German Avenue Road, 25 September

We hauled ourselves out of bed this morning and had a quick breakfast, and were in such good time at the terminal that we got a crossing half an hour earlier than scheduled - 09:20 instead of 09:50.  I had been a little worried as my debit card had had to be cancelled while we were away, and I wasn't sure whether we would need it at the terminal, which is why we were early, but luckily we didn't.

Despite endless roadworks on the M20 and heavy traffic on the South Circular, we got home by 11:00 UK time and have unpacked and done the first of many loads of washing!  Home now until early November.... watch this space.  I'm hoping we'll have an excursion or two between now and then, but am not sure.

Edited to add: we finally gave in, this last morning, and put the heating on while we showered and dressed!  As it was Calais, right on the edge of the time zone, it wasn't even light at 7:00 am, and it was very cold.  I nearly wasn't warm enough in bed last night and had to use my extra rug for the first time, too.  Pyjamas next holiday, rather than summer-weight nighties!

German Avenue Road, 24 September

We did not hurry this morning, and it was gone 10 when we left Metz, stopping first for more gas, and then there was the long, dreary road through Luxembourg, Belgium and France back to Calais - 297 miles in all. It would have been shorter, and an hour quicker, to have gone through France, but motorway tolls being what they are, we thought not! 

We stopped for diesel in Luxembourg (cheap!), and for lunch in Belgium - don't ask me where; I was asleep and didn't really wake up until we were approaching Calais!

We are parked in the usual place, and I did a Last Shop including delicious kidneys for supper, and we will have to hurry in the morning to present ourselves at the terminal by 09:00.

German Avenue Road, 23 September

Last night's parking was a dismal failure! It was a lovely place, surrounded by vines and fruit trees, but random cars kept driving up and stopping, with young men getting out of them and, a few minutes later, going away again. I've no idea what they were up to, whether legal or otherwise, but it kept on happening, and I felt quite frightened and hence slept very badly.

We tried to go up to the very end of the Avenue Road, and probably succeeded, but we aren't quite sure where it officially starts/ends. After buying bread at a random bakery, we headed off home up the motorway. I fell asleep and missed, so I am told, a lovely drive through the Black Forest, on minor roads as there don't seem to be any motorways! I woke up in time to help the SW find relatively cheap diesel (it has got more expensive during the holiday, but that is, we gather, pan-European, not just Germany). 

And so we crossed the Rhine (again - and we had already crossed the Danube that morning!) into France and stopped for lunch soon after Strasbourg. We decided to leave the motorway after a couple of junctions and go the other way, with the distinct advantage of no tolls. It was still mostly along fast roads and very quiet. But as we approached Metz, the heavens opened and we were deluged. And had to be very careful indeed getting to our parking for the night, by the Moselle. But we are there now, and the rain is away, and supper is nearly ready. The van next to us has burnt their supper - their door opened and an arm waved a very smoky pan around, followed by a smell of burnt food.... Hope it was still edible!

German Avenue Road, 22 September

Although we still have two more and three  more nights to go, they will basically just be "driving days", to get us home. 

We have finished the Avenue Road, from its start on Rügen Island, in the Baltic, I it's end on Riechenau Island, in the Bodensee (Lake Constance). 1,255 miles in all, plus the 800-odd miles to get to Lauterbach and, I assume, another 800 miles to get home. But it was the Avenue Road we wanted to follow, and follow it we did. I'd like to last the states we went in, but can't find a map of them! From the north-east to the south-west of the country, beautiful little towns, towns which were once border towns but are now as central as you can get. We've travelled past vast fields - former collective farms - and past vineyards and, today, apple orchards. We've seen how little villages celebrate the start of the wine harvest and drunk several bottles of "Federweißer", the young wine of the country dry has to be kept cool and upright, and you mustn't tighten the lid of the bottles!

Today was the last day of the Road, and we started with a walk round Riedlingen, then visited a Rewe for a Last Shop in Germany (the supermarkets are closed on Sundays), and a DM as I've fallen in love with their own brand moisturiser!  Then we followed the Road all the way, including across the ferry to Konstanz, and have found a lovely secluded place to park up for the night. The SW has, of course, gone for a walk!

German Avenue Road, 21 September

We were not sure this morning whether it had rained in the night or whether it was falling leaves. In fact it turned out to be sycamore seeds which fell down from the roof on to the windscreen wipers every time we moved off for a while.

