Where's Bertie? After a second night (Friday) in the Stellplatz in Braunschweig, he's now in a free Stellplatz on the edge of the town of Schöningen. Electricity and water are avalable for a fee. Exact location: 52.13327, 10.96
Weather: Sunny, topping out in the mid-twenties.
Friday
A quiet day. Most notable occurrence (other than a chap reversing his new-looking motorhome into the space next to Bertie and failing to notice the post behind him): a walk up to the local high point - a dizzying 89m. Disappointing summit:
Lovely parkland surrounding it:
Other than that, I read a lot, Mick did some work, and we watched the cricket*.
Saturday
A busy day!
It started with a parkrun, which didn't go entirely well for us or for a couple of the three tourists from Scotland, as someone had tampered with one of the directional arrows out on the course, and supplemented it with a big chalked arrow on the ground. I realised quickly that something was awry, and had the benefit of a map of the course on my phone. Mick went a bit further, before he decided he'd gone awry and backtracked. Another chap managed to add on a full kilometre. It's a relatively new parkrun, still finding its feet, and none of us was cross with our little adventure. I still managed to come first female, although not much of a triumph given there were only two of us*.
Once everyone was over the line, we all repaired to a local bakery for second breakfast:
Yes, my pastry was enormous - and very attractive to wasps. I reckon 99% of the world's wasp population lives at bakeries in Germany.
Back to Bertie for third breakfast, and then onwards to Kopernikusstraße, on the SE side of Braunschweig - the last of our scheduled revisits to Mick's childhood (or adolescence in this case). He was around 13 when he lived in Kopernikusstraße, but as he was at boarding school at Wilhelmshaven during that period, he wasn't there very much. Even so, as we got out of Bertie he walked with unerring certainty in a direction and took me to a terrace of houses sited exactly as he had described.
Neither he nor his mother could remember the number of the house, but he's now almost certain it was 20a (it could possibly have been 20c). It's second from the left in this snap:
The only other place he remembered was the bakery, where he would be sent to buy bread. The shop is still there but, disappointingly, it's no longer a baker's.
Where to next?
The 'plan' was that Braunschweig was to be the furthest point east on this trip. However, we intend to be in Hannover next Saturday for another parkrun, and that's only 70km distant. Our track record shows that we don't usually have a problem spending a whole week travelling that short a distance, but looking at the overnight options on Park4Night, no obvious itinerary jumped out at me. So, I looked a little to the east and found three free Stellplätze in a small area, which seemed like as good a reason as any to extend our easterly turn-around point.
The rural drive here didn't give me high hopes as to what we would find on arrival, and the Stellplatz felt a bit out of town (we're in the car park of swimming baths, in a residential area). However, a quick walk into town this afternoon has taught us that it is a historic place (the original village in this location is claimed to be the joint oldest in Lower Saxony), with a history of salt and coal mining, and with some fine buildings/points of interest. Even better, each POI is marked with a bi-lingual information board.
The only flaw, that we didn't spot for a while, is that they've put the arrows to the last/next POI in the same places on both the English and the German sides of the board, but as those boards sit back to back, at least one side is always wrong (sometimes both sides when the orientation of the boards is side on to what it should be).
Part of the significant Schloss complex
With an ice cream to fuel our explorations (€1.20 = cheapest yet, but also the worst quality), we managed to find a good proportion of the POIs, before wandering back to Bertie for the cricket final (Oval Invincibles won; commentary was absolutely dire).
Fountain of the Day
Not Fountain of the Day
Forgot to include this one the other day - an irresistable opportunity for 'Gayle imitates Art'. The occupants of a nearby pavement cafe had a good view of me as I contorted myself, with Mick's guidance.
(*What a climax to the eliminator! Trent Rockets needed an impossible-looking number of runs off the last 5 balls (in the context of the usual run rates in the women's game, where sixes are a rarity), then Sciver managed to hit three sixes in the last four balls, leaving just a 4 required from the final ball. Didn't manage it, but an exciting end all the same.
