Sailor's Grand Tour, 2017

[Sailor]

You should be working for Conde Nast.

Good idea. It would be nice to get paid for mooching around.


Next: another fine place and equally interesting is Celle – and it’s twinned with Tavistock:-





We had trouble finding a hotel on our first stop there. The place was booked out by a horde of Vespa owners. Thousands were expected, but we saw only two. We did see these, though:-



We ended the night up renting a flat on a pretty street.



It rained in Hannover. We liked the Caricature Museum, though:-



The dangers of selfies?



And even more perilous … blonds!




We happened on the castle at Marienburg - it hadn’t been in the plan. The left- and right-handed stairways are unusual.

[Sailor]

Next came Hameln. It’s a sweet, half-timbered town, with the Pied Piper and all that.
There were rats everywhere …





Bodenwerder was the home town of Baron von Münchhausen, known for his tall tales. In one story, he was chased by a pack of wolves. It wasn’t until he’d finally escaped that he realised that the rear end of his mount had been eaten away:-



On another occasion, he and the horse were stuck in a bog. The only way he could get out was to pull himself up by his pony tail.




The castle at Corvey is marvellous. It’s full of long corridors …




… has a baroque ballroom …



… and plenty of nice details, some of them modern.

[Sailor]

Simply Japanese out of the way ... back to the Germany story:-

We called in briefly at Trendelburg to see Rapunzel’s tower, Sababurg, home of Sleeping Beauty, and Bergfreiheit, where Snow White did whatever she did with seven little men.
After an overnight stop en route, we next visited Alsfeld, a lovely place we liked a lot. It has a great town hall and a busy market.





But even here, we couldn’t escape fairy tales. This house claims the lot!



I’d wanted to go to Fulda for decades, although I couldn’t remember why. The cathedral’s marvellous and our photos didn’t manage to do justice to it.






Hann. Münden was one of our favourite towns. It’s old and very picturesque in parts.
(Even the name is quirky: once Hannoversche Münden, the name was shortened by the railway company in the 19th century and the abbreviated version has stuck ever since.)





Our hotel was conveniently near the castle, where a gathering of Pagodas was taking place. There’s at least 1.5 million pounds worth there – how many Ludes could we get together for that money?



Mercs weren’t the only form of transport. How about a treadmill bike? This one with electric assistance is used as a local delivery vehicle:



The town hall has a glockenspiel which tells the story of local hero, Dr. Eisenbart, a travelling doctor. The moving display shows a chap having his teeth pulled, knocked out against the pain by a man with a hammer!

[Sailor]

Ebergötzen is famous in Germany for two things: Wilhelm Busch, the artist, poet and writer of cautionary tales …



… and the European Bread Museum. This is a 900-year old barn.




I was particularly impressed by the collection of grains from around the world – it’s a proper scientific record.



The electric baker’s van was pretty neat, too.




And this is a ducking stool used to punish bakers for selling under-weight bread. Perhaps we should bring it back for garages that overcharge or get the basics wrong?

[Drax]

bloomin' wonderful pics and write up yet again

always wanted to visit the old rocket base at Peenemünde

[Sailor]

Thanks.


We liked Duderstadt so much we stayed for three nights, using it as a base for day trips. It’s a great example of the many half-timbered towns dotted all over central Germany.




Its town hall is another with a mechanical display, but this time it’s just a bloke looking out of a window:-




The stave church of Hahnenklee is 700 years younger than the one we visited in Borgund (Norway) some years ago, yet the family resemblance is clear.





Next, we ambled north to Braunschweig (English: Brunswick), a large and interesting city.




Our target was the Happy Rizzi House:-

[Sailor]

Schwerin’s an historic city set in the middle of four lakes.



It has another of those brick cathedrals with good stained glass …



… but is probably best known for a castle built with extravagant bling:-





Our hotel was a tastefully converted grain silo.

[wurlycorner]

more great snaps there sailor. I have been intending to upload my snaps from Iceland, but not got round to it...

The Nazi holiday camp you mentioned has always interested me - seemed like such a waste to be sat there empty and derelict. Good to see they have started to refurb it.

And yep, modern cars... Hate em. They all feel so crammed in and visibility so jobby, with massive pillars, high waist lines and low roofs. drokking awful.

[Sailor]

Those blocks of flats at Prora were truly impressive. They'll actually be OK once they're finished and will probably get snapped up by hip media dudes from Berlin.


Before getting to Schwerin, we’d visited Ludwigslust. The palace there is enormous. Our entire home village could drop into its grounds without touching the sides.








Another town on lakes is Ratzeburg. We were drawn to the area near the Dom.




The road trip’s last stop was at Ahrensburg. Was the 16th century castle designed for a biscuit tin?

[Sailor]

The Final Leg:
It was time to bring the boat back to England. We dropped the ladies off at the airport and went back to Eckernförde.

My father had for a long time wanted to visit Laboe. Unfortunately, we never made it. It has a memorial for all who lost their lives at sea in war and some of his old comrades are remembered there. So I took the chance to make a kind of pilgrimage.



The submarine on the beach is the same class as the one used in Das Boot.




We motored across the bight to the lock entering the Nord-Ostsee Kanal, aka Kiel Canal. This counts as an international seaway and can deal with some pretty big ships.






We stayed the night in Rendsburg, just off the canal, stopped at Helgoland for another night, then set off on the long haul home. The North Sea was benign; the English Channel just how we remembered it:



You have to dress for the occasion, even in July!




Being away for nearly six weeks in one go was too long, really. And far too expensive. Let alone the usual costs and speeding fines, Mrs Sailor left behind a nice cardigan and dropped her camera so that its focusing doesn’t work properly; I mislaid my pricey prescription sunglasses and the display on my camera went phut so I couldn’t see what I was shooting.
We’re penniless now.

All in all, it was worth the trip(s) and we’re already thinking about next year. Perhaps Biscay for the boat and Pyrenees for the car?