The Swan Whisperer went for a short run this morning, and then got breakfast. This was a mistake (not his cooking - the poached eggs were perfect!) as he forgot to tell me we had run out of eggs so when I went shopping at the local Rewe I didn't buy any! So we stopped there and I made him get them, before we headed to Tübingen, and then on to Schloß Lichtenstein, where we had lunch, and finally down the Avenue Road to Riedlingen where we are spending our penultimate night in Germany. Tomorrow we will be on the Bodensee, then two long days driving and home on Tuesday morning. It has been a lovely trip.

German Avenue Road, 20 September

I was really disappointed to discover that the town of Neustadt an der Weinstraße, despite its lovely name, was not a pretty town at all! There were a couple of churches near the aire, which we went to have a look at and a bakery which I bought rolls, and then a Rewe, Lidl and Ali which I went to the latter of.

One look at the proposed route today convinced me that if we were to go on the Avenue Road at all, it would only be for a token distance. We still stayed on minor roads, mostly the Weinstraße, and stopped just outside Landau in die Pfalz for lunch and just outside Gaggenau for a cup of tea, passing through Karlsrühe en route.  It was a lovely drive especially as we are on the edge of the Black Forest here.

I had planned for us to stay outside a hotel which let one park up for free if you had a meal there, but the car park was full and there didn't seem to be anywhere reserved for motor homes so we came back into town and have parked up in the municipal aire which is free and has services. It seems very nice.

German Avenue Road, 19 September

Only a short drive today. We were woken up, as threatened, in the wee small hours by the grape harvesters - mechanical, these days, not students - going out and fully-laden trailers reappearing. But we went back to sleep and even though the Swan Whisperer went for a run, we were away by 10:00. The drive was partly down the Alleestraße and partly down the Weinstraße (do they overlap?) first going slightly all round the houses and having to reset the Sat-nav at one stage as it had defaulted to a route we didn't want! 

We wanted to stop in Bad Durkheim for lunch, but it was a bit of a bust as we had just missed the wine fair but the big car park was still full of vans. Then the restaurant which had had Federweißer a couple of years ago didn't have it and the food wasn't very good. Oh well. 

Now we are at Neustadt an der Weinstraße, within spitting distance of an Aldi and a Rewe and the SW has gone to explore, but we don't know whether it is a nice place or not.

German Avenue Road, 18 September

This morning we were rather alarmed to see that almost every other motor home had left the site by about 10:00, and wondered whether the owners wanted it cleared, but there was still one other machine there, so we went into Limburg and had a lovely walk through this very pretty town, including a visit to Woolworth's, which shocked us by having Christmas decorations already for sale - it isn't even October!

Back at the van, another machine came in and, after all I said yesterday they were English, although I gather they lived in Penang, and were headed to Brisbane after their European trip!

We decided to abandon the Alleestraße after only a token stretch in favour of driving along the Rhein, and that was lovely. It is still very hot - even overnight and this morning it wasn't exactly cold - and we enjoyed a ferry crossing at St Gaur. I thought I had mis-set the sat nav when we got here, just outside Bad Kreuznach, but just as we were about to go sadly away, we saw the signpost telling us where to go. We are in the yard of a vineyard and have been warned that the grapes will be brought in at an unearthly hour of the morning because of the heat!

German Avenue Road, 17 September

The SW went for a run this morning, and then after breakfast I went to the Norma across the road to shop and then did a scrap of washing, as he said his running shirt needed it, and he didn't have quite enough pants to finish the holiday. And the forecast is for it to be very hot over the next few days, I also washed the one light pair of trousers I have that don't  need ironing, in case it is still too hot for jeans by the weekend. Mind you, it's bitterly cold in the early mornings, and I am thankful for my bed jacket while I am drinking my tea, and for my bathrobe to dress under when I have had my shower. We haven't yet switched the heating on first thing, but it's been close!

