May 2020 – Page 4 – RV Travels in Europe and North America

June 19, 2019 Kortrijk BE

We woke up to a pretty serious thunderstorm. It had been raining off and on all night with a few gusts of wind strong enough to rock François back and forth. Our neighbor had to get up and secure his bicycles and table to prevent them from blowing away.

The wheat next to our parking place showing the effects of the rain and the wind.

The neighbors were Belgian and we spent some time talking to them last night. Neither spoke English fluently but they both could communicate to us. The first question was where we were from as it was clear to them we were not French. After we got that sorted out, we began to talk about traveling. The wife volunteered that this was her first time in this part of Belgium. Since Belgium is quite small we were a little surprised so Ton asked her where she was from, “Bruges”. We both laughed as Bruges is about 40 miles from where we are today and she was probably in her late 60’s. She thought about it for a minute and laughed too, saying she has been to Spain, France, and Indonesia but not to Westvleteren until today. She made me laugh again later when we were heading back to François, I told them “See you later”, she replied “See you later alligator”, giggled and followed it with “after a while crocodile”. I got a real kick out of that which she appreciated.

The Duchesse de Bourgogne, the purpose of our day today.

Today was the biggest day of our beer tour of Germany and Belgium. Tons’ favorite beer in the world is Duchesse de Bourgogne by Verhaeghe Brewery. Ton had been on their website and they only offered public tours on Friday and that would not work for us. We decided to send them an email explaining our problem and asking if they could accommodate us in any way. We were thrilled when they agreed to give us a private tour of the brewery today.

Katrien our tour guide for today. Yes we did try all of the beers in front of her.

We arrived at the brewery and met our guide for the day Katrien. She sat us down and began the tour with a tasting of two of their beers that they only sell locally. After that we were off for a walk around the brewery. The brewery is family run for 4 generations and has survived two world wars. In the first world war the owner of the brewery refused to brew for the Germans so they confiscated all of his beer making equipment to melt down to make guns.

As Katrien said we could have a good party with the contents of one of these barrels.

Their beer is all pre-sold so they are in the process of a significant expansion of the brewery to double their output. We were shown both the historical old buildings and the new modern buildings that will make up the expansion. Katrien did a great job explaining the process, and talking us thru each of the beers. It was a great time and we have a fresh bottle of Duchess de Bourgogne to drink before we leave.

The twin watch towers over the River Leie in Kotrijk.

We finished the day in an aire in the town of Kortrijk which is a major town in the region. We did not see as much of it as we wanted as it was raining pretty hard when we first arrived with occasional flashes of lightning. It finally calmed down enough for us to take a quick walk thru the town. It has two World Heritage Sites, their town belfry which along with all of the other belfries in Flanders are grouped as a world heritage site, and the Beguinage of Courtrai which is a well preserved 13th century womens community. It was run like a nunnery but the women did not take any religious vows. It was still active as a womens community until the 1960’s.

The interior of the Beguinage with the Cathedral tower in the background.

Another view from inside the Beguinage, the building in the middle is from the 1600’s while the buildings surrounding it are from the 1300’s.

June 18, 2019 Westvleteren BE

Today we moved a whole 15km to a nice aire on a farm in the village of Westvlateren. It is a very small village known for St Sixtus Abby and Brewery. The setting is beautiful but unfortunately they just cut the hay in the field next to the aire and Ton who has been fighting allergies this entire trip is really suffering.

Our impromptu goal for the day St. Sixtus Abby.

As we have been traveling around Belgium we have kept hearing about this mythical beer from Westvleteren. When we were in Amsterdam we ran into an Australian who proudly mentioned he had found some bottles of it for sale in Brussels and was happy to get 3 of them for only €19 each. When we moved to Bruges we also heard about this beer from some other people. Ton began doing her research and it turns out it is considered by some beer connoisseurs to be the best beer in the world, and it was very difficult to buy it as you had to make an appointment and you were limited to 48 bottles at a time. The problem is that the phone to call to make an appointment receives over 80,000 calls per day so it is very hit or miss whether you can get an appointment. The monks are very concerned as their beer has been growing in popularity about people gouging others. They closely control distribution to minimize people inflating prices, but it is still happening like our Australian friend in Brussels discovered. At the brewery the bottles sell for €4.

