Wednesday 31 August - Bad Gandersheim

Where's Bertie? He's in a Stellplatz in the town of Bad Gandersheim at a cost of €7 per 24hrs. Electricity and water are available for a small extra fee (today's oddity: the eight electric points on one side of the Stellplatz cost €1 per 12 hours; on the other side they cost 50c per kW/h.). Exact location: 51.87187, 10.021.
Weather: Mainly sunny and warm (mid-twenties) after a cool start.

A walk into Scharfoldendorf started our day, where Mick didn't really recognise anything, although his recollection as to the line of the road up to the army camp did lead us up a dead-end that was clearly the old road.

Could this have been Mutti's back in the 1960s? Maybe.

Otherwise, it's a tiny village (more of a suburb of the neighbouring village really), with more than its fair share of abandoned buildings falling into disrepair.

Another one. There's probably just not a market for such massive semi-agricultural buildings these days.

Taking a different, lumpier, route back to Bertie...

The benefit of gaining a bit of elevation was the view up to the Ith ridge, where Mick used to live

... coffee and toast were had, and I put to Mick the two options of where we could go today: a free Stellplatz in Lamspringe with excellent reviews, but accessed via 33km of slow, small, winding roads; or this Stellplatz about the same distance away, with slightly less-good reviews, but accessed via good roads. The final decision was made when I counted the bag of coins and found that we did have enough to fund the fee here.

Via a fuel station (204c/litre) and Lidl, we got here to find that the ticket machine accepts cards ... except it wouldn't accept ours. A lot of attempts and Google translating of the messages on the screen happened before we gave up and used cash.

If we were going to just to sit and watch TV all day, then the sensible thing would have been to stay in Eschershausen another night, but once we were here we got sucked into watching the cricket (still the Hundred) and couldn't tear ourselves away*.

With two women's matches on today (the women's being aired for free on Sky Cricket's YouTube channel), we took the opportunity in the gap between them to go and have a look at the town.

What a lovely town! A couple of days ago in Hameln, we were wondering if we'd had our fill of German half-timbered towns, as it just wasn't that interesting and felt a bit 'samey'. Then today we rounded a bend to this view...

...which was just the start of the prettiness.

A few seconds later

Another view along a street

Ex-convent

I must have been enjoying the surroundings too much, as I now realise I failed to take any snaps of the most striking building, which these days houses the museum. We would have gone in, even though it would undoubtedly all have been in German, just for the view from the Watch Tower, had it not been for the requirement to wear a mask (the third museum visit we've not made for that reason).

The Tourist Office did have some English literature, so we followed a self-guided town tour, that was mildly informative, and led us right back to Bertie, although we walked on by for another lap of the town.

I'm not sure whether it's half day closing, but very few places were open. It took us some while to find somewhere to buy what is becoming our daily ice cream.

Our escapades caused us to miss the first innings of the second match of the day, but, as I said, it would have been a waste to come here just to watch cricket on TV (actually, on an 8" tablet, as Bertie doesn't have a smart TV)! The Hundred finishes this weekend, so we'll be less enthralled by the screen thereafter.

Two for the price of one: sculpture and fountain of the day

^{(*Northern Superchargers v Southern Brave. Northern Superchargers needed to win with a 46 run margin to make it to the eliminator. Southern Brave needed to win to guarantee their place in the final. For quite a long while either outcome looked possible, but in the end neither achieved their objective.)}

Tuesday 30 August - Eschershausen

Where's Bertie? He's in a neglected Stellplatz in the village of Eschershausen. The water/waste services have, apparently, long been out of service. It looks like the electric point may still work but we haven't tried it. Exact location: 51.92973, 9.62817
Weather: Cool overcast morning, with a low cloud base, clearing to a sunny and warm afternoon.

The Wesser, snapped during this morning's run. Mick went north down the river, I went south, and again we both arrived back at Bertie simultaneously.

