepare it for privatisation, which never really
| happened, and centralised everything around Frankfurt. So
| now it's in a quasi independent state which no one seems
| very prioritised about fixing. Hey at least there's the
| cheap (Deutschland) ticket now.
| martin_a wrote:
| This kind of hits the core.
|
| As the DB (Deutsche Bahn) is a private company now
| (although they are 100% owned by the state), they have to
| make a profit.
|
| How do you make a profit? Either raise prices or lower
| costs. Doing both is the best and that's what they do.
| Raising prices is easy, it just gets more and more
| expensive, even the "cheap" Deutschlandticket is too
| expensive, experts say it should probably be around 29
| Euro/month to make a real change.
|
| How do you save costs? You do only the bare minimum of
| maintenance, don't invest in building more tracks and
| instead reduce tracks and track switches. That's what
| they've done the last 20 years or so. [0]
|
| This leads to ICEs being stuck behind slower trains as
| there are simply no more tracks to switch to and pass
| cargo trains etc. So, if some train gets stuck somewhere
| or has a defect, every other train is stuck behind that
| for some time.
|
| Now, as the state subsidizes some parts of Deutsche Bahn,
| building something new is also cheaper than maintaining
| what is there. So they let some things rot down so far
| that they have to rebuild it completely. As the
| subsidization is then higher, that's better for the
| turnaround numbers.
|
| There have been thoughts about splitting off building and
| maintenance of the tracks completely of the rest but that
| didn't work so far. In that scenario the state would take
| care of the infrastructure and DB would just "rent" it to
| drive on it.
|
| To add something else to it:
|
| I think David Kriesel has it in his talk [1]: DB also
| "found out", that you can reduce delays in your overall
| network when you start skipping stops or canceling them
| completely. If you know that you're too late at your last
| two stops, just cancel those stops completely.
|
| Cancelled stops are not part of the delay statistics of
| DB, so not driving somewhere at all is, statistically
| seen, better than arriving there late. Only a little bit
| problematic for the people that want to get there or
| board there.
|
| Turning around early also has the "advantage" that your
| new train will be back on time again easier.
|
| It's a mess for long distance travel.
|
| [0]:
| https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/DB_Netz#Netzentwicklung
| [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rb9CfOvojk
| adrian_b wrote:
| When I have stayed for some time in Germany about twenty
| years ago, everything was still as expected from that
| reputation of perfect punctuality.
|
| When I have stayed again for some time in Germany about
| ten years ago, in the same cities, everything was
| changed. A train that was not delayed was a miracle
| instead of being normal. Also everything was much
| dirtier, instead of being spotless, as before.
|
| It was a quite shocking change after only ten years.
| tguvot wrote:
| trains better only if you want to follow train path. we had a
| bit of "freestyle" roadtrip (with multiple stops over couple
| of weeks, not point to point) Dusseldorf to Paris with help
| of state of the art iGo on asus pda. In Paris we did ditch a
| car and took train to the city.
| AlecSchueler wrote:
| You can train between major spots then use the bus to get
| to smaller towns and villages.
| dalbasal wrote:
| That's kind of like suggesting wilderness hiking instead of
| urban sightseeing. I've traveled/toured NL by train and by
| car. Different countries entirely.
|
| But yeah... In some cities, your best plan is probably to
| park at the hotel (perhaps on the outskirts) and use trains.
| phalf wrote:
| > Parking is a problem in a lot of European cities.
|
| On the flipside, the inner cities are much nicer. You have
| fewer of those seas of concrete just for parking. I wish it
| was even more so and street parking as well as open lots
| would just not be a thing. If you really need to come by car,
| put it in some underground parkade (for $$$). Cities are too
| dominated by cars. They should be there for people, not the
| other way around.
| avyeed_desa wrote:
| I think someone didn't get the joke, or took OP too
| seriously. No offense to you though.
| benoliver999 wrote:
| Yeah it's not 'that' small lol
| world2vec wrote:
| I've done hikes bigger than the whole country lol
| prmoustache wrote:
| That is not big either. Most people walking thesantiago
| de compostela pilgrimage route from the Spanish border,
| Madrid or Lisbon do walk much more.
| benoliver999 wrote:
| I drove the pilgrimage, and there was loads of parking!
| jjallen wrote:
| The joke is not obvious at all. This is a totally realistic
| scenario.
|
| Source: I live in another small but not that small of a
| European country.
| johnwalkr wrote:
| I'm kind of surprised, it was and still is a very car-centric
| city. The very centre can be busy but these days, with a smart
| phone you could easily find parking within 500m or so.
| tguvot wrote:
| It was 2006-8 or so. iGo on Asus MyPal PDA
| pjc50 wrote:
| Fans of this sort of thing may enjoy
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Time_of_Gifts : "it is a memoir
| of the first part of Fermor's journey on foot across Europe from
| the Hook of Holland to Constantinople in 1933/34". Extremely
| lyrical style full of historical context.
| Elho wrote:
| wauw, you inspired me.
|
| I dont live that far from luxembourg i'm planning to hike your
| trail.
|
| i'm planning on doing it with a tent in my backpack. Did you came
| across some official campgrounds? Or is it legal to camp wild in
| luxembourg?
|
| Thanks
| shoobs wrote:
| There are multiple official camping grounds and caravan parks
| on the route. Unfortunately wild camping isn't allowed
| anywhere. I know that some people still try it, and probably so
| long as you're somewhere off trail, camp late and leave early
| nobody will bother you.
| [deleted]
| uwagar wrote:
| how are people able to walk 100kms in 4 days with no rest days.
|
| i just can walk 8 kms every day :(
| ryankrage77 wrote:
| I was wondering this too. Last time I did a ~15km walk, my legs
| and feet were really aching at the end of it. I think I _could_
| have done another 15km back if I had no other choice, but it
| would have been miserable. As it started to rain, I got a lift
| back instead.