We were still not planning to visit the brewery until last night when we decided to spend the day in the vicinity of Poperinge which is the biggest Hops producing town in Belgium. When I began to look for a place to stay around Poperinge it turns out there is an aire close to the Westvleteren Abby. Ton did some more research and found out that the monks did allow one cafe to sell their beer over the counter in the village, so here we are.

Hops were the reason we began the trip today.

We started the day by going to Poperinge to visit the hop museum. It was an interesting presentation on hop production in the region. It focused mostly on the farming of the hops and was full of equipment and detailed descriptions of how hop farming techniques had changed in the area thru history. At the end it had examples of every Belgian Beer currently in production by region.

To celebrate the end of the hop harvest locals burn straw men in the field and drink a lot of beer.

The next stop was the Westvleteren Cafe which along with the Abby is pretty much the entire town. The aire was supposed to be 1km from the Abby but that turned out to be as the crow flies, so after a half hour walk around the fields between us and the abby we arrived hot and ready for a cold beer. It took a while to be served as we have not quite mastered the way of getting a Belgian servers attention, but we finally put in our order for one of each of the 3 beers they produce here. The first is a blonde, the second is a dark beer with 8% alcohol, and the reported best beer in the world is the dark beer with 12% alcohol. They were all excellent, but our conclusion was that the dark 12 was indeed the best.

As we were leaving we stopped in their gift shop to pick up a memory of the trip, and discovered we could buy a six pack of the dark 12. So as I am typing this I am happily sipping on one of the best beers in the world.

June 17, 2019 Ypres BE

We only moved about 50 kilometers today to the town of Ypres. I picked this stop because I was interested in a Commonwealth War Ceremony they have there every night.

Walking to town we came across this very healthy looking sheep who winked at Ton.

Ypres was right on the front lines during WWI and was pretty much fought over for the entire war. In total there were over 1 million casualties in what was called the Ypres Salient (bulge) with over 850,000 combined casualties in a 3 month period in 1917. Ypres was also the first use of poison gas on the western front. The entire town was leveled during the course of the war.

After the war the Belgian government rebuilt the city including duplicating the Cotton Hall and belfry as well as the Cathedral as they stood before the war. Both buildings are impressive sites today.

The reconstructed Cotton Hall and Belfry rebuilt after WWI. The original building was rubble after the war.

While French and Belgian troops fought extensively in this area for the allies, a large contingent of British and Commonwealth soldiers fought here. After the war the Belgian government reconstructed the Menin Gate into the city as a war memorial to the Commonwealth and British soldiers who were killed in this area but whose bodies were never properly identified. The monument has over 50,000 names on it from all over the British Empire. There are soldiers from Canada, Australia, India, Burma, and South Africa as well as Great Britain on the memorial.

You can see the endless lists of names on the wall, thru the door is a similar wall with more names, over 50,000 in total.

As a tribute to these men who were lost; every night the Fire Brigade in Ypres has a ceremony called “The Last Post”. At 8pm buglers from the Fire Brigade play the Last Post (the British version of Taps.) inside the Menin Gate. Tonight we attended the ceremony and it is very moving. As we were waiting we heard people from Canada, Australia, and Britain talking about the ceremony and why they were attending. It is a fairly simple but moving ceremony as different groups bring wreaths to present at the Gate. Tonight it was school groups in their uniforms presenting the wreaths. We were very impressed that this ceremony is still being carried out over 100 years after the end of WWI.

June 16, 2019 Bruges BE

Bruges deserved a second day so after spending some time talking to our Dutch and English neighbors we headed into town to take a look at some other sites for the day. We were hoping it would be a little less crowded than on Friday but if anything it was busier.

Market Square in Bruges with the crowds.

Our first stop was the oldest bar in Bruges dating back to the 1560’s. One of the stories is that the famous Flemish painter Paul Reubens ran up a bar tab in the 1600’s that he did not have the cash to pay off, so he paid the bill with a painting. Hopefully they kept the painting long enough as it would have paid off whatever tab he ran up plus a million Euro or so today.

The door to the oldest bar in Bruges that one time owned an original Reubens.

