Tuesday 22 August - Haren and Bad Bentheim

Where's Bertie? He's at a municipal Stellplatz in Bad Bentheim, at a cost of €9/24hrs. Extras available: electric (50c/ kWh), shower (€1) and water (10c/10litres). Toilets and waste are free. (Exact location: 52.30395, 7.15517)

A slow start due to an unintentional lie in was followed by a walk through town to find the Tourist Office. We weren't optimistic about finding wifi there and our pessimism was spot on. Free public wifi isn't easy to come by in Germany. We nearly pulled into a McDonald's later in the day, but were thwarted by a ban on left hand turns. With only one day of crosswords and puzzles left in our downloaded stash, our need for wifi is about to get pressing.

But I'm jumping ahead of myself.

The temptation was there to spend another day and night in Haren, but: a) in looking up the Tourist Office I discovered you're only meant to stay at the Stellplatz for 1 night (although many others were clearly flouting that); and b) it was touch and go whether we had enough toilet capacity to stay put. As lunch time arrived, we decided to move on. Someone took our prime riverside space almost before we had vacated it.

The town of Twist was to where we removed ourselves. There we found a Stellplatz that would comfortably have had room for one more van, if those already there were parked in a more considerate manner and if it wasn't being treated as a campsite*. We lunched. I pored over the 'where to stay' resources. Then we went to Lidl, right across the road, and continued on our way south. It seems I was entirely wrong a couple of days ago when I said that as soon as we left Haren we would head west to cross the border to the Netherlands.

So, Bad Bentheim is where we ended up. It's a big parking area here, in the parkland next to a castle.

Looking across the rose and lavender garden to the castle.

We didn't go into the main part of the castle as there's a charge and it was almost closing time. We may go tomorrow.

Shapely rock and ornate window surrounds

Incidentally, the Stellplatz here closes in 3 days time for a special market that immediately precedes the town's fair. The fair was just setting up in Haren too. That's five fairs we've seen setting up in as many days. I assume different regions have their fairs and festivals at different times of year, otherwise there couldn't possibly be enough marquees and fairground rides to go around.

^{(*I can understand getting your chairs out when parked at the side of some water or amongst some nice greenery. Here everyone had their deckchairs/canopies out even though they were sitting at the side of a road. In most of Europe it is not permitted to put stuff outside when at a motorhome parking area. To do so constitutes camping and that is what campsites are for. I'm not sure what the rules are in Germany, but I find it unacceptable to get your tables, chairs and canopies out if it takes up spaces that could be used by others.)}