| yread wrote:
| Napoleon's soldiers marched 120km in 2 days! With weapons and
| gear, in enemy country, without wibrams, gel pads, walking
| poles or socks.
| creole_wither wrote:
| [dead]
| prawn wrote:
| 25km isn't too rough unless you're copping a lot of ups and
| downs, or don't enjoy walking. Helps if you start early to
| cover ground and give yourself time to rest.
|
| Our 4yo daughter did day hikes in the 15-20km range a few times
| last year, in mountainous terrain. I think attitude and
| resilience are key.
|
| In this case, one advantage was the author having a 7kg pack
| and using accommodation/food along the way rather than carrying
| a tent, sleeping gear, food, 2-3L of water, etc. Starting with
| day hikes or walking part of your commute is an easy way to
| build up to trying longer adventures.
| ghaff wrote:
| A lot depends on the terrain and the condition of the
| trail/road. (Pavement does tend to be a bit harder on your feet
| than a nice dirt trail.)
|
| 25km (~15mi) per day on level terrain on a path in good
| condition is a good walk but not anything exceptional. If there
| are ups and downs and the trail is rock and rough that's a
| whole different story.
| Aeolun wrote:
| Got to love their Minecraft exports of any place in the country:
| https://blocks.geoportail.lu/custom_static/worlds/3fa997d2-b...
|
| The recent ones seem to be broken, but old ones still have a
| working preview.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| Wow, that looks like a lot of fun! Maybe I'd try and do something
| like that over a week.
|
| I also looked and Rhode Island is 70km north to south. I don't
| know if it has as many pubs and hotels as Matt encountered,
| though.
| hiop wrote:
| Next time walk around Luxembourg.
| markthien wrote:
| [dead]
| janlaureys wrote:
| I've been _in_ Luxembourg many times on our way from Belgium to
| France or Germany, but only last year I visited it for the first
| time. We did one of the Mullertal trails in 3 days and it 's an
| absolutely beautiful little country.
| pavlov wrote:
| The history of Luxembourg is an interesting microcosm of how the
| fortunes of states and dynasties have ebbed and flowed in Europe
| over the past thousand years.
|
| There was a time when the House of Luxembourg was the main rival
| to the Habsburgs for control of central Europe, contributing four
| Holy Roman Emperors:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duchy_of_Luxemburg
|
| The dukes of this area used to be so important to European
| politics that Henry VIII of England married a Dutch duke's
| daughter for political reasons (and immediately regretted it of
| course, as he was wont to do).
|
| The area of the Duchy used to be several times larger, but over
| centuries it was nibbled away by France, Prussia, and finally the
| creation of Belgium.
|
| It has been under Spanish rule (those Habsburgs again), then
| invaded by the French revolutionary republic and annexed into
| France as a department simply called Forets (Forests) because the
| revolutionaries didn't want to keep any names that honored the
| old nobility. After Napoleon's defeat the Congress of Vienna
| aimed to restore old borders and reinstate monarchies, but with
| multiple claims on Luxembourg, it was split and became a grand
| duchy whose head of state was the King of Netherlands.
|
| It became an independent country in 1890 when the Dutch king died
| without a male heir. Dutch law allowed the throne to pass to a
| female child, but the Grand Duchy was under different laws and
| was inherited by a claimant rather than the new Dutch queen.
| (Monarchy is pretty weird in practice.)
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| > Dutch law allowed the throne to pass to a female child, but
| the Grand Duchy was under different laws and was inherited by a
| claimant rather than the new Dutch queen
|
| If you are confused by this, try Crusader Kings game by Paradox
| (I prefer ck2 to ck3) for a good taste of multiple types of
| inheritance and problems arising from ruling medieval realm and
| passing all accumulated titles to your heirs.
| mcv wrote:
| The reason it was such a strategic position, is because the
| town was a natural fortress. It's located on top of a high,
| flat rock, which is riddled with tunnels for gun casemates,
| making the town of Luxembourg very hard to take.
|
| It was a vital part of the Spanish Road that the Spanish
| Habsburgs needed to move troops from their lands in Italy to
| the north during the 80 Years War.
| johnwalkr wrote:
| In 1867 by treaty the anything military and the fortress was
| required to be torn down. Kind of a shame, because just a few
| decades later fortresses became almost useless in war. It's a
| bit weird to see the ruins of a fortress and then go to the
| local museum and realize that it was torn down recently
| enough that there are tons of photographs of it. On the other
| hand it allowed the rest of the city centre to be built up.
| pjc50 wrote:
| > (Monarchy is pretty weird in practice.)
|
| Friend of mine back-tested the simple "the next king is the
| first son of the previous king" against the past 1,000 years of
| English kings and found it to be true only half the time.
| NeoTar wrote:
| I did the same - taking only the kings/queens of England
| (i.e. starting with Alfred and ending with Queen Anne,
| ignoring those after the unification of the United Kingdom).
|
| Son is by far the most common (21 from 50), followed by
| brother (6 from 50).
|
| The next two are especially interesting - 5 new monarchs were
| usurpers (i.e. not closely related to the previous monach)
| and 3 times the new monarch was also an old monarch (i.e. a
| previous King was returned to the throne!).
|
| There were 4 or 5 female successions (twice a daughter, twice
| a sister and once a daughter-but-disputed-succession [i.e.
| Matilda]).
|
| Only once does it looks like the succession totally jumped a
| generation, and a grandson succeeded. In every other
| situation it looks like people were in the same generation
| (i.e. brother, sisters, cousins) or one lower (sons,
| daughters, nephews).
|
| And only once did the succession 'jump back' a generation,
| with Richard III succeeding his nephew.
| googlryas wrote:
| I was really hoping that Charles would just be king for a
| day and give it to William thereafter. Get some fresh blood
| in there, as well as a figure that didn't have 50 years of
| somewhat controversial behavior lined up behind them.