Something interesting happened as we walked to the bar. It is not in the tourist core of Bruges, and after we got a few blocks past the square we were suddenly alone. We were following a beautiful canal with really interesting buildings all around us, but hardly any tourists, just locals. We really enjoyed this stretch of the city.

Another beautiful area in Bruges away from the tourist crush.

On Friday we passed on a canal boat tour because of the crowds, but today despite the crowds being worst we felt obliged to do it. There were 40 seats on the boat and they were all filled. Our boat driver was multi-lingual so he did the tour in 4 languages, English, Dutch, French, and Spanish so we had to pay attention for when our explanation was coming. By this time we had walked all of the canals we went down on the boat a couple of times so we were familiar with the sites and the short explanation did not add much to our experience.

Ton treated me to a fathers day meal of Flemish Mussels which are a delicacy around here. After we started eating we realized that Delirium Brewery from Brussels had recently bought this place which was listed as one of the best restaurants and beer halls in town.

Enjoying my Belgian Mussels with a Delirium Beer.

At the end of the day we returned to Half Maan Brewery for a tour. It is clear that lawyers are not the powerful force in Belgium that they are in the US. Our tour had us climbing up and down ladders and very small stairs thru working industrial space. At one point the tour guide let an 11 year old boy climb into a 500 liter beer tank, that would result in a fine from the safety inspector in the US. The brewery has a 2 mile pipeline for beer from the brewery to their bottling plant in the industrial outskirts of Bruges which is the longest beer pipeline in the world. The highlight was when we popped out on the roof of the brewery for a great view of the top of Bruges. The tour ended with a nice glass of Belgian Blonde Ale, and some soccer discussion about the US women and Timbers with another couple from Portland who were also on the tour.

Ton really liked the logo of the Half Maan Brewery.

The view of Bruges from the roof of Half Maan.

The storage tanks they let the boy climb into.

As we headed back we heard voices near François and it turns out our English and Dutch neighbors had also just returned and were exchanging stories of their day. We joined in and an impromptu party broke out where some French wine, and Irish, and German beer was consumed. That is why this is being published a day late.

As we were leaving the city we came on this sculpture of the flying horse Pegasus pulling a carriage. We are not sure what the significance is of the naked women on the back.

June 15, 2019 Ghent BE

Today we took the train into Ghent leaving François in Bruges. Ghent is an easy 30 minute train ride from Bruges and we are parked almost next to the train station, with the added bonus of 1/2 price train tickets on the weekend it was a no brainer for us, and a rest day for me and François.

The market square and St. Bavo’s Cathedral in Ghent.

The Ghent station is about a mile and a half from the center of the city, so we stopped and bought a day pass for the local transit which broadened our area to explore a bit. The first stop was the tourist information center to pick up a walking tour map of the city. Ghent is a bigger less touristy version of Bruges. It has all of the canals, cathedrals, and old buildings of Bruges just on a bigger less personal scale.

The Belfry in Ghent, while it looks old, the top half is from the early 20th century.

The center was very lively as it was Saturday and the local people were out shopping with the tourists. Ghent had a really fun feel to it and we enjoyed walking thru the center of the town. It is the third biggest city in Belgium, but avoided significant damage in both Wars so it has retained a lot of it’s pre-20th century charm. Recently as Bruges has been overrun with tourists, Ghent has turned into a major tourist destination as well.

The center of the tourist industry, the canal boat tours in Ghent allow alcohol while the ones in Bruges do not.

The old meat market with a selection of (probably Spanish) hams hanging from the ceiling.

After touring the center we decided to continue our beer tour of Belgium by visiting a couple of breweries, the first was Dok Brewery. It was in an old industrial area adjacent to some canals that is being converted to housing and small tech type businesses. Dok in Flemish means Dock in English and it was located in an old warehouse. We knew we had found a place away from the tourist route because all of the signs were in Flemish. When I apologized that I could not speak Flemish to the Bartender she smiled and switched to perfect English and told me not to worry, no one but the Flemish can. It really reminded us of some of the breweries in Portland that are also in old industrial sites. They had a wide selection of beers beyond the traditional Belgian beers. We enjoyed a taster tray and then a round of our favorites.

