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.