| gottorf wrote:
| Did your friend exclude situations where the previous king
| had no sons?
| dalbasal wrote:
| >> Dutch law allowed the throne to pass to a female child, but
| the Grand Duchy was under different laws and was inherited by a
| claimant rather than the new Dutch queen. (Monarchy is pretty
| weird in practice.)
|
| Game of Thrones, with its campy portrayal of regal titles and
| announcements, kind of drives this point home. European
| aristocracy, especially those derived from germanic and other
| barbarian cultures, held titles like collectibles. Lordships
| accrued rather than expanded. The could be dispersed and often
| were.
|
| If you watch Queen Elizebeth coronation, the list of titles
| would shame Daenerys Targaryen. It's quite surreal. Queen of
| Jamaica, Empress of India, Defender of the faith...
|
| Even the 20th century version was not unrelated to real
| politics, but as you go back, this reflected real political
| power and machinations. Every title had different rules,
| different arbiters, and disputes led to actual wars.
| Symbiote wrote:
| Queen Elizabeth II had so many titles they abbreviated them:
|
| (On accession.) "Queen Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of
| God Queen of this Realm and of Her other Realms and
| Territories, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the
| Faith."
|
| (At death.) "Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God of the
| United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of
| Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the
| Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith, and Sovereign of the
| Most Noble Order of the Garter."
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_titles_and_honours_of_.
| ..
| gumby wrote:
| The kings of England also claimed to be Kings of France
| until 1800.
| oblio wrote:
| In 1800 England was closer to becoming a department of
| France, than France joining a personal union under
| England :-))
|
| Of course, life turned out differently, but aristocratic
| claims are quite crazy. Who's the current King of
| Jerusalem, again? :-D
| gumby wrote:
| There's a Hohenzollern (futilely) trying to claw back the
| assets of Prussia.
| dalbasal wrote:
| Maybe in parts of the ceremony. The footage on replay at
| london castle has long (20m+) title read.
| opensource4ever wrote:
| >Head of the Commonwealth
|
| that is no joke, remember back in 80 or 70, when she
| recalled the election results in Australia. Then they had
| the election again, and of course this time the other guy
| won.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _remember back in 80 or 70, when she recalled the
| election results in Australia. Then they had the election
| again, and of course this time the other guy won._
|
| You'd think the queen interfering in an election would
| earn her more than one brief mention in the Wikipedia
| article. But Wiki remembers it differently than you do:
|
| "The leader of the Opposition, Billy Snedden, was
| enthusiastic about the appointment and also agreed to
| reappoint Kerr in five years, were he prime minister at
| the time. Kerr then agreed to take the post, was duly
| appointed by Queen Elizabeth II, and was sworn in on 11
| July 1974."
| aardvark179 wrote:
| Yeah... not exactly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_A
| ustralian_constitutional...
| Symbiote wrote:
| The relevant title for that action would be Queen of
| Australia, but the reality was considerably more
| complicated.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Australian_constitutio
| nal...
| dghughes wrote:
| Basically Governor-General (the Queen's representative of
| a country) John Kerr did it without approval from the
| Queen.
|
| We have the same system here in Canada but if such a
| thing happened here there would be riots in the streets.
| Especially Quebec and First Nations. But really anyone
| would be very mad and we would probably drop the monarchy
| that day tradition or not.
| TMWNN wrote:
| >Basically Governor-General (the Queen's representative
| of a country) John Kerr did it without approval from the
| Queen.
|
| What does this even mean? It's not like G-Gs the world
| over consult with Buckingham Palace before every action.
| Kerr acted as he believed was the correct course. You may
| or may not agree, but the 1975 dismissal was not a case
| of that Governor-General somehow cheating to get away
| with a flagrant violation of the rules G-Gs follow.
|
| More to the point, Australians did not agree with your
| interpretation. The Coalition won the biggest majority in
| history in the federal election called one month after
| the dismissal. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Austra
| lian_federal_electi...>
|
| >We have the same system here in Canada but if such a
| thing happened here there would be riots in the streets.
|
| The same thing _did_ happen in Canada.
| <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King%E2%80%93Byng_affair>
| No riots.
|
| Yet again, a Canadian (thinks he) knows more about other
| countries' affairs than his own. I can guarantee that
| Canadians as a whole were more aware of Trump winning the
| 2016 US presidential election by earning more electoral
| votes than Hillary despite receiving fewer popular votes,
| than the fact that the same thing (of one party forming a
| federal government by winning the most seats, despite
| winning fewer popular votes than another) had happened
| several times in Canadian history, such as in 1979. I
| doubt that this has changed even though this happened
| _again_ in the two most recent federal elections to
| Trudeau 's benefit.
| belval wrote:
| > Yet again, a Canadian (thinks he) knows more about
| other countries' affairs than his own.
|
| On behalf of Canadians I'm sorry about whatever it is
| that we did to make you feel this way.
| gumby wrote:
| Governors General are more than a mere "representative"
| (though they re described that way in my passport), they
| are viceroys (vice kings) so exercise royal prerogatives.
|
| Of course monarchy is nonsense but I have a thing for
| pedantry like this.
|
| TBH the nonsensical nature of monarchy works out for
| Australia, as it costs essentially nothing and sort of
| acts as a ground strap to make the idea of "head of
| state" rather irrelevant. Just compare to countries like
| France or USA where the Head of State gets capital
| letters and is a person with actual power.
|
| Next best would be a president like in Germany who is
| basically a nonentity with less power than a GG.
| oblio wrote:
| > TBH the nonsensical nature of monarchy works out for
| Australia, as it costs essentially nothing and sort of
| acts as a ground strap to make the idea of "head of
| state" rather irrelevant. Just compare to countries like
| France or USA where the Head of State gets capital
| letters and is a person with actual power.
|
| > Next best would be a president like in Germany who is
| basically a nonentity with less power than a GG.