Canals cut thru Ghent in many directions, many are still used for industry, some are converting to tech and housing.

The second brewery was Gruut Brewery. Ton really wanted to visit because the head brewer is female. It is also set up as a microbrewery, so we enjoyed a taster of not just the traditional beers but some non-traditional. They were also excellent.

On the way back we were comparing Ghent and Bruges. Our conclusion was if you were visiting for a day you should choose Bruges, if you were visiting for a week we would choose Ghent.

We stumbled onto this alley that the local artists were using as a living art gallery. There were about 100 yards of graffiti art along both sides.

Ton has been greatly entertained by Flemish/Dutch spellings, as they have lots of vowels. In the past she visited the Czech Republic and had difficulty pronouncing anything due to that languages lack of vowels, here the plethora of vowels cause her the same problem. Tonight she was telling our neighbors from the Netherlands that they need to lend some of their vowels to the Czechs so both languages would be easier to pronounce. I am not sure they understood her humor, but they smiled.

A wood carving of St. Bavo. He has the nicest cathedral in Ghent named after him.

June 14, 2019 Bruges BE

Bruges is one of the most visited cities in Europe and a world heritage site. It is one of the cities that is being loved to death and is looking at how to reduce tourism without killing it. So we are here with all of the tourists trying to enjoy the city.

The market square in Bruges with some of the crowd.

When you get here you see why it is popular. It has most of its older buildings intact and is a great size to walk around and take in the sites. On top of that it has an extensive canal system that makes it feel even more fun and interesting. The entire town is a UNESCO site and for good reasons.

But views like this are the reason so many people want to see Bruges. It is a stunning place.

Having said all of that we we are here in shoulder season and it was packed. It is not a place to visit if you do not like crowds. We usually avoid crowds but braved them today and are glad we did as the city is really worth it. There is not one thing that is truly outstanding, but what you have is all of the pieces of a European City, palace, cathedral, market square, old houses and businesses and they are all well preserved and presented. In this case the sum of the parts is greater than the individual parts.

The combination of the house and the footbridge, these small charms are scattered through out the city.

The aire in Bruges is next to a giant bus lot for all of the tour busses who come to the city each day. The aire is expensive but the location is good as it is a quick 10 minute walk to the center.

A green canal near between the aire and city center.

We had a list of things we wanted to see and do. One of the highlights was a visit to a chocolate shop that is known for outstanding hot chocolate. This was absolutely the best hot chocolate we have ever had. When our order arrived we thought they had made a mistake because we received two very large cups of hot milk, and a tray with two heaping servings of chocolate. The girl explained that we put the chocolate into the milk and mix it ourselves to taste. It was unbelievably delicious. In addition to the chocolate we split a Belgian Waffle with chocolate, whipped cream and ice cream. It was decadent, the best desert we have had on this trip.

We came across this view wandering down a back alley. Bruges seems to have a beautiful surprise around every corner.

After that we spent the day enjoying ourselves wandering around town. Ton ran the battery down on her camera taking photos. Bruges is one of the best cities we have visited to just wander aimlessly as there is a new view, or statue, or people doing interesting things all around. We accomplished all of our list but the canal boat ride as the lines were crazy and the boats were gunnel to gunnel going down the canal.

We missed the canal tour because of the crowds.

The Belgian version of the Budweiser Clydesdales.

We ended the day with a stop at at the Half Moon Brewery which has been around for six generations now. We enjoyed two of their signature beers. Even though it was our last planned stop we still took over an hour to get back to François as new sights beckoned us to turn aside all the way back.

Came across this view as we walked back to François.

Another view on our way back to François.

June 13, 2019 Brussels BE

Today we took the train from Antwerp to Brussels for the day. We always intended to visit Brussels, but when we looked at the parking options for François they were pretty bleak in Brussels. We realized we could be in Brussels in a little over an hour by train from where we were, so we locked François up for the day and headed to the train station.

The Antwerp train station is one of the largest in Europe.

It was a pretty uneventful ride except I had us get off the train one station early, but luckily there was another train right behind the one we were on, so we arrived in Brussels only a few minutes later than our train did.

The central square in Brussels, note all of the coats the high was around 60 degrees.