Similar to our visit to Wilhelmshaven in 2017, today's visit to Scharfoldendorf and Eschershausen has involved quite a lot of poring over maps (aerial, landscape and road) to try to work out the locations of places Mick remembers from his time here as a child. We started by visiting the Ith ridge to try to find the site of the Scharfoldendorf Army Camp, but where, to Mick's disappointment, he recognised nothing. This could, we supposed, be because the main road has moved in the last 50 years and thus we were slightly misplaced from where we wanted to be, or because the buildings he remembers no longer exist, but we didn't have much information to go on.

We walked out and back up a few tracks from the main road, with Mick recognising nothing, until we came to an information sign with photos of crags sited exactly as Mick had described them to me. We obviously were in approximately the right place, and a few minutes more walking brought us to the childhood playground of Mick and his older brother:

Mick says it was much more open, with fewer trees, in the 1960s

Re-enacting the moves of his 10-year-old self.

We were still no wiser as to the location of the camp and the quarters, so returned to Bertie for a bit more online searching, during which I turned up this key bit of information...

...and elsewhere on the same forum I found this photo of the Schloss mentioned in the description above, taken in 1958:

Yet more poring over aerial imaging on Google Maps and I finally found what we were looking for:

It turns out we were sitting about 50m from the gates that would have given access to the Schloss (about another 100m further away), but the signs at the entrance were clear that it was private land and entrance forbidden. We had to make do with what we had seen.

With our stomachs making it known that lunchtime had been and gone, we drove straight through the village of Scharfoldendorf, coming the short (1.2km) distance to the neighbouring village of Eschershausen and its Stellplatz.

The reviews of the Stellplatz on Park4Night aren't great, purely because the services have long been broken and nothing has been done to fix them. To a German, who is used to an excellent network of motorhome parking places, this is a valid cause for complaint. Being from the UK, where motorhome parking provision is so woeful, being only in its infancy, just having somewhere sanctioned to stay is very much appreciated.

Deciding to defer our visit to Scharfoldendorf village until the morrow, this afternoon we headed out to find the one place Mick remembers from Eschershausen - the outdoor swimming pool complex. That we did, and sure enough it does have the Olympic-sized pool he recalls, although he thought there were more diving boards (whilst also acknowledging that he could be conflating his memory of this place with the equivalent in Wilhelmshaven).

Not open today, so we couldn't go in

Our wander back to Bertie involved cake and ice cream (one of each) - a few pence into the local economy, and thanks to paying for both with notes, a small restocking of our depleted bag of coins.

Yum!

Monday 29 August - Hameln

Wo ist Bertie? He's in a Stellplatz on the edge of Hameln, where it costs €8 for 24hr. Water and electricity are available for a small extra fee. Exact location: 52.09588, 9.35827.
Wetter: A cool start, but warming to a pleasant, if humid, afternoon. Mainly overcast.

Hameln (or Hamelin in English): famous for the tale of the Pied Piper, and probably why most people come here. The reason for our visit is part of the 'visiting places from Mick's childhood' theme, as he remembers cycling here with his elder brother, from their home in Scharfoldendorf, when he was 10 or 11. Whilst he remembered the cycling bit and the destination, he had no recollection of the town itself, so we came to see if it rang any bells (conclusion: it didn't).

Initial impressions on arrival weren't good. I'd already been forewarned by comments on Park4Night that the Stellplatz isn't pleasantly sited, being in an industrial area, but I didn't expect it to be this bad.

View from Bertie's windscreen. The freight cars are abandoned.

The general dodgy feel of the area on the drive in wasn't helped by there being only four other vans here, thus lacking the feel of safety in numbers (generally leaving a motorhome in an Aire or Stellplatz feels safe as there are always other people around). We gave consideration as to whether to decamp to the Canoe Club on the other side of the river (the bridge visible in the photo above goes over the river, but you can't see the water from here, with freight cars and trees in the way), but given it's twice the price over there, and further from town, we decided to stay.

(Incidentally, slight digression: cash is still king in Germany. All of these Stellplatz we're paying for require us to insert coins into Pay & Display machines; there's no card payment option. It hasn't taken many nights to exhaust what seemed, at the start of the trip, to be an excessively large bag of coins.)

