From Castle Howard, Yorkshire

Back to Yorkshire, castle Howard 1.10.14 (more photos to upload very soon)

We have been back in the UK for just over a week now and we are camped under a large oak tree beside a lake in the grounds of Castle Howard, the stately home which some of us remember where the earlier TV series “Brideshead Revisited” and the more recent 2008 were filmed.

Camping in castle Howard 'grounds'

 Near neighbours to whom we wave

Closer view with the replaced dome (1940 fire damage)

Just like being inthe middle of a Constable painting!

People are so optimistic!!

Other neighbors, who were quite talkative, drop in for a bite

 A

At last, a real round-a-bout!

That Atlas is always in the shower just when we want it!

We are having amazing autumn weather with clear still days and the trees are starting to change colour and still have most of their leaves……just beautiful.  Down to 9C inside the van this morning!

"The Autumn leaves start to…"

Other neighbours getting winter ready

So much has happened since our last blog as we were leaving Switzerland. We crossed into Germany at Lake Constance. This is a large apple growing region and we camped in an orchard, visited the pretty town of Meersburg and then drove north following some of the ‘Romantic Road’ until we got to Rothenberg. Had a good walk around this walled medieval town where the covered walls have been rebuilt.
                    

Meersburg on the shores of Lake Konstanz

'Interesting' sculpture by Peter Lenk……..

Sculpture detail

More Sculpture detail!

    More of Meersburg - a gated town

Rothenberg was also suck an interesting visit…even in the pouring rain! This town has the most amazing walled fortification that surrounds the entire town. Now has a roof that visitors from all around the world can enjoy. Donors plaques are inserted in the wall!

Rothenburg, strongly fortified wall

   Took us 3/4 hour to walk around!

   Actual rain!

         Building contrast with next pic

 Middle of the town….Building contrast? Significant number of tour busses unloading their passengers so get there early in the morning for a better walk around!

Then there was a long drive to Dresden in the former East Germany. The former  East German border is marked on the autobahn with a statue to unity. This city was extensively bombed in WWII. Much of the rebuilding in the soviet era is now being torn down and rebuilt. One of the famous buildings that was bombed is the Frauenkirche, a large cathedral. Since reunification this has been completely rebuilt from voluntary contributions.

Dresden. Luther and rebuilt Frauenkirche

After bombing

    A conference/meeting bike…….. tourists seem to love them!                Each person has a specific 'job' around the pedaling conference table

Example of the city re build

Example of the city re build

 Another example of the city re build from the other side of the Elbe

Around this church buildings have been rebuilt in the original style but behind a row of these there is just wasteland. Had a great walk along the river Elbe and we visited the Zwinger museum mainly to look at the baroque building, incredibly ornate. Also visited a museum about the period of the DDR where our tickets were in the form of a soviet era visa. Interestingly we were the only foreigners there. Local visitors were very quiet and much discussion took place about many of the items from this totalitarian era.

    

Ornate and wonderful gardens.

Rebuild of city - contrasts!!                                           

Ampelmännchen  says "Nicht kreuzen"                                            

Ampelmännchen says………..Cross now

Mädchen, says "Cross now"!

We have wanted to visit Berlin for ages and for us the whole drama of the Berlin Wall and the Cold War was part of our growing up. What an amazing city. It seemed like a German New York with the funky and edgy stuff and the elegant and expensive stuff side by side.

 

Reichstag

It is a city of cranes and memorials. Large parts of the former East Berlin have been and are still being rebuilt.

Brandenburg gate….city getting ready for the Berlin marathon

 Much of the city’s history is given in posters on the street at places like the old Check point Charlie and where old sections of the Wall are preserved. The mass murders of WWII are acknowledged with memorials to the Jews, homosexuals, gypsies and to the 96 members of the Weimar government who were murdered further enabling Hitler to ‘take’ power. There were also memorials to those who died trying to cross the Berlin Wall. We respect the effort that has gone into acknowledging the mistakes of Germany’s past.

The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe (that’s its official title even though it is called the Holocaust Memorial) is really special. The structure itself draws you in. Underneath is a very respectful and thorough relating of the story. We have read and seen so much on the Holocaust over the years that we initially did not plan to visit this underground part but we were drawn to it. We particularly appreciated the room with the stories of family groups were related. Later we undertook a walking tour in the Lonely Planet and as part of that ended up in the old Jewish part of the city.
Many of the memorials have been put in place since reunification.

Holocaust museum, over commemorative concrete 2000 stelae

Holocoust museum, over 2000 above ground stelae

Commemoration of Polish atrocities by Nazi murderers.

A man was demonstrating bubble wands with a crowd around him. Such a beautiful sight to finish our visit on….almost a metaphor of freedom in the making.