At one point in life there was some short lived discussion of a job assignment in Brussels so we had done some research on the city. At that time it had the reputation of being more of a manufacturing center and a little gray by all accounts. Either those accounts were wrong or Brussels has had a renaissance in the last 15 years because the city center was bustling with all of the air of a major tourist destination. There were lots of chocolate shops, on one high end street every third store was a chocolate shop.

Waffles and Belgian Fries are very popular.

The famous statue of the little boy peeing into a fountain that Brussels is famous for. The tourism photos make it look much larger than it is.

The feminist version located near Delirium Brew Pub.

We also visited a couple of very old beer shops that look like they belonged in the gritty industrial city I had expected. They were the kind of dive bars with excellent beer selections we really like. We also visited a bar that one of our friends recommended that has over 2000 beers from around the world. Unlike the dive bars it was catering to the tourist crowd. We took a walk around before heading off for a meal, and the visit to the cathedral.

The inside of the dive bar that matched my vision of Brussels.

Our trip back to Antwerp was uneventful and quick, especially since I did not get off in the wrong place. We got back just in time for a good sized thunderstorm complete with a little hail.

June 12, 2019 Antwerp BE

It was poring rain when we woke, and the temperature had fallen quite a bit. Earlier in the trip we probably would just have settled in for the day, but we are feeling some pressure to keep moving so we decided to go ahead and head up to Antwerp. Our plan is to explore Antwerp today, and then take the train from Antwerp to Brussels tomorrow, as the parking opportunities are pretty limited in Brussels.

Drove to Antwerp pretty much the whole way in poring rain, and we ran into a 40km back up of trucks heading into Antwerp the second busiest port in Europe. We finally arrived at the aire about 1230 and where Greta Garmin told us to turn there was a gate across the entrance. It turns out they were closed for lunch, so we found a place on the street until lunch was over. By the time we settled in the rain had a second wind and was torrential.

Cute sculpture in the square in Antwerp.

About 4 pm it let up so we headed into town. Besides wanting to get a feel for the center of Antwerp we had one particular location in mind. Ton in her research on beer had discovered a destination beer bar called Kulminator. It has made a lot of lists of best beer destinations in the world, and apparently the owner regrets the publicity as he does not want beer tourists, but beer lovers. Now he has put in a buzzer on the entrance to the bar, and after you ring it he comes out to screen you. He asks you if you are there to taste beer or to drink beer. There is a correct answer and if you get it wrong he sends you on your way. We knew the question in advance but did not know the correct answer, so as we walked there we debated; Ton thinking drink while I was thinking taste. When the question came Ton gave her answer, but then told him we really wanted to experience the place no matter the answer, so even though she gave the wrong answer she is cute and he let us in. Inside is a place that feels like an overstuffed living room with a beer bar in it. The music was classical, and they obviously were making no attempt to be hip or commercial. When you sit down the owners wife, and beer tender brings you a huge book with all of their beers in the cellar, and points out what is on draft. The book is intimidating and takes some time to go thru so we stuck with the draft beers which were very eclectic. We enjoyed two rounds while sharing beer and travel experiences with an Australian/English couple.

The entrance to Kulminator includes a buzzer where you have to convince the owner of your good intentions before you can enter.

A sour and a dark beer among the hundreds hand picked by the owner to be “tasted”.

By the time we left the rain had broke and we enjoyed a couple of hours of sun. The days are quite long and as I type this at 9:20 we still have another 50 minutes of day light coming.

June 11, 2019 Maastricht NE

Today we departed Germany after 34 days. Germany was an easy place to travel, we enjoyed the country. It is a well organized and well run country. Ton enjoyed a lot of cities particularly Bamberg, Mainau, Lubeck, and the northern romantic road cities of Dinkelsbuhl, Rothenburg, and Wurzburg. I tended to lean a little more to the old East German cities of Lubeck, Schwerin, and Leipzig. We drank a lot of beer and while we had many good ones, we also had a lot of mediocre beer which was disappointing. The food is hearty and filling but not particularly interesting though we did gain an appreciation of sauerkraut.

Today we needed a work day, so we took advantage of the lower gas and grocery prices in Germany to fill up François before we departed. After arriving at our campground we got a load of laundry done.

