Blog 12.8.17

Silver Annie, the Vannie, hand brake on, chocks in place and in gear!

Treignac beach

At the top of the 10 m wee hill.

We are in very rural France at a place called Treignac, it’s about halfway between Lyon and Bordeaux. We are almost in the Dordogne region and we will start exploring that tomorrow. Sarah has been traveling with us for just over two weeks and we took her to the train in Freiburg a couple of days ago so she could return to Berlin.

Our last blog was just before we got to Berlin. We had a really wonderful few days exploring parts of the city we had not seen on other visits. We had a couple of Stellplatz picked out to stay at before we arrived but we found both of them no longer existed (despite their websites still being on line) so with the help of a couple from the Netherlands who were also looking, we found a campsite near the inner-city which was close to an U Bann station. 

The bald and the beautiful Berlin Spandau Vorstadt,

6. It's them pipes, Berlin Spandau Vorstadt, East side

 

True that, Berlin Spandau Vorstadt.

East wall art

East wall art

East wall art

Berlin has had a very wet summer so far and there was an enormous thunderstorm when we arrived but then we had a couple of fine days for looking around. On the first day we looked at the market area around Alexanderplatz and walked along the East Side gallery. The gallery is a large section of the Berlin Wall along the river Spree which has been decorated by many artists. Really fascinating. 

Bridge - Berlin Spandau Vorstadt, East side

Bridge detailing, Berlin Spandau Vorstadt, East side

The Gau Company show with Sarah!!

.Museumsinsel, Pergamom

Wholesale house moving-Museumsinsel, Pergamom

An entire frontage

That night we went to see Sarah perform with the GAU Company.  This was their third and final night. The small theatre was packed and the audience really responded. We had met many of the dancers on our last trip to Berlin so it was great catching up with them after the performance. Several of Sarah’s Kiwi friends attended on that night and we really enjoyed meeting them and listening to their experiences working in the arts in Berlin. We can all be very proud of these young Kiwis.

On the second day we visited the large Pergamon museum which houses the loot that the German explorers brought back in the beginning of last century. Boy did they bring some huge structures back such as the whole Ishter Gate from Babylon. (3 stories high). We’re really not fans of nations taking treasures of other nations back to their home countries. Why not support the locals to preserve the treasures where they were found. We also visited the DDR museum which was great. They presented life in East Germany in a very understandable way. The government even tried to instill in preschoolers the joys of Socialism. In childcare centres children all had to sit on a line of potties at the same time and stay seated until the last one was finished to encourage collective behaviour!

The next day we picked up Sarah and headed for Wittenberg where 700 years ago Martin Luther purportedly nailed up a list of concerns about the Catholic Church and the rest is history. Had a great tour of the Lutherhaus describing the life of Luther and his family. The next few days were wet so we hunkered down at a campsite near a lake. Next we wanted to see some of the Romantic Road so headed for Uffenheim and found a great municipal campsite next to a swimming complex. The weather was kind and we had a relaxing time with a short walk into the historic village.

 

Outside Luther's house, Wittenberg

Wet camping at Bergwitz

Much needed shelter

Different to central Berlin

Der rundweg walk

Disaster happened when the chemical toilet stopped working so again went searching for the right agent to fix it. People were very helpful and the problem was fixed in 10 minutes. We drove on to another historic town on the Romantic Road, Dinkelsbuhl. Had a walk around the historic walls and a look at the cathedral. In the campsite we were camped in a spot that was on the way to the toilet block and several Germans stopped to talk about Brexit (Silver Annie, the vannie, has a UK licence plate). When they found that we were Kiwis they wanted to talk about that. So far we haven’t been approached by anyone in France to talk about Brexit.

The heat of Uffenheim!

Aspects of Uffenheim architecture

Aspects of Uffenheim architecture

Aspects of Uffenheim architecture...sloping walls!

Dinkelsbuhl, Bavaria - Kobeltsmühle,

Main gate, Dinkelsbuhl, Bavaria - Kobeltsmühle,

Dinkelsbuhl, Bavaria - Kobeltsmühle,.....32C

Dinkelsbuhl's own staunch guaurdians!!

We drove south to a campsite by a lovely lake near Kempton and had a few days walking, swimming and relaxing. We made sure we had a real German meal at the local restaurant with beer, saurkraut, sausages and schnitzel. We continued south to the end of the Romantic Road and visited Oberamagau. This village was saved from the plague in medieval times and to give thanks they perform a passion play every 10 years. The buildings in this town are all painted with scenes from the play. Very pretty place. We drove by mad King Ludwig’s castle at Neuschwanstein. This is the castle that Disney based the Disneyland castle on. There were crowds of tourists and to get inside on a tour we would have needed to book a couple of days ahead so as we had seen inside in 1977 we gave it a miss.

Oberamagau

Humpty and fine chocolate shoppiii.....non guards

Coffee for others!

Neuschwanstein, in '77 we drove right up to it, walked around it etc. Now you cant get near it except by bus etc!!

Ohhhh look a castle!!

As we were getting to the end of our time with Sarah and we found a great campsite near Bad Durrheim . Again we were by a swimmable lake and there are well planned walks all around the small villages. The next day we drove towards Freiburg and found that the road was blocked. The good thing was that the detour was through a really stunning part of the Black Forest so a real bonus.

Bad Durrheim walking

In Freiburg we saw some of the old town before crossing into France to stay at Turckheim in the Alsace Region. We had stayed there on our last trip and we wanted to show Sarah the perfectly preserved medieval town and the camp-ground that has resident storks. These birds are encouraged by the locals and nesting polls have been provided for them. We saw more of the town this time, some of us sampled the wine and we climbed up the surrounding hills amongst the grape vines. It was then time to say goodbye to Sarah and we drove the hour back to Freiburg and the train.

Turckheim

Turckheim with stork

Who are these 2 with out their sickles??

The autoroutes in France have hefty tolls so we are trying to avoid them and see more of the countryside.  This has meant a relatively slow trip across the country made even longer by an hourlong detour again up in some lovely hills. The French are into camping in a big way so usually it is easy to find places to stay and we have stayed at really lovely municipal camping grounds the last couple of nights.

It rained on our Farewell to Sarah at Freiburg hoffbahn.

Petanque mania in L'Isle-sur-le-Doubs

Beautiful disused rail station Neris-les-Bains 

Onwards to the Dordogne!!