|
| Meh, you're just moving the position 1 rank down. The
| German Chancellor (in other countries, the Prime
| Minister) wields all the power instead.
|
| Plus, you know, they're only presidents. After 4-5-6-7
| (x2 in some cases) years they go away.
| [deleted]
| gumby wrote:
| > Meh, you're just moving the position 1 rank down.
|
| Indeed, that is the point. But the PM can be replaced
| more easily than, and doesn't have the same focus of
| attention of, the head of state. Best is when the two are
| muddled, as in the German case.
|
| I've lived in Australia, USA, France and Germany so have
| some idea of the spectrum of options.
| gottorf wrote:
| The concept under description is effectively Bagehot's
| "dignified" vs. "efficient" parts of government. The head
| of state being the "dignified", the personification of
| the nation, and the head of government being the
| "efficient", the wielder of political power.
|
| I generally favor the American-style presidential system
| over the British-style parliamentary system, but I think
| one flaw of the American one is that it combines the
| roles of the dignified and the efficient, often
| conflicting with each other, into one office.
|
| The French semi-presidential system is a little weird,
| with technically the prime minister being the head of
| government, but the president still wields most of the
| executive power.
| gumby wrote:
| The 5e's constitution was designed for De Gaulle, so de
| facto, the French President wields _all_ the power, even
| quite a bit during "cohabitation". The PM is mainly
| there is be blamed for things and to manage the
| legislature for the president.
| kevinventullo wrote:
| _we would probably drop the monarchy that day tradition
| or not._
|
| I'm not so sure. If that were the case, why not drop it
| now? There is nothing virtuous about the tradition.
| dghf wrote:
| Elizabeth was never Empress of India, not least because India
| became a republic in 1950, two years before her accession.
| arethuza wrote:
| Yes - the title Emperor/Empress of India was abolished in
| 1948:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_of_India
|
| So her father, George VI, was the last Emperor of India.
| pavlov wrote:
| They did love collecting titles. The kings of England also
| claimed the title of King of France until 1802, even though
| they lost the very last enclave on French soil in 1558:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_claims_to_the_French_t.
| ..
| mcv wrote:
| Holy Roman Emperors also pile on the royal titles. King of
| the Germans, king of Italy, on top of their regular titles.
| Charles V was king of Germany, Italy, Spain, Lord of the
| Netherlands, Duke of Burgundy. When he passed half of his
| titles to his brother Ferdinand, he was also king of
| Bohemia, Hungary and Croatia.
|
| And yet somehow there's supposed to be only one real king
| in the Empire (Bohemia).
| sofixa wrote:
| > Charles V
|
| Funnily he was also King of two different Galicias (the
| one in Spain and the other one in Ukraine)
| pavlov wrote:
| Maybe one day some really successful conqueror will be
| king of both Georgias, the one in North America and the
| one in Caucasus.
| kroltan wrote:
| Or maybe a really specific conqueror?
|
| I could bet on what his name would be.
| earthboundkid wrote:
| Drago the Dragon King.
| d-trieu wrote:
| The current King of Sweden decided that he had enough and
| dropped all except King of Sweden from his.
| rags2riches wrote:
| Ever since the Kalmar Union, Denmark has had the Swedish
| national emblem the Three Crowns as part of their Royal
| Coat of Arms. The union ended in 1523.
| dalbasal wrote:
| Bad move. Now it takes one move to dethrone him.
| pavlov wrote:
| He's castled with the Stockholm Royal Palace so there's a
| bishop and knight defending him, at least.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| > The kings of England also claimed the title of King of
| France until 1802, even though they lost the very last
| enclave on French soil in 1558:
|
| I imagine a future where China badly loses an expansionist
| war but continues to identify itself as Protector of Tibet
| for 10 more generations.
|
| Then again I can also imagine a future US Gov rejecting the
| Confederation of Desantia after it's Bugs Bunny style
| secession from the US - and continue to use it's archaic
| name of Florida.
| lgeorget wrote:
| I'm reading again Henry V, by Shakespeare. The first scene
| starts with some realpolitik where the archbishop of
| Canterbury (a Catholic bishop then) distracts the king from
| passing a law that would strip the Church from a large part
| of its wealth and lands by making him go to war against
| France to claim the throne.
| Ichthypresbyter wrote:
| There was a recent incident with the first printing of the
| Book of Common Prayer (the Church of England's official
| prayer book) after the death of Queen Elizabeth II.
|
| The BCP includes both references to the current monarch,
| and to Queen Elizabeth I who ordered it to be compiled.
| Unfortunately someone at the publisher didn't realize this,
| and did a find and replace of (among other things) "King"
| for "Queen" and "Charles" for "Elizabeth", resulting in a
| page that referred to "Our Sovereign Lord CHARLES, by the
| grace of God, of England, France and Ireland, King,
| Defender of the Faith."
| adolph wrote:
| Reminds me of "Parsing Html The Cthulhu Way" [0] except
| for the semantic (meaning) layer instead of the syntactic
| layer.
|
| 0. https://blog.codinghorror.com/parsing-html-the-
| cthulhu-way/
| dkga wrote:
| Wow, I wish I had your ability to synthesise a thousand-year
| history in a few paragraphs in such an interesting and cohesive
| way!
| thatannoyingguy wrote:
| I don't want to be one of those people, but: Woohoo, our tiny
| country has been mentioned on the Internet!
| unixhero wrote:
| Trekking poles are not necessary. Focus on stride, balance and
| core strength.
| draven wrote:
| Shoes are not strictly necessary either, but they help.
| Trekking poles help, and I also need them to pitch my tent, so
| I'll keep them.
| developer93 wrote:
| They come as part of the tent or what? Tell me more I'm
| intrigued.
| widforss wrote:
| Here's an example. This tent is not in production anymore,
| but was sold without poles. UL-hiking often involves
| finding as many uses as possible for as few items as
| possible.