It was immediately after an early lunch that we headed into town, by which time I'd downloaded a tourist brochure and decided we should try to catch the glockenspiel for its 1305 'performance' (there are only three a day).

First view of the old town. It turned out to be a good represenation of the whole of the rest of the place.

A bit of wandering, the viewing of the Glockenspiel on the gable end of the Hochzeithaus (Wedding House)...

After the first tune played on the bells, the doors in between the first floor windows started to open...

...and out came the Pied Piper, leading the rats out of town...

...another bell tune, and the children were led out of town...

...except two of them (one on crutches, one blind) couldn't keep up and retreated back to the town...

...and we set out to do a self-guided tour of the old town, per the leaflet I'd downloaded. That turned out to be too difficult/uninteresting, so was soon abandoned, but did lead to us coming upon a building site that captivated us more than the surrounding complete buildings.

Skeletons: more interesting that complete bodies?

We wandered a bit more, I got overly excited at the range and value of sock yarn in a wool shop...

...then we sampled some wares from the Backerei in the Marktplatz:

Wandering back to Bertie along the river, we took a detour across a bridge to check out a laundrette (cheap, but having since reviewed the laundy bag, it's pretty empty), which happened to give us a good view of the impressive weir.

Bertie is on the left side, not far beyond the ex-railway bridge visible in this snap

Arriving back at the Stellplatz, we found it approaching full, and thus it's feeling less of a dodgy place to be. There's probably a daily turnover of visitors and we must have just arrived in the morning lull between departures and arrivals.

Sculpture of the Day

Close contender for Sculpture of the Day

I don't usually chose a non-running fountain as Fountain of the Day, but I'm making an exception for this one.

We've long observed that European businesses like to use English for their slogans. This one caused a raised eyebrow.

^{(For anyone desperately wondering how last night's leftover electricity credit got on, it ran out about half an hour before we left Bad Eilsen this morning. A few minutes later I was just about to put a coin into the slot for drinking water, when I thought I'd be better turning the tap on before inserting the coin. Water came out, so we not only absconded without paying tax*, but got free electricity and water, thanks to credit left over from others.
*It occurs to me that the only people who will have trouble paying the Tourist Tax on the weekend are those from non-Euro-as-currency countries, and given that until today we've only seen one non-German motorhome on our travels, the losses from people who can't reasonably pay the tax (like us) must be tiny. I'll wager the losses from people who choose not to pay the tax is far greater.)}

Sunday 28 August - Bad Eilsen

Where's Bertie? He's in a free Aire in Bad Eilsen, but with an obligation to pay a tourist tax (€3.80)*. Water and electricity are available for a small fee**. Exact location: 52.23867, 9.10239)
Weather: Cool, overcast start, clearing to a sunny and warm afternoon.

The day started with a run around the Schloss grounds and an ascent up the local hill (213m) to visit the viewing tower atop its summit. We both did fundamentally the same route, but Mick started with the Schloss element, and I started with the hill. We stopped for a brief chat as we passed each other.

The route through the wooded hill to the summit was pleasant...

...but with only glimpses of the view through the trees, I looked forward to seeing it properly from the summit. Alas, the summit is also hemmed in, so the only way to see the view is by ascending the tower, and the tower wasn't open.

We've ascended one of an almost identical design before. Viewing towers and platforms, of all sorts of designs, are a popular thing in Germany.

Having finished my round of the Schloss gardens, I was just on my way back to Bertie when I got distracted by a brass band playing in the market square, so took the short detour to see what was going on. 

What you see in this photos is:
- a priest on a temporary stage, delivering a Sunday Mass;
- a brass band just below the lamppost-mounted flower arrangement to the left of the stage;
- the congregation, sitting at typical German outdoor eating/drinking long picnic tables;
- a temporary bar, open and ready for business.

This struck me as incongruous, as if the congregation, having observed the mass, was then going to flock to the bar and start drinking steins of beer at 10am.