I really haven't felt up to much exercise today, so we drive through Fulda, and I took a couple of photos out of the window, and then we had a very complicated drive to Limburg an der Lahn, trying to stay on the avenue route, which the SW calls the "Alley Way" ("Alleenstraße", you see), but not really succeeding. Despite an ice-cream break mid-afternoon, we were both tired when we got here. And the place I thought I'd found us to stay turned out to be outside a motorhome dealers outside of town - wonderful c you were just passing through, but no good for this sort of trip. However, we knew we'd seen signs for an aire, and duly found it on Park4Night, so now we are parked beside a tributary of the Lahn, not far from the town. The SW, who has been for a walk, says it is wonderful and he reckons the reason it's not in the guide books is that the Germans want to keep it for themselves!  Not that we've actually seen any other British tourists since Hamburg, and few of any nationality other than German! This will change, of course, as we get further south.

German Avenue Road, 16 September

Another lazy Sunday morning. We decided to go to the automobile museum, which was just across the road from where we had parked, and it was very interesting, telling the story of the motor industry in Eisenach from its earliest beginnings right through to the modern Opels made in an out-of-town factory. They decided, I think, that the factory of which the museum is the only bit that remains could not be made state-of-the-art post-reunification, so they tore it down and started again.

But while it existed, the factory built all sorts of cars. The most interesting, of course, were the little 2-stroke Wartburgs, built during the DDR years (you can always tell a former East German town as they have those very splendid "Ampelmänner" on their traffic lights.

Anyway after leaving the factory we used the services we had found last night and then  headed on, leaving Thuringia for Hesse and the town of Fulda where we are parked up opposite a Norma, which will be useful for the morning. Except what we really need is more Federweißer, dvd the discounters tend not to sell it. Never mind, there is always beer!

German Avenue Road, 15 September

I don't seem to have taken any photos today. We started off by going to Edeka, as we were running out of everything, and tomorrow is Sunday when the supermarkets are closed.

Where we were, Duderstadt, appears to be in the exact centre of Germany, from north to south and from east to west. But thirty years ago it was a very different story, as Duderstadt was right on the border with the DDR. In fact a major crossing was built there in 1972, which saw over 6 million people use it during its lifetime. And one of the buildings is now a museum about the "Inner Border" and life on the frontier.

It was really fascinating; lots of stuff not only about the border but about how it was strengthened over time and how one village realised they were going to be deported once the 5km exclusion zine was put in force, so, led by their Priest, they escaped in the dead of night. They were not very happy, missing their farms and so on, but preferred life in the West to the East. The village has since been re-established. There was a lot of stuff about the events of 1989, and reunification. Fascinating!

By the time we had finished, it was lunch time. We did look in the snack bar, but it was very greasy spoon so we didn't.

We then tried to drive to Eisenach, where we thought we could park up in a museum car park but we had trouble getting there due to closed roads and then when we did, the museum car park was a bust and the official aire was full. But we have found somewhere, although this is a dull town and we will not linger.

German Avenue Road, 14 September

Today we are approximately half way through our holiday, so we spent the first hour or so changing the sheets (and, incidentally, discovering we had packed the wrong undersheet for the second week. We also had trouble finding the clean table napkins I'd washed earlier, but they eventually turned up in the bag with our swimming things instead of the bag where they live. This morning also involved frantic counting of shirts and pants, to see whether we had enough of each to do us, and a quick hand wash of pants and table napkins, the latter in case of spilled coffee or other such emergency.

Once this was done, we set off to explore Quedlinburg, and after a very pleasant walk round the town (including buying a new sheet) and a cup of coffee/ice cream /apple strudel, we found  that the little tourist "train" was about  to leave, and it was only €6.50 for a 45-minute tour, so I suggested we take it. I'm glad we did, although neither of us understood much of the commentary. Nevertheless it really did take us all round the town.

Then back to the motor home, and after a very light lunch we set off again. We decided to temporarily abandon the Avenue Road in favour of a glorious run through the Harz Mountains National Park including a stop for a cup of tea in one of the many car parks along the route. We have ended up here, in a town called Duderstadt (so unfortunate, as the poor cars all bear the registration "Dud"), which is very, very close to the former border, and there is a museum which we think we might visit tomorrow.

German Avenue Road, 13 September

After yesterday, which was a lovely warm day - to the extent that we put on sun cream to walk round Brandenburg, and I, at least, wore a hat - today was  bitterly cold. The Swan Whisperer went for a run, and we didn't hurry over breakfast, or getting services. Everything was provided, but we couldn't find anybody to pay, so eventually had to leave without.