|
| https://hilleberg.com/eng/shelters/rajd/
| _whiteCaps_ wrote:
| https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32965526071.html
|
| If you want a 'cheap' option that uses trekking poles.
| draven wrote:
| Sibling comment gives a good example. I happen to have a
| Durston Gear XMid 2p:
| https://durstongear.com/products/x-mid-2-tent-ultralight-
| bac... .
| globular-toast wrote:
| Where have you walked? How far? How much weight do you carry?
| How old are you?
| unixhero wrote:
| For days in the Norwegian wilderness, Australian outback,
| Japanese mountains.
| globular-toast wrote:
| And..? The details are really important here. I walked
| extensively in Snowdonia, the Lake District and the Peak
| District without poles but only carrying at most 3kg on my
| back. Distance covered in Britain tends to be less because
| the going is tough. 10 miles (16km) in the Peak District
| can be a very long day of walking. I then walked 320km
| across Northern Spain on the Camino Primitivo. Pack was
| more like 12-13kg and days were up to 32km with >2000m of
| elevation change day after day. Pretty much everyone who
| didn't have poles said they wished they had poles. It
| became something of a meme.
| widforss wrote:
| Trekking poles are not necessary. But they are useful, and he
| obviously see a potential use for them. Your comment comes
| across as somewhat rude.
| unixhero wrote:
| I can live with that.
| Agingcoder wrote:
| Many years ago I was traveling around Asia and came across a
| Spanish traveler called Samuel who was walking from Barcelona to
| Kathmandu.
|
| I don't know if he made it, but he made a lasting impression on
| me.
| Agingcoder wrote:
| Edit : he had been in a car accident, and couldn't use his
| right arm.
| rejectfinite wrote:
| [dead]
| famahar wrote:
| I walked across Tokyo last weekend. Took me 20 hours. I suck at
| writing so all I'll say is that everyone should walk across a
| city. It's a magical experience. Turn off your your phone, bring
| a disposable camera and a compass and just walk. You'll discover
| so many personal insights.
| w-m wrote:
| I've often done that in Paris, absolutely enjoyable. Through
| the city proper you only walk a little over two hours north-
| south or east-west. With a few detours to points if interest
| and breaks for coffee it's one of my favorite ways to spend a
| half day.
| throwaway290 wrote:
| Not to invalidate your experience in any way but I think it is
| a special case of walking in _any_ big city you have never been
| before. As long as it is sufficiently dense /walkable and you
| don't need to fear being robbed, it's magical. Taipei, Seoul,
| Bangkok, you name it...
| blululu wrote:
| FWIW, I've walked across San Francisco many times and the
| longer I live there the more I enjoy traversing it. The city
| is beautiful, walkable, filled with nice spots to stop for
| snack/beverage and nearly half the expanse can be covered by
| walking through Golden Gate Park down to the ocean. I can't
| vouch for most cities, but I suspect that a lot of them are
| much less pleasant underfoot.
| pb7 wrote:
| Love walking in San Francisco. Feels very European in that
| regard.
| cdelsolar wrote:
| One of my favorite things to do in SF, and I've done it a
| handful of times, is to rent a bike at the Embarcadero, and
| bike to Sausalito across the Golden Gate Bridge, have ice
| cream at Lappert's, wander around, and take the ferry back.
| Just wonderful days.
| famahar wrote:
| I agree. I hated walking in the city I lived in Canada before
| moving to Tokyo. It wasnt very walkable and you really needed
| to plan for any type of long walk as you might end up in a
| place with no food or drink shops anywhere. The way Tokyo is
| zoned allows for every possible convenience I need within a
| mile of everywhere I walked. I felt extremely safe at all
| times too which made things way less stressful and allowed me
| to be completely in the moment.
| throwaway290 wrote:
| Agreed about mixed zoning, I should've mentioned that too.
| It does not necessarily go hand in hand with walkability,
| you also want to be able to buy eg. water especially if
| it's hot. But I guess it usually comes together with
| density
| lm28469 wrote:
| There is a name for that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derive
| tkgally wrote:
| That's quite a walk! Where did you start and end?
|
| For about ten years, I walked every New Year's Day from my home
| near Yokohama Station to somewhere in Tokyo--Ikebukuro or Ueno
| or Asakusa, about 35 kilometers one way. Very memorable, as you
| say.
|
| I don't think I would do it in the summer, though.
| famahar wrote:
| Started in Hachioji and ended at the start of Chiba
| prefecture. The heat made it tough. I was thinking about
| doing a walk from Tamagawa station to Yokohama this weekend.
| I love seeing what's between all the stations and building up
| a new mental map of the area.
| ninjin wrote:
| Indeed, I was about to comment on it being a lovely and
| enjoyable idea to stroll through Tokyo. But doing so with
| peak temperatures in the mid-30s may make it much more
| challenging as I know I personally would need to dive into
| convenience stores now and then just to cool down.
|
| Seconding building a mental map of the city, although I did
| so by biking for many many years. Only took a few weeks to
| feel confident about getting pretty much anywhere in Tokyo
| on a bike.
| resolutebat wrote:
| If, on the other hand, you experience Tokyo mostly by
| train/subway, your mental map is a bunch of islands, and
| it can be weird when you walk your way from one to
| another and suddenly your mental compass shifts. For the
| longest time, I thought the Hachiko crossing was east of
| Shibuya station, and my mind was blown when I walked to
| Shibuya from Roppongi and realized I had it backwards.
| johnwalkr wrote:
| My mental model of Tokyo changed a lot when rental
| scooters became available. Especially traveling East-
| West, there are a lot of places much closer together than
| you'd think from the subway maps.
