Final Greenbelt Highlights

The success of Greenbelt is largely down to two very important groups of people. The first is the huge band of over 1500 volunteers who work cheerfully over the weekend, and indeed the whole year, looking after every aspect of the festival from fire watching to serving in the beer tent. We admire them greatly and they truly deserve the biggest of bear hugs.

The second group are the angels who safeguard the festival by regular financial giving. Their giving now provides 15% of the festival's income which means, above all, that it's a certainty that Greenbelt 2008 will be able to go ahead (yippee!) In fact we've already bought our tickets and are counting down the days already!

As this was our third year of attending we thought it was about time we signed up as Greenbelt angels. One of the immediate rewards was the 3 free bars of Divine (fair trade) chocolate we were given. It was scrummy and easily in the same league as Nutella!

Bris marked the occasion of becoming angels with an angel photo - we always reckon he's the most angelic out of all of us. Hope you like it.


Another Greenbelt marvel was the fantastic animal kites which were flown by professionals on the last day of the festival.

These were simply huge kites and the air was full of them. They were really colourful and realistic and above all extremely characterful.


We were quite simply entranced and would have stayed there all day watching them if there hadn't been so many other interesting things going on. They were so big that we didn't have the strength in our arms to have a go at flying them ourselves but we enjoyed chatting to the men who did.


Our favourites were the giant lizard and the turtle. Unfortunately the turtle had just crash landed as we took our photo, but don't worry, he was soon back up in the air.

We were sad when it was time to go home, but we're sure the year will fly by and we will be packing for Greenbelt 2008 before we know it.

Lots of love, George, Yorkie, Bris, Chelmer, Rocco, Randolph & Benji xxx

More Greenbelt Highlights

Greenbelt 2007 easily lived up to expectations and the whole weekend was full of lovely experiences. The weather was great, not a drop of rain fell and our suntan lotion got a lot of use.

We made several visits to main stage to bop along to some great music. Here we are on Friday night listening to Billy Bragg who was on good form.


In our next photo at mainstage you won't be able to make out much but we like the colour and atmosphere we captured in our picture.


We became fans of two bands that we'd not heard of before: Over the Rhine and Dukes Special. We really recommend their music if you come across them. We also thought the 3 ladies who performed as Hummingbird were lovely and their music was exquisite.

We can't remember seeing so many people in one place as there were at the Sunday morning Communion service. Fortunately there was still room for us although sadly George did get his paw trodden on. Here we are waiting for the service to start.


Our balloons were all released at a particular point in the service and it was an amazing sight as hundreds of red balloons were all released together. As it was a windy day they had travelled a long way in the time it took us to grab our camera. You might need to enlarge our picture to see them all flying away. Our green readers may like to know they were biodegradable.


More pictures and highlights tomorrow, so keep reading.

Lots of love, the Greenbelt campers xxx

When 2 Blogs Meet (it could only happen at Greenbelt!)

We haven't quite finished our Poland adventures, but we've had such great excitement this weekend we simply can't wait to tell you about it.

We've had a fantastic long weekend at Greenbelt, a mega arts festival held at Cheltenham racecourse. We arrived on Friday morning and have only just got back, which just goes to show how much there is to see and do there! We camped under the bear flag which flew proudly for the whole weekend.


Greenbelt is always a special place and one of the highlights of our year, but this year it was even more special than the last 2 years we've been, as we met someone we've been waiting a whole year to meet. Can you guess who? Yes, it was our friend Naughty Bear whose blog we discovered at Greenbelt last year and which was the inspiration for our own blog.

Our regular readers with good memories will recall that we'd seen Bear last year having his picture taken but we'd been too shy to say hello. After reading his blog all year and exchanging emails and comments, he's become a real virtual friend, so when we found out he was coming to Greenbelt 2007 we hoped we'd get a chance to meet.

There are thousands and thousands of people at Greenbelt and we bears are too short to see very far ahead, so keeping an eye out for Bear seemed a bit like looking for a needle in a haystack. However, some things are just meant to be, don't you think, and on Saturday evening we literally passed each other.

We were far from shy this year and rushed up to say hello and introduce ourselves.


And here we all are chatting happily and exchanging bear hugs. It was simply great to meet bear and his nutella gatherer and we had loads to talk about. Having virtual friends is great but meeting them in the fur is even better!

Bear has been doing some great postings about Greenbelt and has lots of photos which capture the spirit of this great festival so well, so have a read of his blog which you can easily reach by using the link to Where's Bear in our friends blog spots section.

We'll report on the rest of the weekend soon.