    

Super bubble maker, his daughter in the foreground….also a bubble meister!

 Instant street hotdog chef with 'mobile kitchen'!

Overall we have spent about 3 weeks in Germany this summer. It is a very easy country to visit. The autobahns are really well designed with regular picnic areas with toilets, you only have to get used to the lack of a speed limit and cars flying passed at over 200km per hour with a ‘recommended’ speed of 130kph! In all that travel we did not see any major crashes.

Our 2km forest walk to Fangschleuse rail station

Super modern Berlin

Super modern Berlin

Old berlin wall watch tower

Many people speak English although we found in former East Germany there were understandably not as many. The people are really welcoming and helpful and will go out of their way to make sure you are OK. An example of this is once when we were low on fuel and our GPS was giving us mixed signals about the location of petrol stations a man we approached for help drove out of his way to guide us to a petrol station through rush hour traffic. We had fun with the language and lots of laughs with our misinterpretations.

After Berlin we headed for Belgium and visited the beautiful city of Ghent and went to the cathedral to see the famous painting The Adoration of the Lamb which over the years has been stolen by the French and later the Nazis (it featured in the movie, “The Monuments Men”).

Ghent, music and modern sculpture 

Ghent, architectural contrast

Having a coffee with sights like this! 

Ghent's famous graffiti street, for about 400m!

It was a very hot day and as we walked around the town all the people were out enjoying the sun with lots of street music. In one part of town near the maternity hospital the streetlights flick on and off each time a baby is born. What a cool place. 

We drove to Brussels and had a great stay with Sarah and as it was the week of her birthday she invited friends around for curry and drinks on the roof. Wonderful to meet all these interesting people. The temperature was still very warm and after watching the sunset from the roof we were able to watch an electrical storm on the other side of the city. 

Soiree...Sarah, Marg

Sarah's Soiree

Depressing the next morning to watch as the NZ election results came in. We had to leave early on the Sunday as once a year, (we chose the 1 in 365 days!!) Brussels has a carless day so we had to be out of the city boundary before 9am.

Our ferry was leaving from Dunkirk the next day so we took time to visit Ypres in Flanders. This town was in the middle of the trench warfare in WWI and was completely destroyed. After the war discussions were held on what to do about the town with Churchill suggesting that it be left as it was as a memorial, another suggestion was that a modern town be built but the people of Ypres wanted their medieval town back and that is what they got. Completely rebuilt.

Menin Gate, last post at 8pm every night. 

Fountains and games in the rebuilt square.

Rebuilt city hall that houses the museum

Visited an impressive museum about the battles around the town. We thought it would be too sad to visit the big military cemeteries but we did visit the Menin Gate, the memorial in the town to some of those who were killed.  Nearly 55,000 names are listed on this gate. The Last Post is sounded here every evening at 8pm. 
Our campground that night was on the beach at Dunkirk and the caravans were parked around the old overgrown gun emplacements from WWII. Odd to think that where walked could have been where Colin’s Dad could have been evacuated from back to England………..from this very beach in 1939 at the very beginning of WWII.

Dunkirk beach, 15 mins fast walk to the water, no Stukas etc impeding our progress.

Moody Dunkirk, made Colin really look at the place.

We headed for Harrogate and have been staying with Doug and Isabel. It has been a wonderful opportunity to stop for a bit and get the van cleaned, glasses fixed etc. 

Autumn sunrise in Harrogate

Enjoying being back where we speak the language and know some of the shops. Although we can’t get over how crowded the UK seems after the other countries. Maybe that is why we are enjoying this current campsite, which is so relatively far from anywhere that we have no phone reception, no internet and the only radio station we can get is the local one!

This time Colin's sold the van and bought…….????

Gruezi / Bonjour from Switzerland

Gruezi/Bonjour from Switzerland

We are lucky to be staying for a few days in our friend Margaret’s holiday apartment in the ski area of Haute Nendaz in the Rhøne Valley in southern part of the country. We get a great view of the Berner Alps on the north side of the valley.

Morning view at Nendaz breakfast @ Nandez 

          
Sunset Nendaz (towards N.E.)

                  
Sunset Nendaz (North)

 From balcony

Chalets and houses

 Down to Sion town

This whole town is covered with traditional chalets and large apartment blocks in the shape of traditional chalets. It has been great to relax and to explore this area. One of the walks has been beside a Bisse, a water course for irrigation, these were built hundreds of years ago. The one we walked by was built in 1700 and took us gradually up the valley to the small town of Planchouet with great views all the way.

We didn't go all the way!

 We discover the earlier Hadron Collider accelerator carefully disguised in the Swiss country side!

                                          LoTR??

                                          LoTR??