| ghaff wrote:
| Especially in areas where a lot of subway lines get close
| together, subway maps often expand the area so you can be
| better see the stations/relationship between the lines. I
| tended to mostly take the subway into Boston as an
| undergrad and generally only walked in a fairly small
| area of the city. I remember once doing multiple line
| changes and realizing afterwards that my destination was
| about 3 blocks from where I started.
| tkgally wrote:
| Yes, building a mental map was one of my original
| motivations for walking from Yokohama to Tokyo. When I
| did the walk for the first time, in 2006, I was working
| in Tokyo and had traveled between it and my home in
| Yokohama hundreds of times, but only by train. I worried
| that, if I were in Tokyo when a big earthquake struck, I
| wouldn't be sure about the best route for walking home.
| After walking the other direction a couple of times, I
| stopped worrying about that.
|
| On the day when I could have actually put my newly
| acquired geographical sense to good use--March 11, 2011--
| I happened to leave for Osaka a few hours before the
| quake struck. All of my colleagues either walked home or
| slept in the office that night, while I had a comfortable
| hotel room in Namba.
| tkgally wrote:
| You might want to start in Yokohama and walk north to
| Tamagawa Station. Then you won't have the sun in your eyes
| so much. (That factor is more important to consider in the
| winter, though, when the sun is low and the sky is often
| very clear.)
|
| Enjoy your walk! I did that route only once, and it might
| be the nicest one. My usual route was parallel to the
| Keihin Tohoku Line--Tsurumi, Kawasaki, Kamata, Omori,
| Shinagawa, etc. A bit industrial, but not bad on New Year's
| Day.
|
| There aren't many possible routes because there are very
| few bridges over the Tama River.
| gghhzzgghhzz wrote:
| That's a far far bigger endevour than my efforts.. but I do
| love walking from a city to the airport, dragging my carry-on
| if necessary.
|
| The last part can be a bit stressful, as airport terminals are
| not always made for pedestrian access. But it's very satisfying
| to feel like you have 'escaped' a city under your own steam as
| it kind of falls apart and back together.
| rjh29 wrote:
| That sounds fun.
|
| I'd recommend Kyoto too. I cycled around it a lot but never got
| tired of the little side streets, temples and older houses.
| cdelsolar wrote:
| I walked across most of Barcelona a few years ago, fantastic
| experience. On the few solo journeys I've made I get a ton of
| walking in like this, but yeah, you definitely need a rest day
| or two.
| pengaru wrote:
| I've walked across SF multiple times, it is fun, but maybe
| doesn't qualify being not even 10 miles. A fit person can
| easily run it.
| developer93 wrote:
| If you want to keep your phone on, street complete can be very
| rewarding, especially in places with not so much osm coverage.
| abdusco wrote:
| Thank you so much. I read about this app here, but I couldn't
| find it later when I moved to Germany. I'll use the shit out
| of this app.
| famahar wrote:
| Great idea! Will be taking this on all my long walks. Tokyo
| is lovely for this. Neighborhoods are so dense.
| arcanemachiner wrote:
| https://streetcomplete.app/
| developer93 wrote:
| Haha that would have been helpful to include. Thanks for
| picking up my slack!
| sph wrote:
| If one cannot afford to travel, videos such as these are a good
| alternative:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgfd-uWTVwg (Kyoto under the
| rain)
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgYPErtoljI (A stroll in a
| small town near Tokyo)
| jvm___ wrote:
| This was my early pandemic habit. Watch a long, walking only,
| YouTube video of some far off place. The best ones had no
| talking, just the ambient sounds and sometimes a on-screen
| note about something you were looking at.
|
| The fascinating thing was watching pre-pandemic videos and
| your own response to groups of people and hearing coughs
| inside buildings.
| sph wrote:
| Yeah those videos kept a lot of us sane. My jam was Martijn
| Doolaard's series of him restoring a rustic country house
| in the Italian Alps.
|
| I still put that on on days where city and modern living is
| too much and I need to remember what being in nature feels
| like.
|
| I strongly recommend it to anyone.
| tasuki wrote:
| > need to remember what being in nature feels like
|
| Have you considered... being in nature instead?
|
| An audiovisual experience, no matter how great, will
| always miss the smell, touch, and taste of actual nature.
| The_Colonel wrote:
| What was the distance? Tokyo seems immense and seems difficult
| to cross efficiently (you have to make a lot of small detours).
| famahar wrote:
| Total was 90km. It was a mostly straight shot from west edge
| of tokyo to the east edge passing through central tokyo. It's
| one of many routes and I only saw a small slice of it. It's a
| bit of a labyrinth at times if you don't stick to the main
| roads. I hit a lot of roadblocks and winding paths through
| residential areas. I didn't want to overplan though. Getting
| lost was part of the goal. All I knew was that I had to head
| east.
| tetrep wrote:
| While a compass helps with orientation, it doesn't help you
| find where you are or where you're going, so a map might be a
| good addition (or a replacement, as I find it pretty trivial to
| orient myself in a city when given a map).
|
| Why a disposable camera? I would think any user preferred
| camera would be fine, even a cell phone (just put it in
| airplane mode to avoid distractions).
| famahar wrote:
| With a disposable you'll need to be more intentional about
| how you want to capture moments. You only have 20 shots and
| no extra features to create the "best" shot. You begin to
| really value moments when you know that it'll make the cut
| for one of the 20. And you don't over think it. Just a quick
| snap is all you can do. Every shot matters but at the same
| time doesn't.
| gottorf wrote:
| As someone who used to be very into photography, there are
| two other artistic advantages of a disposable camera or
| film cameras in general.
|
| One, that you cannot see the photo you just took; it makes
| you more careful with your framing (similarly to your point
| about only having so many shots), and further helps you
| stay connected to the scene, instead of "chimping" the shot
| you just took.
|
| Two, that because there is a period of time elapsed between
| when you take the shots and when you get back the results
| after the film has been processed, there is an additional
| delight factor when you get your photos back, and it can
| help you see your shots in a different light.