Lots of love George, Yorkie, Chelmer, Rocco and Bris xxx

More New Friends

After our rafting trip we were very hungry, so we found ourselves a pleasant Slovakian restaurant to try a traditional meal of bread dumplings and goulash. It was hearty fare and it went down very well. It certainly stopped us being grizzly bears. After our refuelling it was time to make some new friends. First had to be a local bear. He was giving one of the locals such a big bear hug that we had to sit patiently and wait our turn. He was a lot bigger than us but we reminded ourselves that 'size isn't everything' and so we didn't feel in any way inferior. Were we wrong not to be scared, given how close we were sitting to those teeth?


The next friendly looking local who we stopped to greet, was one of the boatmen. He didn't look quite as modern as the two chaps who had poled us an hour or so earlier, but we bet with his age and experience he had a tale or two to tell.


Unfortunately we didn't have time to hang around to listen to his tales, as it was time to cycle along the Pieniny Way, a cycle path carved out of the cliff running the whole length of the Dunajec Gorge which we had seen from the raft earlier. Only cyclists and walkers can use the path so it was great to cycle away from the traffic and have time to stop and enjoy the spectacular scenery.

At the end of the way, we crossed back into Poland. There were some border guards at this crossing point but they were too interested in their conversation to give our bearports more than a cursory glance and no stamp was offered.

That evening we stayed in a spa town with another rather unpronounceable name - Szczawanica. Here we found a great squirrel - he was great not only in personality but also in size. We wasted no time making his acquaintance in the hope he would tell us the best places to visit and the best restaurant to eat in.


Lots of love, George, Yorkie and squirrel xxx

Lets Run those Rapids

We promised yesterday that we would tell you about our rafting trip. This was the highlight of our day out in Slovakia.

Before we could go rafting though, the raft had to arrive on a lorry, in bits, and be put together. This is because the trip is one way, owing to the fast moving water and stretches of white water.


The raft sections were slid off the top of the lorry along a couple of poles and two men had to catch the sections in mid flight before they crashed into the ground. It was a bit scary and we made sure we didn't get in the way.

Strapping the sections together on the river was a rather more straightforward operation and we were happy to lend a paw with the finishing touch - sprigs of fur to keep splashes from coming in the raft. In reality, as it was a real scorcher of a day, we could have done without these splash guards although they did make the raft look traditional.


As we got under way on our trip through the simply beautiful Dunajec Gorge we discovered that our seating position wasn't really that comfortable and we kept slipping down the gap between the raft sections. You've got to agree we don't look too relaxed in our next picture.


After a chat with our friendly Slovakian polers we soon discovered a better solution. They suggested we make ourselves a comfortable nest at the front of the raft using their traditional waistcoats, which it was too hot to wear, as cushioning. We found this very comfortable and it enabled us to make the most of the breeze and any splashes which came aboard as we were expertly manoeuvred through some fairly exciting stretches of white water.


The only drawback, only a slight one, was that we got to see everything backwards and it was quite hard to keep our eyes open.

Lots of love George & Yorkie xxx

Border Crossings

Our cycling route in Poland took us along the river (with an unpronouncable name) which marks the border between Poland and Slovakia. Naturally we couldn't be that close to a country we'd not visited before and not take the opportunity to put a paw over the border to give us another notch on the belt, so to speak.


Here you see us pausing at the border to get our bearports out. Actually if you cross over this very fine new bridge they're not needed as there were no officials in sight. Sadly this meant we couldn't get a stamp for our collection.

Our guide Jakub told us that since this bridge crossing has been opened lots of Slovakians come across at 7.00 a.m. in the morning and buy up all the Polish sausage in the shops as it is superior to Slovakian sausage. Having thoroughly enjoyed our Bigos we can vouch for how good it is! This bulk buying upsets the local Poles as by the time they get to the shops there is no sausage left. In the return the Poles cross over to buy beer and vodka as the Slovakian varieties are reported to be better. We thought we'd better test out this theory with a pint of Slovakian beer and can confirm it was very different - possibly superior but there again there isn't much beer we don't like!


Before we went on a rafting trip, which we'll tell you about tomorrow, we visited the Red Monastery. Here you see us admiring the buildings which are now empty as the monks have moved out. Can you see us?

The grounds were very good for relaxing and doing a bit of sunbathing while we snoozed off our lunchtime beer. Quite by accident, our photo of us relaxing has managed to capture the three peaks of Trzy Korony (Three Crowns) which are the highest peaks in the Pieniny national park. We have to confess not noticing them at the time but at least having them in the photo we can share them with you now.


Lots of love George & Yorkie xxx

What's in Your Lunch Box Returns

Our favourite blogging topic of 'What's in your lunch box?' is back, this time with a Polish flavour.

We are delighted to report that eating out in Poland can be very cheap, especially if you choose traditional Polish dishes - and who wouldn't want to do so? - after all you can't go to Poland and eat fish & chips!

Because it is such good value, there is no reason not to eat our for lunch as well as for dinner. As far as we're concerned, eating lunch out beats making sandwiches any day and provides a proper rest for aching legs (it also offers the opportunity to have a nice cold beer!)