 Local meeter-greeter checks out visitors

When we visited Switzerland in the 1970s it mostly rained so we did not get good views of the alps - they had also had late snow (it was May) and the passes were closed. We had to use the Simplon tunnel under the pass with the car on a freight train wagon back then! We have had clear warm days this time so the passes are clear. To get to the Rhone Valley we drove over the Furkapass from Lake Lucern. This is a spectacular road with razor back turns as we zig zaged up and down.

Cuppa and Lunch at Furka Pass 

 …....down, down,down

 More down then more up!

Before this we had a delightful couple of days staying with Margaret in Baden where we were very well looked after. We explored the medieval town and the spa one day,

Baden - beautiful evening walk 

 Baden wooden bridge still ………… used dates from 1285

Baden town: 

Stein Castle, Aargau

and then had a day trip to Mt Pilatus by Lake Lucern. This mountain is 2132 metres (7000 feet) - we got to the top on a cog railway that at times went on a gradient of 48%. The rail system is now 125 years old, the carriages still have some of the original running gear! Safety checks must be quite regular, or so we hoped. From the top of the track we climbed up to the various peaks (up steps). The views were breathtaking over Lake Lucern and over the farmland. Swiss cows still wear cow-bells and we could hear these from the top of the mountain!

Pilatus Klum, 2132 metres (7000 feet)

 Marg und Margaret, yes….....the rail is perfectly safe (I hope they've done the safety checks)!!

 Carriage system, cog railway 125 years old and still going up the mountain!

 17.Who needs modern?

 End of the line

 Steep

 Marvellous Tectonic forces

 End of the day….40 mins down >>>>>>

 One of Lake Lucerne's arms

 Pretty high up

 Down to the valley floor

At the end of our last blog we were heading for Heidelberg where we met up with friends Dave and Irena from Plimmerton. We all stayed with their friends Ina and Uli (although Uli was away).

Dossenheim doing the real touring work! 

We had a great explore of Heidelberg where Dave had gone to university. When we briefly visited in the 1970s we were impressed with how laid back and friendly this city is and it hasn’t changed. At the university we visited the old lecture theatre that looked more like a church; the student prison where students were held for minor misdemeanors, like letting the pigs out to run around the town, up to early last century. (Dave tells us that the was not a beneficiary of this place!) The graffiti is fascinating. We sampled the local food and beer and indulged in magnificent German breakfasts provided by our hosts.  Also visited Ladenheim nearby which is one of the oldest towns in Germany and has Roman ruins. Because we had not had a chance to see Uli we arranged to meet everyone again in the Alsace region of France where they were heading next on a cycling trip.

 Heidelberg student jail

 Heidelburg…...Anything you can do I can do….

 32.Heidelberg from philosopher's way

We headed for Freiburg in the Black Forest, a part of Germany where we had not been before. This is a great university town with lots of winding cobbled streets and old buildings punctuated with huge gutters in the town - kids bring their small wooden boats to town to tug them along these!  We climbed to the old Schloss and had great views. Happened to visit on market day so that added to the trip. Found a café in a chocolataire and indulged in a hot chocolate (these are made with liquid chocolate in Europe and are becoming an essential food group). Drove into the nearby hills to hike in a beautiful valley with waterfalls and towering trees.

Freiburg town hall! 

 Just blow'n' bubbles!!

 Freiburg street cobblers!

Amazing who ONE runs into!

 Lunch on the move in the market place, Freiburg

We headed into France and to the very perfect medieval village of Turckheim. This area of France has often been part of Germany so the names sound German. We set up camp in the sun and while we were having a cuppa we were visited by some storks who just wanted to hang out with us.  We learnt later that the town is known for them. Met up with all the others who had arrived earlier on bikes and had a great meal together at one of the ‘caves’ and lots of laughs.

Turckheim town gate +stork's nest on top! 

Next morning we sadly said goodbye and headed south driving some of the Route des vins de Alsace. The whole area is a patchwork of grapevines and it was full on harvest time. At one of the processing centres we were able to watch (no samples…) the first stages of wine production, pinot gris!

                     Alsace vines. 

                            Plucked pinot gris

                           Soon for bottling

We then made our way to near Geneva crossing into Switzerland near the very beautiful Lac de Joux. We spent a lovely evening with Marion and James who are part of Marg’s wider family, whose house overlooks Lake Geneva (although it is in France). The next morning we decided to vote in the general election in person at the NZ Permanent Mission in Geneva. We were treated like royalty and the person who usually does the voting was away so the guy who helped us had the manual in one hand! Colin, who has had contracts training voting staff in the past found this fascinating….full marks to Genevre!

Tomorrow we head back to Germany eventually making our way to Berlin. We have really enjoyed meeting and staying with friends, it certainly gives a richer insight into the country