When we were done we only had time for a quick walk thru the town outside of the campground. As this was our only day in the Netherlands we did what all good tourists do, we explored a grocery store to compare the inventory and prices with the other countries we have visited. The little suburb outside our campground was really well tended and clean which really is the stereotype of the Netherlands.

Our short walk thru the village was full of well tended homes like this one.

June 10, 2019 Cologne GE

Another long drive today as we decided it was time to move on from Germany. Just like with Spain we thought we had enough time to see most of Germany and it turns out we have missed most of the central part of the country. We wanted to make one more stop on our way out of the country in Cologne.

Cologne is one of the largest tourist destinations in Germany and has the most visited place in Germany in its Gothic Cathedral. Since it was on the way towards The Netherlands we decided to spend the night here. Again we were both up pretty early and got an early start so our drive to Cologne was nice and easy if a bit long.

We got a nice spot in the aire facing the Rhine River so we have spent part of the day watching the river barges going past. After settling down we headed towards the city center to join the crowds at the cathedral. Our route was along the Rhine, and for the last mile the path was a sprawling flea market. Between the flea market, the holiday and the five river cruise boats docked along the river the river walk was jammed with people.

One of the five river cruise boats docked along the waterfront.

We finally reached the cathedral, and had a quick walk around the exterior before going in. Much to our surprise the entrance was free. This cathedral is still Catholic unlike many of the churches we have been visiting lately which started out as Catholic, and were converted to Lutheran after the reformation. The exterior is massive and the spires are the main attraction. Construction was started in 1248 and suspended in 1473, it was finally completed in 1880 after over 400 years of suspension.

The exterior of the cathedral, it is hard to capture the scale of the building.

One of the gargoyles about 100 feet above ground.

The interior is attractive, and the stain glass is pretty though we presume it is all post WWII. The Cologne cathedral would probably make our top 10 list of cathedrals if we were keeping one, but closer to number 10 than number 1.

The interior houses a reliquary of the three kings, which was the original reason to build the cathedral.

The mosaics on the floor were extensive and intricate, they were the highlight of the cathedral for us.

Cologne is also famous as the originator of Kolsch Beer, so that was the next attraction we headed for. The first place we went was Peters Beerhouse where the first waiter asked if we were there to eat or to drink, we replied drink and he immediately showed us to a standup bar in a corner next to a bar, and the place where waiters return the used beer glasses. This was in a huge place that could easily seat several hundred and it was 90% empty. The tradition in Cologne is to serve beers in small glasses so that the beer remains cold, the server is supposed to come by frequently so you can get refills. In this case after the first round the waiter came by and said his shift was over so we needed to pay up. So we were out of there.

The server on the right in this picture is carrying the traditional Kolsch Beer Caddy, so he can provide cold beer on the spot.

Hoping that was an aberration we headed over to another famous Kolsch place which again was largely empty, this time we got to pick out table and sit, but the service was not particularly friendly so we decided to cut our losses and head on back to François thru the slightly less crowded flea market. Ton cooked a great German meal of pork cutlets, spatzle, sauerkraut and kraut salad so the day ended on a positive note as we enjoyed our meal while looking out on the river traffic on the Rhine.

Some of the river traffic we have been enjoying this afternoon.

June 9, 2019 Bremen GE

We learned yesterday afternoon that Monday is a holiday in Germany which explains the big crowds both in Bremen and at the stellplatz. When we got back to the stellplatz last night there was a sign in the entrance saying that there was no room in the parking lot. Because we liked Bremen and were worried about finding a similar sign in our next destination we decided to spend another day.

The market square in Bremen on a beautiful sunny day. We had no regrets spending another day.

The World Heritage Site the old town hall that we saw yesterday had a tour today at noon and we decided to make that our highlight for the day. We slept in and then spent the morning cleaning François and watching the morning exodus of motorhomes from the stellplatz before walking down to the city for our tour.

Part of the interior of the town hall with incredibly intricate wood carvings.