|
| It's an interesting phenomenon that a technically superior
| implementation don't always mean the artistically superior
| implementation. Of course, a working photographer (working
| in news or sports) will sensibly choose the technically
| superior implementation; but the dilettante has more
| options, and I encourage all of them to explore those
| options.
| tetrep wrote:
| Ah, okay. I'm pretty judicious with my camera use anyway so
| I didn't realize people needed help with that.
| creole_wither wrote:
| [dead]
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| TIL disposable cameras are still available, and apparently
| quite popular for weddings.
| ianburrell wrote:
| I'm surprised they are still a thing of weddings now that
| everyone has smartphones. Maybe they are considered
| nostalgic for the period before smartphones and digital
| cameras. Or maybe there is no good way to share photos
| from guests.
| gullywhumper wrote:
| For my 30th birthday a group of friends and I walked the
| perimeter of Manhattan island. Except for a section along the
| Harlem river, there are paths along the water the entire way so
| it required almost no navigation. We picked up and dropped off
| friends along way that only wanted to do parts of the walk. And
| we stopped at several bars too, meeting other friends that just
| wanted to have a drink. We started at 8am and finished just
| after 4am. I would definitely do it again, even without the
| friends or bars - but they definitely made it a memorable
| adventure.
| screye wrote:
| Manhattan is my favorite city to walk in alone.
|
| Manhattan can be enjoyed without ever bringing your gaze to
| the ground level. The diversity of architecture means that
| every block feels fresh. World renowned classics, the sheer
| scale of central park and the greatest hits of art-deco. Pair
| that with new spots like the Highline, Hudson yards, Little
| island.... and it keeps on giving.
|
| And then you come back down to earth and Manhattan also
| happens to be the best city for people watching. What a
| delight !
| mcntsh wrote:
| I really do not like walking in Manhattan. The city blocks
| are so short so you're constantly having to cross hectic
| streets, an the grid nature of the city means you're pretty
| much walking in long, straight lines. In my opinion, it's
| hectic and at the same time monotonous.
| prisoner3986 wrote:
| [dead]
| gcanyon wrote:
| I've biked that route several times, but I bet we got
| entirely different impressions due to travel method.
| cpursley wrote:
| You can't really walk across North American cities, they just
| don't have the pedestrian infrastructure.
| macintux wrote:
| Sadly true. I've walked miles across parts of Indianapolis
| where I've been at significant risk of being hit. No
| sidewalk, and bridges are hair-raising.
| tornato7 wrote:
| Most cities have a coastline or a river that you can walk a
| great distance along.
| wink wrote:
| I was a bit surprised that Luxembourg is actually quite a bit
| bigger than I had thought, especially as I wasn't too far off
| with the population. In my mind it wasn't SO much bigger than the
| other small European countries it's often lumped together with.
| Time to visit, I guess :P
| TacticalCoder wrote:
| > I was a bit surprised that Luxembourg is actually quite a bit
| bigger than I had thought
|
| I live in Luxembourg now and it's not _that_ small. There are
| actually various little cities and going, say, from _Luxembourg
| city_ to _Esch-sur-Alzette_ , driving on the highway (even if
| it's only for a short while), feels like going to another city.
|
| It sure feels funny to go to, say, IKEA, which takes 15 minutes
| or so knowing that the IKEA store is in... Another country! (I
| go to the one in Belgium)
|
| It's a complete change for me: last year I was in a rural area
| (in France) and the closest highway was a 50 minutes drive or
| so.
| koyote wrote:
| It's four times larger than Singapore!
| ianburrell wrote:
| I think Luxembourg gets combined with European micro-states,
| Andorra, San Marino, Vatican City, etc. But it is quite a bit
| bigger than them. Luxembourg is 5x bigger than Andorra and 3.5x
| smaller than Cyprus.
| globular-toast wrote:
| I've now completed several multi-day walks. At some point I plan
| to walk across Britain on the Coast to Coast path. I've walked
| across Spain and Gran Canaria. Maybe I should write those up on
| my blog...
| MHM5000 wrote:
| definitely do that!
| ghaff wrote:
| There are a lot of good long distance walks in the UK. Not
| having done the coast-to-coast personally, I will say I've
| heard from various people that the part in the middle of the
| country is less interesting than the two ends given the
| highways etc.
| euroderf wrote:
| Eager to read similar about Lichtenstein, Andorra, San Marino.
| zserge wrote:
| I hike across Liechtenstein from time to time. A very light but
| picturesque set of trails for one day (30-50km). I usually
| start at the south border in a Switzerland town, cross the
| country up north and enter Austria.
|
| On a much lighter category, someone "hiked" Monaco in a
| straight line: https://magamig.github.io/posts/crossing-an-
| entire-country-i...
| lb1lf wrote:
| ...and The Vatican! (I had a beer in Rome, then strolled across
| The Vatican and three minutes later had another beer in
| Rome...)
| johannes1234321 wrote:
| Issue with the Vatican in this context so, that major parts
| of it are blocked off for the public.
| CastFX wrote:
| I live in San Marino, let me chime in!
|
| The historic center, which is called San Marino Citta, is a
| gorgeous medieval town and it's also part of UNESCO heritage. I
| definitely recommend a trip there, if you happen to be
| somewhere near.
|
| When I went to school there, I regularly missed the bus so I
| had the chance of doing a few walks down to my home. It's a bit
| steep, since the town is located at the top of mount Titano at
| 700m of height, but it's truly charming.
| euroderf wrote:
| When I tried to buy stamps direct from SM back in the 70s,
| and addressed mail to the SM post office, my local (USA) post
| office did not believe that there was a country with that
| name. He went thru their giant post office reference book and
| hey there it was !
| mdrzn wrote:
| You could probably walk across and around the whole of San
| Marino in less than a full day.