We drove to various little towns which were supposed to be lovely, but weren't, really. Or if they were, we couldn't find the lovely bits! So when we reached Quedlinburg, which we know is lovely - we have  been here before - we decided to call it a day and have parked up in an aire near the town centre. I had a bad headache so didn't feel up to a walk, but lay down to try to sleep it off, not very successfully, while the SW explored, and we are looking forward to further exploration tomorrow.

On the plus side, I finally scored some Schwäbische Maultaschen (a filled pasta) which we had for supper with a sauce Forestière and green beans. Followed by stewed plums and yoghurt. Yum.

German Avenue Road, 12 September

This morning we walked round Brandenburg. Well, perhaps not all of it, but certainly round the Cathedral Island, the New Town and the Old Town! Lots of churches, including a very splendid Evangelical Free Church that was shaped to resemble Noah's Ark.

Also a modern shopping centre, which we looked round, and very noisy cobbled streets. I was glad I didn't live there - the traffic noise must be horrendous!

We got a bit stuck then, as after coffee it was time to move on and the card didn't work, and there was no one on duty to let us out! Fortunately we didn't have to wait too long! How we got in last night we'll never know, unless the guardian saw us and raised the barrier without our realising. He obviously thinks it's time the PTB modernised their arrangements, too. But it was a lovely aire, even though services were somewhat lacking for €10. Walking distance to the city centre, and there was a bus if we'd wanted it, has to be good.

So we headed on, stopping at an out--of-town supermarket and having lunch in its car park, and then down the Avenue Road to Wittemberg, now rather grandly known as Lutherstadt-Wittemberg. No place to stop there as the centre is pedestrianised and time was getting on, so we went on down the road to Dessau, where the aire is in the local aerodrome. Fully serviced, too! Only thing is we are low on gas, but it is our small cylinder that is nearly out, not the big one,and we have plenty.

German Avenue Road, 11 September

Rheinsberg, it turns out it's such a pretty little holiday town; we had been too anxious to notice this last night. But we liked it.

First stop today, though was a little town called Gransee - we didn't  see the eponymous lake - which had spent the first 20 years of reunification in restoring itself and was very proud of the result. With good reason! The heart of the town was a tiny grid of streets, with a tower to guard the entrance, city walls (we didn't have time to walk round them, alas) and a very pretty church, with a former Franciscan monastery, in the throes of being restored but with an exhibition about the building. While in the town we scored some plums (now plum compote) and some local honey which the woman who sold it to me said came from her father's bees and was linden blossom honey. Also delicious Federweiße, the young wine which you mustn't tighten the top of. Love that stuff!

After visiting Aldi for more prosaic groceries, we drove down to a town called Neuruppen, simply because it was en route, and then set sail for Brandenburg, stopping a couple of times. We had heard that the aire here - which is lovely - only took EC cards, and the emergency button we pressed answered with a long string of numbers - obviously a number to call but my German really isn't up to phone calls. But the SW's card used to be an EC one, so we tried it and, to our surprise, it worked!

He went for a walk while I dealt with the plums, and tomorrow we will explore the town together.

German Avenue Road, 10 September

The Swan Whisperer announced that we were going to retrace our steps this morning to visit the Hanseatic Town of Greifwald, so after stopping at Demain to shop and to catch up once we had decent phone signals, we headed there and I'm glad we did as it was very pretty. We had lunch there, and then a walk and visited the Cathedral of St Nicholas. The guidebook said it was disappointing inside, but we loved it. Very plain and grey, and beautiful. I didn't take a photo as you had to pay to do that.

Then I stopped off at the local pound shop (euro shop, really) and bought a couple of egg spoons, and by the time I got back to the motor home, the Swan Whisperer has programmed the satnav, but I am not sure what had gone wrong but it kept on not going where he thought it was going and madpanicarrgh, and it took forever to arrive at where we thought we were going to spend the night, but no sign of the place, and we were very nearly out of diesel, so we had to retrace our steps and it was very expensive when we finally found some. But we did, and then we found a camp site by a lake, which is lovely. Rheinberg, that's the name of the place.

German Avenue Road, 9 September

We have very little signal here, so although I'm writing this on the date stated, it won't be posted until I have 4G again.