Mick and I arrived back at the entrance to the Stellplatz at the same moment, but from different directions, and after second breakfast and showers, it was decision time again: where to go?

As Mick had some work to do, we opted for a short hop, a 9-minute drive to the small town that sits the other side of the hill we'd been up this morning.

Whilst Mick was sitting in front of his keyboard this afternoon, I took a walk through two of the local parks - the Kurpark (Spa Park) and the Englischer Garten. Pleasant enough, but nothing spectacular, except for the fragrance coming off the rose garden:

Back at Bertie I possibly broke the law, by giving myself an al-fresco hair cut with the electric clippers (noise laws in Germany are strict and apply all day on a Sunday). I also provided entertainment for those passing on the adjacent foot/cycle path, as if they've never seen a semi-clad woman standing in a car park cutting her own hair before...

I compounded the offence by then cutting Mick's hair. We're looking uncharacteristically neat and tidy now.

Fountain of the Day

(*The electricity supply here is a little odd, in that it's sold by the kW/h (normal; it's usually either by the kW/h or by a number of hours), but there's no display to say how much is left on each connection. We've plugged into one of two vacant connections still carrying credit, but have no idea how much is available. As it goes, at 50c per kW/h I'd be prepared to throw a coin in the meter if it runs out, but sods law says it'll happen in the middle of the night.
**The Tourist Tax has to be paid at the Tourist Info Office, which isn't open on the weekend. Or, we can use a QR code to download a form, which will give us the bank details to make a direct transfer. As we don't have the ability to make a Euro transfer from our bank accounts, and will be leaving tomorrow before the tourist office opens, we'll probably abscond without paying, but to salve our consciences we nipped out to the ice cream parlour after tea, so at least we have put a few pennies into the local economy.)

Saturday 27 August - Bückeburg

Where's Bertie? He's in a car park next to Schloss Bückeburg, where it costs €7 for 24 hours. Water and electricity are available for a small extra fee.
Weather: Overcast with some rain mid-morning. Cool at just 22 degrees.

As I suggested we might, we nipped back into Werne after tea and chores last night, where we did a tour of the four street entertainers who were on at 8pm. It's a tricky thing, seeing a taster of four different acts in such a short period, as it's far too easy to get drawn in and forget to move on.

Wandering back to Bertie (at the back of a truly huge car park that had been completely full for most of the afternoon), we had to conclude that the distrubance at Waltrop that had led us to do the quick late-night flit to Werne had turned into a positive, leading us to stumble upon a festival that otherwise wouldn't have been on our radar. 

It was a 6am alarm this morning - an antisocial time to be moving around - causing us to creep about being as quiet as possible whilst we performed the necessary pre-departure chores (unplugging from someone's leftover electricity and emptying the toilet, so not things we could do last night). On the road just before 0630, we arrived at Obersee in Bielefeld on schedule at 0800, with relief to find that our no-recce gamble had paid off: parking was no problem at all and having now seen the place* we have confidence we could have spent the night there. Useful knowledge, if we ever happen to be in that neck of the woods again.

The parkrun passed off nicely. It's a good course and I ran my fastest time since last October, finishing as first female (there was only a field of 12, of whom 5 were women). There was no cafe visit post-parkrun, but a couple of people had brought supplies, in the shape of a bottle of wine and cake balls. I don't think many people partook in the former, but the cake balls were excellent.

We chatted a good long while, mainly with Anne, whose English was so good as to sound like a native (thanks to having spent the best part of 20 years with a chap from Middlesborough, who speaks perfectly good German, but their language at home is English). Eventually a light rain started, which gradually became heavier, and people began to drift away. The walk back to Bertie was in the company of Anne and an expat called Shaun, and once there we all stood around for another while before parting ways. The rain really came down at that point and my fingers were turning purple by the time we got into the dry. What a contrast to last week!

Surveying again the options as to where to go today, this time with the assistance of a road atlas, I opted for the most expensive and most out-of-our-way, at Bückeburg, as it looked interesting enough to justify the few extra miles and modest expenditure (there were three other possibilities in this area, all of which offer free parking, but with the obligation to pay €3.80 in tourist tax).