| yread wrote:
| ... and Monaco. Choose one of the roads higher up on the cliffs
| smetj wrote:
| Great read and endeavour. What a fantastic region to hike, drink
| the finest beers with some smoked ham and enjoy the golden hour.
| 2 other great and well documented trails are the Eisleck trail
| and Escapardenne Lee Trail.
|
| Happy trails!
| coldtea wrote:
| Sounds more impressive if you don't know Luxembourg is at max 50
| miles long...
| not_alexb wrote:
| Wow. As someone who has driven from LA to Seattle without
| breaks quite a few times (which is around 1,000 miles), that
| really puts in perspective how small Europe can be at times. I
| guess that shouldn't be surprising as that's similar to the
| distance between Berlin and Moscow.
| KineticLensman wrote:
| There is a popular coast-to-coast walk in the UK that runs
| across the top of England that is approx 100 miles in a
| straight line. No-one in Britain is more than about 70 miles
| from the sea.
| airblade wrote:
| But those 70 miles can take a disproportionately long time!
| petepete wrote:
| GeoWizard (a GeoGuessr expert YouTuber) dribbed a
| football the whole way in under 24 hours for charity.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzNsfDwhZLM
| offices wrote:
| And you might want to steer clear of your closest beach
| mrpopo wrote:
| That comparison makes no sense. Hawaii island is 100km large
| and it doesn't say anything about how small the US are.
| varjag wrote:
| Well yeah, Luxembourg is smaller than basically entire US
| Pacific Coast for sure. Most places are.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _that really puts in perspective how small Europe can be at
| times_
|
| Well, Europe is not exactly small. Luxemburg is just a small
| country.
|
| Europe is 3.93 million sq mi. The contiguous US is 3.1
| million square miles (3.6 if we include Alaska) [1]. So
| Europe is quite bigger. The European Union countries alone
| are over 50% of the contiguous US.
|
| So that would be like judging the US as small by considering
| how small Rhode Island is (which is roughly the size of
| Luxemburg).
|
| > _I guess that shouldn 't be surprising as that's similar to
| the distance between Berlin and Moscow._
|
| Well, Berlin is almost centered in Europe, and Moscow is in
| the very east of Russia, so that's not very surprising. On
| the other hand, "the European route E45 (...) with a length
| of about 3,225 mi is the longest north-south European route
| (some east-west routes are longer)".
|
| For comparison NY to LA is 2,790 miles (so shorter than
| that), and even Portland, Maine to San Diego is 3,090 miles
| (again shorter).
|
| [1] With an area of 10.2 million km2 (3,938,000 sq mi),
| Europe is 20% larger than the contiguous United States. The
| European Union has an area (without the UK) of over 4.23
| million km2 (1.6 million sq mi). How many countries are there
| in Europe? Europe is shared by 50 countries.
| Cockbrand wrote:
| > Moscow is in the very east of Russia
|
| I'm confused, did you mean to say that Moscow is in the
| very _West_ of Russia?
| coldtea wrote:
| Yes, west.
|
| (Well, technically not the very very west, but pretty
| close given the scale of that country).
| Cockbrand wrote:
| Thanks! Geography isn't my strength, so I was genuinely
| confused :)
| yreg wrote:
| Could be perhaps done as one of the easier straight line
| missions[0].
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeoWizard#Cross-
| country_missio...
| c-fe wrote:
| It was attempted/done already though i dont remember their
| success: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83fEtvKVVVw
|
| In general, as a luxembourger, i am intrigued by doing it,
| though there are several hurdles: - lots of villages, with
| gardens you cant walk through - various highways that are
| illegal to cross probably, and dangerous, though feasible. -
| some big cliffs that are very dangerous. I refer to some of the
| images in the original post
| jvdvegt wrote:
| He links to a very nice government site which seems to have an
| interactive (and somehow coloured) Lidar map of the whole country
| [1]. Navigation is a bit awkward (you need to double-click to
| move around), but you can almost make out car models!
|
| [1] https://lidar.geoportail.lu/
| tda wrote:
| Indeed https://github.com/potree/potree has a bit awkward
| navigation, but there are quite a few nice lidar datasets
| available to explore with it, like the scan of the Matterhorn.
| I once used it to explore a dataset made by a photogrammetry
| drone, was quite nice.
|
| The entire country of the Netherlands is also available here:
| http://ahn2.pointclouds.nl/ There is no rgb information, only
| elevation. But you can make out individual power powerlines,
| the scan resolution is really high.
| Scarblac wrote:
| AHN2 was measured between 2007 and 2012. AHN3 from 2014 to
| 2019 and I believe AHN4 is actually complete now (measured
| from 2021 to 2022?).
|
| Better resolution, more up to date -- but I don't know of
| such a nice point cloud viewer for it.
| tda wrote:
| Indeed, but the only viewer for ahn4 I know of is some
| crappy arcgis site.
| elAhmo wrote:
| This is quite amazing, thanks for these links. Do you have
| any more info about how was this performed? What is it used
| for?
| victormarcel wrote:
| [flagged]
| [deleted]
| codr7 wrote:
| I'd definitely recommend poles.
|
| They enable using the entire body when walking and act as
| additional points of balance which means you don't have to focus
| as much on just staying upright, it's like having two extra legs
| attached at your elbows.
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| That and memory foam / gel pads in your shoes. I walk a lot
| since the lock down and I've had knee issues in the past. Good
| gel pads help and using your knees with light exercise actually
| improves things. I Mostly wear sneakers. Hiking shoes tend to
| be a bit more rigid and have less shock absorption.
|
| The poles might help as well. Nordic walking, is a thing that a
| lot of cross country skiers do in Scandinavia to stay in shape
| during the summer. Also nice for people with balance issues or
| weak backs of course. Done properly, it makes for an intensive
| workout.
| developer93 wrote:
| Nordic walking seems to be popular among people of late
| middle age in Germany too.
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