The weather here is lovely now; we hope we've seen the last of the rain for the time being. The Swan Whisperer went for a run this morning, and after a rather late breakfast, we went for a walk around Lauterbach. We had discovered last night that there was a narrow-gauge steam railway - we had both heard the train although neither of us had seen it - but when we got to the station we found there was a special service running because of an Iron Man event based at Binz, and the dreaded words "replacement bus service" were used. So we came away and walked a little further round the harbour, wishing (at least I was) that we had had breakfast somewhat earlier so we could have enjoyed coffee and/or an ice cream at one of the many cafés dotted about the place.

We had hoped to drive up to one of the official starts of the Avenue Road - there are three on Rügen Island - but the Iron Man put paid to that, so instead we drove to the little village of Wreechen which seemed to be all thatched houses, and then back to Putbus, where we saw some of the cyclists in the Iron Man, and then drive down to Stralsund. Unfortunately, the Sat-nav took us on the main road, but it didn't really matter. It is a gorgeous bridge - I'd been asleep when we crossed it yesterday. Into Stralsund where we found a parking place and had lunch, and then we drove on down the Avenue Road, so pretty, until we got to our current overnight place, by a lake in a hamlet called Meesiger.

German Avenue Road, 7and 8 September

Friday 7 September

I had a feeling all wasn't quite right when I went to the little supermarket near where we had  been staying, and couldn't see anything I fancied to eat. I knew we had enough food to do us, so came away without buying anything but by the time we got to Hamburg, all I wanted was my bed! No excursions no visiting the city, no photos, no lunch, no dinner.... Just sleep and horrid fever-dreams. The Swan Whisperer went out, of course, but oh, what a waste of a day!

Saturday 8 September

Felt a lot better this morning, and was able to eat some breakfast and go round a supermarket, but that was about as much as I was able for. Fortunately, it was a "driving day", so I didn't have to!  We made a detour into Lübeck, such a pretty town, and found a parking-place to have lunch in, and then headed on for the Baltic Coast and the start of the Deutsches Alleenstraße. Unfortunately, we chose not to believe the Sat-nav when it wanted to route us off the motorway and got held up for a couple of hours by a series of accidents and road works. But we got here in the end - rather a lovely place called Putbus - including a short drive along the Avenue Route, which looks as though it is going to be very pretty. Then the SW went for an explore - he says that we and the motor home next to ours are the only two without satellite dishes. I had been thinking, in Hamburg, that I hadn't seen so many so far this holiday.

German Avenue Road, 6 September

We were woken up a couple of times by mosquitos in the night, and at 06:00 decided we were thirsty so made tea and turned the hot water on. So we were up at 07:00 and, despite doing a little washing and using the services again, we were away just after 09:00. We decided to drive over the Afsluitdijk that separates the North Sea from the Ijselmeer, although it was too wet, gloomy and misty to see much. You can't see the North Sea at all as the dyke is too high. Half way over, or windscreen wiper decided to break again, so we had to stop to make running repairs with a bit of duct tape. 

We were fortunate that the first auto parts repair place we found was able to fit new wipers on the spot - it took longer to pay for them than the repair itself took, so we were not badly held up. We enjoyed our drive across the Netherlands, a land where field are bordered with wide ditches/narrow canals instead of fences. There were few crops - a few fields of maize and we saw one of sunflowers, but mostly animals - cattle, sheep, goats, a few horses and once, improbably, camels!

I dozed off and missed the crossing into Germany, but we are parked up in a small and rather popular aire in the village of Jade. The SW has spent most of the time hunting mosquitos, although he did go out for a short run. I have new books on my Kindle and have been reading and knitting.

German Avenue Road, 5 September

In the night it started to rain. And rain. And rain.  We spent most of the morning reading and dozing, waiting for the train to stop, and as it didn't, we went out about noon.

We decided to go via bus and metro across the Ij, and while we were at it, to go one stop further to Rokin, in the city centre. But hang on, which city are we in? Here we have a Body Shop, a Waterstones, a Primark, H&M, Hema.... We could have been in Clapham Junction! 

However, w there was also a specialist cheese shop which we obstacle and bought cheese at. - probably a tourist rip-off, but you know what? I don't care! 

And then we found a Dutch restaurant in a side street that fed us croquettes and chips; the latter were lovely, the former a bit meh! It came with some apple sauce, which I kept 2/3 of to eat as pudding, but the SW had apple pie and ice cream. He drank hot chocolate, and I had a beer and then coffee, but the place to take care of the inevitable consequences was up three flights of incredibly steep stairs - proof that it was an authentic old house, said the SW. 