**I'd looked at last week's results and seen that it was a small event, with times that suggested I would finish in the top half. Then, as today's run director said "3, 2, 1 Go!" everyone shot off like rockets, leaving me trailing in their wake, with just the Tail Walker (actually a tail cyclist) next to me. I didn't get caught up in the excitement, but stuck to my pace, and it wasn't too long before some of those fast starters started to struggle. One person who didn't struggle, nor was he fooled (although it was a near thing) by the erroneous signage, was the chap in the Scotland vest, who set a new course record.)
Weather: Sunny, topping out in the mid-twenties.
Friday
A quiet day. Most notable occurrence (other than a chap reversing his new-looking motorhome into the space next to Bertie and failing to notice the post behind him): a walk up to the local high point - a dizzying 89m. Disappointing summit:
Lovely parkland surrounding it:
Other than that, I read a lot, Mick did some work, and we watched the cricket*.
Saturday
A busy day!
It started with a parkrun, which didn't go entirely well for us or for a couple of the three tourists from Scotland, as someone had tampered with one of the directional arrows out on the course, and supplemented it with a big chalked arrow on the ground. I realised quickly that something was awry, and had the benefit of a map of the course on my phone. Mick went a bit further, before he decided he'd gone awry and backtracked. Another chap managed to add on a full kilometre. It's a relatively new parkrun, still finding its feet, and none of us was cross with our little adventure. I still managed to come first female, although not much of a triumph given there were only two of us*.
Once everyone was over the line, we all repaired to a local bakery for second breakfast:
Back to Bertie for third breakfast, and then onwards to Kopernikusstraße, on the SE side of Braunschweig - the last of our scheduled revisits to Mick's childhood (or adolescence in this case). He was around 13 when he lived in Kopernikusstraße, but as he was at boarding school at Wilhelmshaven during that period, he wasn't there very much. Even so, as we got out of Bertie he walked with unerring certainty in a direction and took me to a terrace of houses sited exactly as he had described.
Neither he nor his mother could remember the number of the house, but he's now almost certain it was 20a (it could possibly have been 20c). It's second from the left in this snap:
The only other place he remembered was the bakery, where he would be sent to buy bread. The shop is still there but, disappointingly, it's no longer a baker's.
Where to next?
The 'plan' was that Braunschweig was to be the furthest point east on this trip. However, we intend to be in Hannover next Saturday for another parkrun, and that's only 70km distant. Our track record shows that we don't usually have a problem spending a whole week travelling that short a distance, but looking at the overnight options on Park4Night, no obvious itinerary jumped out at me. So, I looked a little to the east and found three free Stellplätze in a small area, which seemed like as good a reason as any to extend our easterly turn-around point.
The rural drive here didn't give me high hopes as to what we would find on arrival, and the Stellplatz felt a bit out of town (we're in the car park of swimming baths, in a residential area). However, a quick walk into town this afternoon has taught us that it is a historic place (the original village in this location is claimed to be the joint oldest in Lower Saxony), with a history of salt and coal mining, and with some fine buildings/points of interest. Even better, each POI is marked with a bi-lingual information board.
With an ice cream to fuel our explorations (€1.20 = cheapest yet, but also the worst quality), we managed to find a good proportion of the POIs, before wandering back to Bertie for the cricket final (Oval Invincibles won; commentary was absolutely dire).
(*What a climax to the eliminator! Trent Rockets needed an impossible-looking number of runs off the last 5 balls (in the context of the usual run rates in the women's game, where sixes are a rarity), then Sciver managed to hit three sixes in the last four balls, leaving just a 4 required from the final ball. Didn't manage it, but an exciting end all the same.
**I'd looked at last week's results and seen that it was a small event, with times that suggested I would finish in the top half. Then, as today's run director said "3, 2, 1 Go!" everyone shot off like rockets, leaving me trailing in their wake, with just the Tail Walker (actually a tail cyclist) next to me. I didn't get caught up in the excitement, but stuck to my pace, and it wasn't too long before some of those fast starters started to struggle. One person who didn't struggle, nor was he fooled (although it was a near thing) by the erroneous signage, was the chap in the Scotland vest, who set a new course record.)
You are the Multi-daily Meal Champions.
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