Wednesday & Thursday - 14/15 September - Wittingen and Nienhagen

Where's Bertie? Wednesday: a Stellplatz in Wittingen (approx location: 52.72396, 10.72790) and tonight a Stellplatz in Nienhagen (exact location: 52.55686, 10.10747). In both locations electricity and water are available for small fees.
Weather: Yesterday was mainly overcast, today has had sunny intervals and a few short showers. Feeling cooler.

Wednesday
Yesterday's move was only 10km along the road, across the boundary between Saxony Anhalt and Lower Saxony, to the town of Wittingen - a much bigger place than Diesdorf where we had spent the previous three nights. Our first stop there was a supermarket, with me bearing a list that pretty much read 'one of everything; two of some things' such was the depleted state of Bertie's cupboards*. The Stellplatz was only 700m further up the road - a large car park sitting in a residential area.

It was afternoon by the time we made it out to have a look around Wittingen, and early indications were promising when we passed some pillars marking the entrance to the old town. Alas, it didn't deliver on that promise, and I can now see why the Tourist Information website (incredibly, there's even an office in the town) lists only things to do in the region, not in the town itself. It's a small place, with a smattering of nice old buildings, but nothing of note. It was also largely deserted mid-afternoon.

What saved our visit from being a complete write-off was the handful of sculptures, mainly in the main square.

A fine opportunity for 'Gayle imitates art', and I reckon I did a pretty good job.

Mick getting friendly with a chap bearing one more beer than he needs

Fountain of the day. Really liked this one.

Runner up for fountain of the day, located not in the main square, but in the location of the historic goose market (where not just geese but various birds and small animals were bougth and sold)

Church. Not open.

We contemplated moving on, but without detouring out of our way, I couldn't find anywhere to go that looked more interesting, so we stayed put.

The only other point of note for the day is that with the drop in temperature and lack of sunshine we broke out the duvet (first time we've used it in months; usually a sheet and a blanket does us fine). Not really needed until approaching dawn, but we were glad of the extra warmth then.

Thursday
The Stellplatz at Nienhagen is another of those that has uncommonly good reviews (68 averaging 4.5/5 on this occasion), but without anyone mentioning what there is to see or do hereabouts, so we thought we'd come and have a look.

Surprisingly, there were only two other vans here when we arrived (before 10am), and within a couple of minutes one of those had left. By noon all six spaces were full and a stream of hopeful new arrivals have been arriving (and departing) since.

On the plus side, it's a nicely presented Stellplatz, not just a few dedicated spaced within an existing car park...

...and it's next to a nice flower garden...

...and with a ex-railway track, now a cycle route, running a couple of hundred metres behind it...

...which leads to even more nice parkland. The ex-railway cycle route gave us a dead-straight, dead-flat place for this morning's run, after we'd mustered the enthusiasm to get out the door (travelling then going for a run is always much harder than running then travelling).

I did a bit of Googling before we headed off into town just before lunch, as it wasn't clear from the map where the town centre lay. Scant information was found, but I did learn that the town's festival falls this weekend, a tradition harking back to the founding of the village in 1228. Excellent - this must be a really historic place with lots of interesting stuff...

Nope. There's a precinct of a few shops, and lots of houses, all modern. We even walked out to the cemetary, but even that looks modern. My best guess is that the town was bombed to pieces during the war, and subsequently rebuilt.

Once again, I find myself pondering, as I did last night, why these towns have provided Stellplätze? What are they trying to attract people here to see?

The town of Celle, 10km up the road looks interesting indeed**, but this Stellplatz is too far away to be serving that town.

We're off to Hannover tomorrow. I have confidence that there will be something interesting there, even though (like Wolfsburg last weekend) we have no intention of going into the city centre.

^{(*When we returned unexpectedly and in a rush from Spain in March 2020, with bare cupboards, I created a shopping list that was so comprehensive that, since then, it has been my 'master shopping list' - it contains most of the items that we usually buy making it easy to write the weekly list. I brought a copy of it away with us, but alas, it has gone missing. I fear that it met its end in the severely damaged pile of receipts and post it notes that I pulled out of the tumble drier last weekend. Really must check my pockets more thoroughly before washing my shorts.
**Celle has it's own Stellplatz and we would have gone there if it wasn't for its 'sophisticated' entry system. One has to pay a €5 deposit for a card, which you load with credit to give you entry to the Stellplatz and to use the services once inside. With all that being via machine, I foresaw that we would end up paying for the card, having to load it with excess credit, have no way of reclaiming our deposit, and having no use for it beyond one night's parking - which when added to the Stellplatz fee would have led to an expensive night stop.)}