After lunch we caught a tram to the Dam, and looked at the royal Palace and then walked back tu the Centraal station. We had vaguely meant to go to the Red light district, but seem to have missed it. Oh well. Anyway it was going on raining and raining and the rain got heavier and heavier, so we went down and exchanged our canal trip vouchers for real tickets and went on a canal trip. Which would have been lovely, had one actually been able to see! However, the rain stopped about half way through and we could open the windows and see out. 

We had hoped that the tour would take us past the Anne Frank House but that particular tour didn't go that way. So when it was over, we took a tram to the Westernmarkt and had a look. No possibility of going in, of course, and we didn't plan to, but we walked up to the next bridge across the canal and back the other side. A quick stop at a convenient supermarket, and then it was back in the tram to Centraal. We were going to catch a ferry back to the so nearest the campsite, but had just missed one, but I remembered that one of "our" buses card at where the next ferry was going, so we went on it. We were right about the buses, but what we didn't realise was that buses going in both directions used the same stop, so the inevitable happened and we got on one going the wrong way.

Once we realised this, we got off and, of course, just missed one going the right way. The next one wasn't for 15 minutes, but there was a supermarket across the road and the one thing we hadn't bought was beer, so we went into the attached offie and bought 2 bottles of Amstel and 2 of Heineken, incredibly cheap. And then the bus came, although it was on diversion due to building works, it dropped us where we expected to be dropped. Back to the motor home, used the services and supper is ready.

German Avenue Road, 4 September

Google told me there was a supermarket only a few yards from where we had parked up last night, so after breakfast I popped in, following Google.'s directions to get there. What Google didn't tell me, and I only found out when I'd finished my shopping and had left the supermarket, was that we were parked just opposite  the rear exit of the car park and I needn't have walked all round the houses at all! Ah well.

We set off about  09:30 and, apart from one stop for coffee and a detour for diesel before we reached the border - a mistake, as although we knew petrol was more expensive in the Netherlands, we didn't realise diesel was actually cheaper. Oh well.

The motor home park isn't the nicest, or the cheapest, but is secure and has services, although no sanitaires. We paid for 48 hours, and I wish we hadn't, as I find the city not at all to my taste. Just walking to the ferry, it was all hippyish and really rather hideous. Then we caught the wrong ferry and had to walk miles to a bus stop. Meanwhile, I had tried to buy transport tickets on line, but what we didn't realise was that what they sent me wasn't a ticket but a voucher to exchange for a ticket. So when service after service turned us away, we quite thought we'd been scammed.  Which I suppose wasn't the city's fault, but it didn't help. 

We eventually ended up in the Nieuwmarkt, where we had a beer, but even that was silly, because the waitress insisted in bringing us 250 mls when we had asked for 330, and even when we showed her on the menu she swore they didn't sell that size of beer.

We walked back to the Central Station and got the ferry back, and it was during the crossing we realised the problem with the tickets. So back we went and then queued for half an hour in the ticket office before finally getting our tickets!  So we went back to the motor home and the Swan Whisperer cooked eggs and bacon and now I am going to bed.

German Avenue Road, 3 September

We are several days from the start of the featured route of this holiday, but as it is much cheaper to cross after 16:00, we have not got very far yet.

I was spending the night with my parents, and at breakfast my father reminded us that today is the 79th anniversary of the day the Second World War started. He was only a schoolboy then, but he said he couldn't wait to leave and join up. He did join the Home Guard, and did dawn patrols, so he told us, and, of course, later he did join up, and was recently awarded the Légion d'Honneur as a Normandy veteran.

After breakfast I got a very crowded train to London - the first off-peak I've of the week - and bought sandwiches, etc, in Prêts so that we didn't have to think about lunch, which we ate fairly last thing before leaving at about 13:30.

The journey to Folkestone was uneventful - at least. I assume it was as I slept a lot of the way - as was the crossing. A quick dash round Carrefour to get one or two basics, and then we drive up to here, which is about half way between Bruges and Ostend. Now getting supper, including delicious home-grown beans, and then I expect there will be an early night before heading to Amsterdam in the morning.