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.