Travel Musings

 I'm bringing everything up to date as tomorrow (Tuesday) we have a long, long run to Krakow - about 6 hours. Did I tell you Poland is a very big country? We walked into Torun this morning for a few reasons - to climb the Town Hall Tower, to visit the Planetarium (this is after all Copernicus's home town), and a look at the old town walls. The Planetarium was fantastic. You lay back in reclined seats to watch the almost overwhelming graphics being projected onto the dome overhead, and were transported to the edge of the known Universe. It's very, very good, and you arrive back in time for lunch - in this case a very optimistically named "Fitness Wrap", probably because there was some lettuce in it. The Tower was not for the faint hearted, as the wooden steps were narrow, tight and steep. The view from the top was worth it, though. Here's my final pictures from Torun, and it is a great place to visit.

 We had originally planned to travel from Berlin to a German town on the Polish border, called Mescherin, to see some trees that inexplicably bend ninety degrees at ground level, but then correct themselves. However the weather forecast was not so great, so we decided to head straight for Poland, to the town of Poznan, and what a great decision it turned out to be. Fuel prices in Berlin are very high, so, although low on diesel, we decided to fill up on the way. Up to now, all the way through Germany, there were fuel stations every 50km or so, but absolutely nothing on the motorway to Poland. We eventually found one right up on the Polish border, just in time, as I had had a warning light on for quite some way. And then, in Poland, there were fuel stations every few kilometres! The price of diesel was also good - fractionally over £1 per litre. Our overnight stop in Poznan was in a carpark on an old dried out riverbed, but it was clean and safe although no facilities. The town of P...

 Transport into Berlin from Potsdam is very confusing to the uninitiated (like us), involving walking, a bus ride to Spandau followed by a overland train to Berlin Hauptbahnhoff (main railway station) and then on further by Tube if required. That doesn't sound too difficult, but we were finding that the train numbers we were being advised to use didn't match up with what was on the departure boards. We got there eventually without getting on wrong trains or busses, but I cannot say it was stressless. Berlin is a huge sprawling city, and there was no way we were going to see even a smidgeon of all there was to see, especially on foot. Everywhere we went, police motorcycles were blocking off roads to allow big black Mercedes cars to swish by. It all appeared to be a bit....Soviet? However there are elections here in mid September so no doubt this had something to do with it. The Reichstag (Parliament) The Brandenburg Gate Checkpoint Charlie Frau Merkel's offices, known as the...

 Wednesday saw us taking a bus into Potsdam centre, and with help from some really friendly and helpful locals, we made it unscathed. Each bus has its own ticket machine onboard, and you basically buy a one trip ticket for €2.30 and are transported to the Rathaus (Town Hall). From there you can catch a tram, or simply walk along broad pleasant streets. Our destination was the Bahnhoff (railway station) to join up with what we thought was a prebooked walking tour of the city Centre, but was actually a guided open topped double decker tour with some walking at stops on the way. As it turned out, this was much better. An organ grinder at Potsdam Bahnhoff. The tour gave a fascinating history of Cold War Berlin and Potsdam, and how the Russians ran their sector. One particular bridge (Potsdam is full of lakes and rivers) was described by the guide as the Bridge of Agents where The Russians and the Allies traded captured agents. I rather suspect the Bridge of Agents was more probably kno...

 It's time to catch up. The reason for a few days away from the blog is just the amount I driving I have been doing the past two days. In fact, total mileage since I left home is now over 1100 miles. Sunday was our last full day in Saarburg, and a lunch time meal was included in the tour package. We decided not to go to any of the tourist traps, but head out a few hundred yards into the backstreets and try a traditional restaurant we had seen and I booked the day before. I say I because Giles and Linda don't have any German, so I made what I though was a passable booking with the old owner for the next day. When I asked him if he wanted a contact name, he answered in good English that it wasn't necessary as he did not expect to be full. The restaurant itself was warm and clean, but had the look of a much older style - say late fifties. The old man (aged 77) and his wife (aged 74) ran the restaurant efficiently, but decidedly slowly....because at that age, if you are carryin...

 It was a misty start to the day at the campsite, but it gradually disappeared and became a warm pleasant day. First off, a trip up a ski lift with our bikes, followed by a visit to a wild bird centre, and a ride down the switchback road into town. As it turned out when we got to the top, the bird centre was back down at the bottom, so the order of thing changed. One of the gondolas on the ski lift is adapted to carry four bikes, and the bikes hang underneath the gondola from the rear wheels. Given that electric bikes are rather heavy I was a little concerned that my rear wheel quick release mechanism could take the load, and removed the battery. Giles and Linda couldn't do this but it turned out not to be a problem. Giles and I loaded the bikes and sat in gthe gondola in front (so we could get the bikes off quickly), and Linda sat in the gondola behind with their pannier bags. The ride was very smooth, and apparently the bikes didn't move at all. The view from the top was exce...