Where's Bertie? He's in a free Stelplatz (no services) literally a stone's throw from the walls of the old town at Haldensleben. Exact location: 52.29261, 11.41340.
Weather: Some overcast periods, many sunny periods. A few drops of rain. Mid-twenties and muggy.
You know what it's like when you're reading a good book and are determined to stop reading at the end of the chapter, but once there your eyes accidentally slip onto the start of the next chapter and before you know it you're engrossed and still moving forwards, rather than stopping and doing the useful things you're meant to be doing?
Bertie's currently doing his own version of that. Last Saturday morning he was supposed to be turning back westwards, yet found himself proceeding east. Then he snuck a bit further east. And today, when surely he was going to start heading back towards Belgium, which way did he go? Yep, east again (although with far more north than east in the equation today; my brief thoughts of going to look at Magdeburg were resisted).
This is not scuppering our plans, as we decided a few days ago that rather than going to a parkrun in Hannover this weekend, we would go to Wolfsburg instead.
So, to Haldensleben is where we came, to a Stellplatz that I suspect is little frequented (Bertie's all alone at the moment*) because it doesn't have any services. My expectations of the place were low, purely because of our experience in Oschersleben yesterday, and thus I've found myself pleasantly surprised. These two towns, bar the amount of graffiti, bear little resemblance to each other. Haldensleben is a nice place, with a handful of points of interest that the Tourist Office has made an effort to highlight (brass plaques embedded in the pavement attempt to direct you between them, and monolingual information boards on the buildings tell you a bit about their histories).
Here's an attempt at illustrating what the place is like:
The motorhome parking is as convenient as can be for the old town - go through the door in the wall just in front of Bertie and within a couple of minutes...
...you're in the Marktplatz, in front of the Rathaus (which houses the Tourist Info office, that wasn't open today).
A short walk down the main street (a long, well-presented pedestrianised street without a single broken window to be seen) this building caught our eye. Built in 1592 it was in a dilapidated state in 1875 when some chap with deep pockets bought the place and restored it to its former glory.
The waymarking took us down a side street (to a museum that was closed for lunch), where I snapped this shot. I do like a street where no adjacent houses share the same roofline.
So wibbly that it looks like it might collapse in on itself.
The remaining tower/town gate out of four that used to exist. Dating from the 14th century, but restored in 1988/9.
Whilst it wasn't a tremendous amount of walking around, we still thought it justified eating a huge quantity of food. I'm not sure it comes across in this snap quite how big those portions were.
A contender for Fountain of the Day, had it been running
Hands-down winner of the Fountain of the Day award.
Weather: Some overcast periods, many sunny periods. A few drops of rain. Mid-twenties and muggy.
You know what it's like when you're reading a good book and are determined to stop reading at the end of the chapter, but once there your eyes accidentally slip onto the start of the next chapter and before you know it you're engrossed and still moving forwards, rather than stopping and doing the useful things you're meant to be doing?
Bertie's currently doing his own version of that. Last Saturday morning he was supposed to be turning back westwards, yet found himself proceeding east. Then he snuck a bit further east. And today, when surely he was going to start heading back towards Belgium, which way did he go? Yep, east again (although with far more north than east in the equation today; my brief thoughts of going to look at Magdeburg were resisted).
This is not scuppering our plans, as we decided a few days ago that rather than going to a parkrun in Hannover this weekend, we would go to Wolfsburg instead.
So, to Haldensleben is where we came, to a Stellplatz that I suspect is little frequented (Bertie's all alone at the moment*) because it doesn't have any services. My expectations of the place were low, purely because of our experience in Oschersleben yesterday, and thus I've found myself pleasantly surprised. These two towns, bar the amount of graffiti, bear little resemblance to each other. Haldensleben is a nice place, with a handful of points of interest that the Tourist Office has made an effort to highlight (brass plaques embedded in the pavement attempt to direct you between them, and monolingual information boards on the buildings tell you a bit about their histories).
Here's an attempt at illustrating what the place is like:
(*My assessment was wrong. Whilst Mick was proof-reading, another motorhome pulled in.)
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