We tried quite a lot of Polish lunch dishes but our favourite was bigos which we're eating in our picture. Bigos is Poland's national dish and is also known as hunters stew (quite appropriate for bears we thought). Incidentally, have we told you that there are bears in the Tatra mountains which surrounded us as we cycled? Sadly we didn't see any but this may have had something to do with the fact that we tried to avoid cycling too far uphill into the mountains.

Back to bigos! It is a savoury stew of sauerkraut, cabbage and meat, including lots of Polish sausage in a lovely tomato-y sauce and you eat it with fresh bread. It's simply delicious and as we have just looked up the recipe on the internet we can have a go at making it at home.

While we were searching for a recipe we found a bigos poem that we rather liked and thought we might share with you.

"Bigos is no ordinary dish,
For it is aptly framed to meet your wish.
Founded upon good cabbage, sliced and sour,
Which, as men say, by its own zest and power
Melts in one's mouth, it settles in a pot
And its dewy bosom folds a lot
Of the best portions of selected meats;
Scullions parboil it then, until heat
Draws from its substance all the living juices,
And from the pot's edge, boiling fluid sluices
And all the air is fragrant with its scent."

Adam Mickiewicz - Pan Tadeusz (1834)

Lots of love George & Yorkie xxx

Kings of the Castle

While the reason for us being in Poland was to see the country from two wheels, it was good, now and again, to have a break from cycling to do some sightseeing and to find out more about the history and heritage of this great country.


Quite early in the week we cycled to a castle where the Hungarian nobility used to live when the part of Poland we were passing through was part of Hungary. This was the castle of Niedzica and a very fine castle it was too.

The cannon outside the castle was a bit of a disappointment though especially to Yorkie who fancied impressing the rest of our group with his human cannonball stunt.


As you can see the barrel had been filled in with wood. We did think about burning it out so Yorkie could do his stunt but we decided that was a bit drastic and as it was a boiling hot day we simply hadn't got the energy.

As it was so hot we were able to take advantage of the fact that the castle was situated on the edge of a big reservoir and go for a swim. Although reservoir swimming is often prohibited at home, for obvious reasons, it was o.k. to swim in this Polish reservoir - we weren't breaking any rules. Mind you, our fur was so sweaty from the heat and the the 3km uphill pedal we'd just done that the water would have needed a good clean and filter once we'd been it! The cool off, though, was just what we needed and made us feel like new bears again.

Lots of love George & Yorkie xxx

Rural Life Refreshes Us

We certainly liked the pace of life in the Polish countryside. No-one seemed to be in too much of a hurry and we saw some great examples of old tractors and agricultural machinery.

We found this old waggon in the grounds of our hotel and thought it would make a great backdrop for a photo. Can you find us in the picture?


We were also very impressed by the craftsmanship of the Polish people. We've already shown you some of the great old wooden houses in Zakopane. We also visited some amazing wooden churches and a village where so many of the houses were made of wood that the village is in fact an open-air museum of timber architecture. This gave us a great opportunity to get a close up look at the houses without being accused of trespassing. We found a loveley wooden step in the sun and took the opportunity to do some sunbathing and have a post lunch snooze.


It's a pity no-one told us about the dog though. Our relaxing reverie ended quite abruptly when a fearsome hound came on the scene!

We lived the tell the next tale though so keep reading.

Lots of love George & Yorkie xxx

Meet the Yetis

There was one thing about Poland that intrigued us massively for a while: was their T.V. reception really that bad!! After all we were still in Europe.

Look at the following picture to see what we mean:


You really needed to have been there to understand our confusion, but if you click on our picture to enlarge it, things should become clearer. All those crossed stakes in the field looked exactly like T.V. aerials.

It was only as our cycle ride progressed that the penny dropped. There is probably nothinn wrong with Polish TV reception, not that we tried it ourselves as we wouldn't have understood a word. These were all supports for hay stacks and being an area of rich meadowland there was plenty of hay about to be harvested. In fact some had been harvested which is how we found out the real use.


We thought they looked rather like yetis, or how we imagine a yeti would look. If we did meet one and they looked as friendly as this we wouldn't worry!

Lots of love George & Yorkie xxx

Our Hansel & Gretel Experience

Guess what?! After we got back on our bikes after our amazing ski jump, and pedalled round the corner, we came across a smaller ski jump specifically for children and novices. If only we'd known! Mind you, we're glad we did the real thing proving we are 'real' bears.

After that adrenalin rush we needed a bit of sedate activity. Our leader Jackub had just the right thing for us. He took us to see some of the oldest buildings in Zakopane and they are quite amazing as they are all made from wood and are very beautiful. How's this for an example (don't spend too much time looking for us, we took the photo so are not in it).


