Ich bin ein Berliner

At least that's what I think President Kennedy said.  Apparently it really means I am a small bun, but German grammar makes fools of us all, and his meaning was clear.  Alles klar, as we say here.
We have had an excellent couple of days sightseeing in Berlin, a very interesting place indeed.  As well as all the iconic monuments like the Brandenburg gate, Checkpoint Charlie, the Reichstag (complete with Norman Foster dome) etc we visited an interactive museum about daily  life in East Germany - you could pretend to drive a Trabant, for example, and various remnants of the wall. Like many places we have visited, Berlin is undergoing major reconstruction, we wonder if it is all to do with stimulating the economy or just a drive for continuous improvement.
We are camping at a site technically in Berlin, but practically not - it involves a bus, tram and two trains to reach the city centre. But it is all interesting and travel is cheap - about £5 for a day travel card on any form of public transport.
The site has a lakeside bar - see pic below, where we watched a heron gobble an enormous fish.  Also had pied flycatcher fledge from nest box onto the van!

Weather has been perfect for over a week now, and forecast is good, so we are going to try the Baltic coast - seems very odd heading north to find the sun!

OK so we weren't exaggerating about the rain. We left our partly flooded campsite and continued north on the 'romantic road' to Wurzburg, luckily the campsite there was on top of a hill. Despite the diversions everywhere we didn't realise how bad it all was till we reached Bamberg and bought a paper. Only to discover that a lot of south and east Germany and the Czech republic was under water.  So it began to look foolhardy to continue to Prague - besides we didn't want to see it with the worst flooding for 100 - 400 years depending on who you talk to.
Therefore we decided to move considerably further north, to Berlin in fact, where there was an indication of sunshine, or at least less rain. Like most of our plans on this trip, this didn't quite work, but this time in a good way.  Driving up, we were stuck for a couple of hours in a huge traffic jam caused by, you guessed it, flooding on the motorway, so we stopped earlier than planned at a place called Ferch, just outside Potsdam.  The weather has been perfect, the camping is by a large and lovely lake and it is an easy bus ride to Potsdam. So we have been here for 5 nights, drying out, sightseeing, cycling round the lake and generally having a holiday!
Next stop, Berlin - almost certainly.

News from the ark!

We have hit a spot of extreme rain and beginning to feel like the Noah's. We are travelling north up the 'romantic road' from about Augsburg to Wurzburg visiting the 'impossibly beautiful' towns and villages in route.  They really are very lovely with mediaeval fairytale centres - all half timbered houses, tiny streets and yards, town walls and towers. Now at Rothenburg on der Tauber, perhaps the best preserved, but also the most touristy.
Much excitement about 11 last night after several hours of torrential rain as the site owners began to move caravans to higher ground and rescue people from tents! We are OK as on a hard standing, but got ready to evacuate as a siren went off in the village - nothing happened so don't know what that was.
Still raining today but we will continue with the plan - as our Dutch camping neighbours said the other day 'it is too late to think now of Spain!'

More from Alsace

We have made our way here - just outside Colmar - via Lac due Der, Nancy and Kayserberg.  Lots of lovely things to see, do, eat and drink! Today enjoyed long walk through vineyards and forest in more or less sunshine.  Pretty villages along wine route - half timbered houses painted in bright colours, storks nesting on high buildings.
Weather so far has been very mixed - a lot of cold and wet, but better today, only one jumper and no gloves.  Tomorrow off to Germany towards Ulm and the 'romantic road'. Ray's lap top is very sick so am tapping this out on my tablet, hoping the WiFi connection doesn't drop out.  More later from Deutschland.

Greetings from Alsace

Here in cool and showery Alsace near Colmar.  All fine - except for terrible WiFi and problems with technology. Hope to post more later with pics.  Storks have arrived but where is summer?

The end of the road

Just to let people know that we have arrived home safely and all is well. A big thank you to our lovely neighbours who keep an eye on the house and cut the grass while we are away. As we hope you gathered, we had a fantastic trip and we know we are so lucky to be able to do this.  Now we are slowly getting through the mounds of washing, tidying up the garden and preparing for winter.  So that is the end of our ramblings for a while, see you next year!

Homeward bound

Since our last post we have been in the Eifel region, dodging the showers, enjoying some autumn sunshine and definitely putting the heating on overnight – there was ice on the van this morning!

We left Koblenz on Monday and drove west to Gerolstein.  On the way Ray noticed some strange shaped hills and it gradually dawned on us (the signs to the Vulkanpark being a clue) that we were crossing the German volcano region.  By the time we realised, the main sights were behind us, so a visit to that area must wait for another trip.

We stayed at a good camp site just outside Gerolstein, where the pitches were on a terrace with an incredible panoramic view.  It was entertaining sitting watching the view appear and disappear as waves of cloud and rain came up over the valley.  As this was only the second day of the whole trip that we have been confined to the van, we couldn’t complain, and we hear it has been much worse in parts of the UK. 

Changing weather at Gerolstein - over 15 minutes

We then moved on to Monschau, very close to the Belgian border and perfect for a short stop.  Monschau is a fair sized town with picturesque black and white half-timbered buildings perched in a narrow river valley (with dippers, another favourite bird).  Now it is a great tourist draw, with lots of craft and gift shops and cafes, but it has a long history of cloth making industry, so is interesting too. We spent a day pottering about the town, walking up to the castle, visiting the ‘Red House’ – a huge private house which belonged to a cloth making family and is now on display like a National Trust property.  It has a particularly famous staircase, which is indeed impressive. 

 

The weather forecast for Sunday was very good, and it was absolutely right. We took advantage of the sunshine and went for a long walk along the river valley and back through a couple of little villages. While following the path through the forest, we were surprised by a large red fox which suddenly crossed in front of us.  One of the real pleasures of motorhoming is that you sometimes come across places you would never otherwise see – our find of the day was a ‘hedge walk’ (Heckenweg) round the village of Hofen.  Most of the houses in the village are surrounded by enormously tall beech hedges, many 10 m tall, and all immaculately clipped, some with ‘windows’ cut in them to let in the light to the windows in the houses.  They must have originally been for shelter, but it has really become an art form and locally they are clearly quite famous. It is an astonishing sight, but who would think of going to see a hedge?

Always take supplies with you into the forest..

Now we are back at Buysscheure, not far from Calais.  It has taken about 5 hours to drive here from Monschau, mostly motorway through Belgium, very bumpy, lots of road works, but it is done.  It is very quiet here at the campsite and has a very end of season feel – I asked about bread for the morning and was met with a shake of the head, a gallic shrug and ‘C’est octobre, madame’ as if people stop eating breakfast in autumn.