taraabit

Wed 10th May 2023

We chose tonight’s stopover because it is approx halfway to tomorrows destination, because it was described as being adjacent to a beautiful park and it was free!I asked Michelle to plot a route that avoided motorways, all went well on the first half of the journey to Hurford where we stopped for 10 mins and popped into a supermarket, however for the second half our two sat nav couldn’t agree and we went a little out of our way.

Last night it rained heavily and we have been subject to heavy showers all day, when we pulled up it was dry but looked threatening but we went for a walk nonetheless , we had gone approx 400 m when there was a huge downpour and were instantly soaked from the knees down.

There wasn’t a lot to see in the town on a wet Wednesday afternoon so we headed for the park which surrounded a Schloss.

During this evening the rain has returned quite heavily so it’s nice to be inside in the comfort and warmth. Tomorrow we travel to visit our good friends Arzu, Wolfgang and Bedia, we are staying approx 400m from them and they have promised to spoil us all weekend👍🥂🍷🍺🍴🎂 good hospitality and great company.

Mon8th and Tuesday 9th May 2023

We took the motorway to get to this campsite, fast and furious lots of trucks but at least the road surface was good, it’s not what I enjoy doing, you can’t relax and you see nothing of the countryside.

Steinhude is located on the south shore of Lake Steinhuder Meer, the small town has developed from a traditional fishing village to a leisure area. There are a lot of stalls and restaurant/ cafes selling fish, obviously not all from the lake, there are enough restaurants and cafes to accommodate a fair number of visitors, you can’t hire boats to go out onto the Meer or take a cruise around in a larger boat. We walked to the Meer yesterday afternoon and enjoyed a beer in the sunshine, then this morning we walked into the small town, a mixture of modern and older buildings, then this afternoon we walked back to the lake where we enjoyed an ice cream .

We had chosen to spend two nights here for a variety of reasons, a break from driving, a chance to relax and catch up on some domestic necessities. The break has been helped by some very warm pleasant weather and we were able to get the chairs out an sit outside. This area is like a lot of Germany poor for wifi and 4 g signal for such a modern technically developed country we find that very strange, it makes keeping in contact and doing the blog quite difficult.

Sunday 7th May 2023

Non stop drive to Magdeburg, reasonably easy drive through the countryside however it took the combined efforts of the ipad, map book and Michelle to manage the last mile to where we are staying.

River cruise boats pass by and I believe dock a short way from us.

Magdeburg is a city in the former DDR on the River Elbe. In the city centre is the Gothic style Magdeburg Cathedral which is the burial place of the Holy Roman Emperor Otto the Great. The centre was destroyed by heavy allied bombing in WW11 and much of the centre now has modern buildings, some of the old historic buildings were restored.

In the centre there was a group of ultra modern very unusual design buildings.

Magdeburg is also the home to Otto von Guericke famous for his experiments with the Magdeburg hemispheres to illustrate atmospheric pressure which I remember studying at school.

Sunday 7th May 2023

Non stop drive to Magdeburg, reasonably easy drive through the countryside however it took the combined efforts of the ipad, map book and Michelle to manage the last mile to where we are staying.

River cruise boats pass by and I believe dock a short way from us.

Magdeburg is a city in the former DDR on the River Elbe. In the city centre is the Gothic style Magdeburg Cathedral which is the burial place of the Holy Roman Emperor Otto the Great. The centre was destroyed by heavy allied bombing in WW11 and much of the centre now has modern buildings, some of the old historic buildings were restored.

In the centre there was a group of ultra modern very unusual design buildings.

Magdeburg is also the home to Otto von Guericke famous for his experiments with the Magdeburg hemispheres to illustrate atmospheric pressure which I remember studying at school.

Sat 6th May 2023

It rained heavily all night and we have had a few showers today whilst we were driving, it’s made walking around feel raw and damp. Firstly we drove to Schwerin to see the Schloss there, reports said it was magnificent, judge for yourself.

Schwerin is the state capital of Mecklenburg – Western Pomerania and is home to Schwerin Schloss (castle). It began life as a fortified castle on a small island in Lake Schwerin and it developed over the centuries to todays magnificent building. The castle is now a museum and the state parliament building.

Sadly the Schloss wasnt currently open to the public, there was a degree of renovation being undertaken in several areas, and as we had parked in a rather expensive car park we beat a hasty retreat and drove onto Wittenberge where we are staying tonight.