Hopefully you can see us in our next picture which shows us investigating a lovely old wooden well. We thought it might be nice to have a shower to cool off after our ski jump exertions, but unfortunately either the well was dry, or we hadn't got quite the right technique (or strength!)


From here we went on to a traditional Highland restaurant (Polish, not Scottish). This was none too soon as we were ravenous after all our exertions. We were very intrigued by the furry trousers the Highlanders wear as part of their traditional costume. We wondered if they were trying to be bear like.

Keep reading for more exciting adventures.

Lots of love, George & Yorkie xxx

The Eagles Take to the Air

We soon discovered that we needn't have worried about our fellow tour members being bear friendly as cycling seems to attract a bear friendly clientele. At the appointed rendezvous place and time we heard a friendly voice asking who was ready to go cycling and our Polish tour leader Jackub introduced himself.


Jackub was a great leader as a) as you can see he likes bears b) being Polish he speaks great Polish which is very useful especially when we found that the few words we had learnt, we weren't pronouncing correctly and c) he loves his country, so was the perfect person to tell us all about it.

Once all the group were assembled we headed by bus for Zakopane at the foot of the Tatra mountains taking our bikes in a big trailer, making us quite a long vehicle.

Zakopane is very beatiful and a favourite holiday spot of Poles, Germans and Russians, obviously not of the Brits as we didn't hear a single British voice while we were there.

In the winter Zakopane is a very busy ski resort. Perhaps not surprisingly, therefore, one of the first things we saw on our warm up cycle ride round the town was the world famous ski jump. We had no idea it would be so big and it looked simply terrifying (our photo just doesn't capture the fearsome aspect). Nevertheless there was a certain allure, and while our minds said 'no way!' our legs voted otherwise, and the next thing we knew we were at the top of the jump trying to spot our minders and give them a wave so they didn't miss our jump.


It's just such a shame that we are too small to show up on the photo our minders took after Yorkie had the brainwave of phoning them up and giving them the shock of their lives by saying we were about to jump.

Action bear Chelmer is really proud of us. We don't think we've ever done anything as scary though as that jump. Perhaps the experts get used to it ... we think that would take us a very long time!

Lots of love George & Yorkie 'The eagles' xxx

Breakfast Dining Polish Style

After enjoying a great first night out in Poland it was time to try our first Polish breakfast (oh dear, that sounds as if we stayed out all night, which we didn't, we did get to try out our large and comfortable Polish bed!)

We had to stand on the buffet table to see everything that was on offer as we are too short to see if we stand on the ground. We did make sure our paws were clean though before we stood on the nice white table cloth.


Being Norfolk bears we weren't too sure about all the various cheeses, salads, eggs in mayonnaise etc. for breakfast. We're sure they're very nice, but it was a just bit too early in the day for us. We settled therefore, for a bit of a compromise, bread rolls, ham, jam and yoghurt. This was very satisfactory washed down with some orange juice. The tea wasn't so good though as we had to use flasks of hot water which isn't at the boiling point required for a proper English cup of tea. When will they learn?!

Well fortified, and feeling we'd got enough material for the staying in Krakow chapter of the Friendly Planet Guide, we checked out the hotel and set off to meet our tour leader and the rest of the tour group. We hoped we'd like them and they'd be bear friendly!

Lots of love, George & Yorkie xxx

Not Square, but in the Square!

We were pleased to find that our hotel was only 10 minutes walk from the old town of Krakow with it's fine medieval square, known to the initiated as Rynek Glowny. This is actually the biggest square of any medieval city in Europe and as it covers 10 acres we thought it was a bit too big to explore by paw so we found the perfect alternative transport.


It was perfect as it was green in more ways than one. Not only was it a bold green colour it was electrically powered therefore very environmentally friendly. We couldn't persuade our minders to join us, but we did persuade the tour guide to let us drive. We thought it would be better if she concentrated on telling us all there was to know about Krakow rather than her driving.

As we were power assisted in our exploration, unlike our minders who were exploring on foot, we finished our tour first, but had no problems entertaining ourselves while we waited for them.

First there was the excellent street entertainment. We were spoiled for choice but our favourite was the Rzeszow Klesmer Band who really got our toes tapping with their vibrant and upbeat European music. We thought they were so good we bought their CD and then we thought we would help their street collection by sitting on their music case and looking appealing.


We made a point of clapping loudly at the end of each piece so the passers by would get the message that this music was really good.

The other way of passing the time waiting for our minders, was one that comes very naturally to us. Bet you can't guess what we did!


Yes, we made ourselves comfortable with a beer in one of Krakow old town's 600+ bars (needless to say even beer connoisseurs like us couldn't visit them all). We've already introduced you to the Polish Zywiec beer, so now we'd like to give Okocim a plug - it really is very good.

Lots of love, George & Yorkie xxx