Whilst we don't know what we're missing elsewhere, I think this was a good choice. We've walked up to the front of the Schloss, wandered through its grounds to the main focal point therein, the mausaleum, and walked through the town. Given more time and if there hadn't been an obligation to wear a mask, we might have visited the helicopter museum. An unlikely attraction in a little historic place such as this (indeed, part of the museum is housed in a half-timbered building).

Schloss Bückeburg and its main entance archway

From the back. It's a huge place.

Mausoleum

Rathaus

Fountain of the day

Sculptures of the day

*Due to privacy laws, StreetView is almost non-existent in Germany, limiting the opportunity to view destinations online first. Fortunately, height barriers are, in our experience, rare here, although there is still the possibility of being surprised by other obstacles or parking restrictions. 

Friday 26 August - Werne

Where's Bertie? To his surprise, he's still in the Stellplatz at Werne, although he has moved about 30m, into a motorhome space. (Exact location: 51.65906, 7.63339)
Weather: Overcast and cool. Still shorts and t-shirt weather, but not a sweatfest.

Our intention on arrival was simply to have a quick night-stop here, before continuing on to Bielefeld this morning. We don't have much of an itinerary on this (or any foreign) trip, but we usually arrive at a parkrun location a day in advance, giving us leisure to check out the parking situation and have a look at the course.

However, our desire to arrive in Bielefeld today was weighed against the likelihood of a disturbed night in the parking I'd identified on the parkrun side of town (car parks in cities on a Friday night can be 'interesting' places to be; we've had a few memorable Friday nights in Germany). The other option was that we could stay here another night, take the opportunity to look around Werne, and have ourselves an early start tomorrow.

So, once I'd bought a parking ticket (the machine, it turns out, is located just outside the boundary of the car park, and doesn't benefit from any lighting, so it's no wonder we couldn't find it last night), and we'd breakfasted, off townwards we went.

There are some marvellously wonky buildings in the church square

Even wonkier when viewed from the old rathaus square

Church. Not wonky, but bent by the panoramic function on the camera.

The old town is relatively small, and even with it being market day, it didn't take us a huge length of time to feel like we'd seen most of it, so back to Bertie we came, clutching baked goods (of which I forgot to take a photo).

Our next foray was in the opposite direction: into the park immediately behind Bertie. There we found this:

I'm not sure if the falling water is visible in that shot, so here's a closer snap:

And here's what the Google Translated version of the town's website says about it:
"The graduation tower, built in 1991, is 50 metres long and nine meters wide and is located in the immediate vicinity of the city lake. Here visitors can use the healing effects of the brine for their health. The brine trickles over a wall of blackthorns, creating a fine mist when it hits the thorns. This enriches the air with brine and creates a maritime climate."

Hmmmmm.

As for the pond mentioned in that paragraph, it was looking rather green today:

Whilst our walk around town this morning had told us some event had either been on or was about to happen (a stage set up in the church square; food stands in the main street), neither of us had read any of the signs and thus we were unaware until we headed back into town this afternoon that this weekend is the town's 'Street Festival' - comprising a host of street performers putting on 30-minute-ish shows at six locations around the old town, starting every hour on the hour.

We first found ourselves watching a Japanese couple, whose show essentially comprised a few handstands (impressive ones, it has to be said) and a lot of chat. With the chat being in English, the jokes were lost on the majority of the audience, but it was all mildly diverting for us.

The second act we saw (two chaps from South America, a Uraguayan, and a Argentinian) was thoroughly entertaining, with their slapstick show of knife throwing, sword swallowing, fire eating and the like.

Lying on a pile of broken glass, with a bed of nails face down on his abdomen, on top of which is his handstanding partner.

We may nip back in after tea to see what else is going on.

Fountain of the Day?

Nope, after a drought of fountains, we found two today and I'm going for this one as Fountain of the Day

Let's have a Sculpture of the Day too