Wittenberge is a small town on the River Elbe where it is joined by the river Havel. The town has a history of industry and was known as “The City of Sewing Machines” as it once had a large factory of Singer sewing machines here. Over the centuries it has suffered from flooding and various schemes have been put in place to protect the town. Where we are parked there are new flood barriers, there are signs saying if the river floods you will be asked to move, I don’t think I would hang around to be asked.

Friday 5th May 2023

We arrived here early yesterday afternoon and had a long walk around the old town, we enjoyed the visit and didn’t see all there was to see so we decided to stay another night.

Wismar is a city in Northern Germany on the Bay of Wismar part of the Baltic Sea. It has well preserved medieval buildings similar to Lubeck. It was the third largest port city in the former East Germany. Having yesterday walked around the old town today we spent the morning in the port area.

Thursday 4th May 2023

It was just a few miles from last nights stopover to todays main interest Lubeck. We parked in a car park for motorhomes and I used an app to pay that I have used a lot on this journey in most countries –

You download the easypark app and register on line, then when you are at one of their car parks you open the app click on your current position, in this case as it says at the top Parkzone 235610, you set the parking in motion, stop it when you get back and only pay for how many minutes you are there. Much easier than trying to find coins and hope you have put enough in.

Lubeck is a northern German city, it has lots of Brick Gothic architecture dating back to its time as the medieval capital of the Hanseatic Leaugue. It’s symbol is the Holstenor a red brick city gate that defended the river bounded old town. A lot of the buildings have slender spires towering above them.

The old buildings are linked by a series of small roads including pedestrianised shopping areas with modern shops. Michelle’s aim was to visit St Mary’s Gothic Cathedral the building of which commenced in1260AD. It’s vault spans the nave at a height of 126ft and the twin towers are 410 ft high. Sadly during the night of Palm Sunday in 1942 an allied bombing raid heavily damaged the cathedral destroying amongst its other contents its famous organ – Dance Macabre Organ believed to have been played by Johann Sebastian Bach.

After a three hour wander we left Lubeck and drove to tonight’s stopover at Wismar.

Wed 3rd May 2023

We woke this morning to beautiful sunshine and the call of the cuckoo, first time this year, a farewell to Denmark. We were only approx 30 mins from the ferry port Rodbyhavn where we were catching the ferry to Germany. We arrived early and were waved onto the earlier ferry being sent to the front of the queue😊 I hate that when it happens to us at Portsmouth. The ferry took us to Puttgarden in Germany.

When we parked on the ferry we went into the seating area of Homer to chill out and the ferry began its 45 minute journey , as we pulled into Puttgarden an announcement was made that everyone could return to their vehicles, we then assumed we shouldn’t have stayed inside😊

We are staying on a “ stellplatz” with 15 spaces for motorhomes with full service facilities for 10 euro per night.

We are getting our heads around being back on using euros, having over the past few weeks using Danish Kroner DKR, Norwegian Kroner NOK, and Swedish Kroner SEK all at different exchange rates.

Bad Schwartau is a spa town approx 5km north of Lubeck and 13 km from the Baltic Sea, it is well known for its iodide saline waters. It is a pleasant area and we had a gentle stroll around the town this afternoon.

May2nd 2023

This morning we drove to Stege the main town on Mon. It was an attractive town with a lot of shops selling upmarket designer ware, Michelle bought a ceramic Robin.

We’re on a small well cared for yacht club with spaces for 10 motorhomes, it has all the facilities we need and a pleasant view. We walked into the local town along a fjord, however the town was disappointing. There were empty shops, many closed early in the afternoon it didn’t give a very good impression yet the properties around the town and the moored boats would indicate there is money here.

May1st 2023

Every where we have been in Scandinavia since we left home has usually had signs saying opening from May 1st, this included campsites, museums, tourist attractions etc. Well I can’t say I’ve noticed any great difference today😊

Todays journey commenced by travelling along a stretch of the coastline it was very picturesque, we stopped at Hornboek and Gilleje.

It was a short trip onto Gilleje which has a very active fishing harbour with fish auction house and shops selling freshly caught fish.

From the coastline we headed south to Hillderod to visit Fredriksborg Castle, we didn’t pay the large fee to enter as we didn’t feel we had the time to spare to do the visit justice but it was very impressive from the outside.

Fredriksborg Castle is a palace in Hillderod built as a royal residence for King Christian 1V and now is a museum of national history. It is located on three small islands in the middle of the palace lake, adjacent to it is a large formal garden and parkland.

We then headed to Roskilde where we are staying the night as Michelle wanted to visit the cathedral here. Roskilde cathedral is a cathedral,of the Lutheran Church of Denmark and is the most important cathedral in Denmark and the official royal burial cathedral of the Danish monarchs.