The tour of the interior was helped by an extremely enthusiastic and knowledgeable guide who did a good job of explaining how Bremen developed as an independent merchant city under the Holy Roman Empire. When Charlemagne first tried to incorporate Bremen into his empire he did so in the normal way by sending a bishop to the city. The citizens of Bremen resisted this because they wanted the city government to be separate from the church. Charlemagne’s son Roland agreed to this and Bremen claims to be the first government where the separation of church and state was formally proclaimed.

The town hall next to the cathedral, the council of the city sat with their backs to the cathedral in the town hall to prove they were not beholden to the Bishop.

Unlike in other cities in Europe the town hall was as prominent as the Cathedral, and do to luck the building survived all of the wars that occurred over the 600 years it has been in existence. In addition to the normal fantastic wood carvings and paintings the town hall also has a giant wine cellar that holds over 650 different examples of German wine.

The interior of the wine cellar under the town hall, with over 650 different varieties of German wine. We had beer!

Part of the wine cellar is now a restaurant so we decided to treat ourselves to lunch down in the cellar. When we arrived we were offered a private room for about 6 people built into the side of the cellar. It was a cool place even though we were planning on a light lunch.

Roland the person who agreed to allowing Bremen to separate the government from religion.

After lunch we strolled thru town for a while taking in the sites, and people watching. Bremen has a cute town symbol the four musicians of Bremen. It is based on a fairy tale by the brothers Grimm about 4 animals who are abandoned by their owners when they are too old to be useful. The 4 of them decide to move to Bremen to be musicians and even though in the fairy tale they do not make it to Bremen the town has adopted them as the symbol. There is a statue of the four musicians next to the town hall and the legend is that if you make a wish and touch both forelegs your wish will come true. It is important to touch both legs because as they say in Bremen if you only touch one it is just two asses shaking hands with each other.

Ton making a wish with the four musicians of Bremen.

Another depiction of the four musicians on the corner of a building.

June 8, 2019 Bremen GE

There was a pretty violent thunderstorm last night that lasted a couple of hours. I think as a result we both woke up early and decided to get out of Hamburg before the traffic got bad, so we were on the road before 7am.

Ton had Bremen on her list of must see places because she had read that Germans vote the people from Bremen as the friendliest in Germany. That was enough for her to make it a must stop site for us. We decided to take a walking tour put on by the tourist information office. The guide was a local lady who told us she was afraid to speak English 10 years ago, but she decided in her 40’s to study and now gives tours about her home town in English.

The Glockenspiel in Bremen is made of Meissen Porcelain and celebrates great aviators and sailors.

Bremen as a port town and aircraft manufacturing city was heavily bombed during WWII but the town hall, and a section of town called the Schnoor (string in English) survived intact. The town hall is a UNESCO site and has a typical renaissance facade which is incredibly intricate and ornate. The Schnoor was a working class neighborhood for the history of the city and as a result there are a lot of older homes from the 15th thru the 19th centuries that have mostly been turned into tourist shops and restaurants.

The town hall is a UNESCO site and was intact at the end of the WWII so it is one of the best actual examples of buildings from that era in Germany.

Bremen has a well developed tourist infrastructure, and even early in the season was quite busy. We enjoyed the tour and then just walking around town.

The Schnoor an interesting part of Bremen with original examples of working class homes from the 15th thru the 19th centuries

We decided to treat ourselves out to dinner, and were looking at historical German restaurants when Ton said exactly what I was thinking, “lets get something beside German”, so we ended up with an excellent (and large) Greek dinner before heading back to François for the night.

June 7, 2019 Hamburg GE

When we moved from Schwerin to Lubeck we crossed from the former DDR (East Germany) to the BRD (West Germany). We knew because the pedestrian lights changed.

The wait and go lights in West Germany, much like the rest of the world.

The portly man lights used in the old East Germany. I can relate.

The wait and go lights in East Germany are referred to as Ampelmanchen, and are one of the few things that have been retained. Much cuter than in W. Germany, Ton loves the hat and the portlier body.

Hamburg is the second biggest city in Germany with a population of nearly 1.8 million. It is a bigger city than we normally take François into so we were a little nervous. The drive in turned out to be pretty easy with only one detour caused by construction. I had accidentally loaded in the coordinates for a different RV parking than we planned, but by the time we figured it out we were settled in.

We only budgeted one day for Hamburg so we decided to take a “Free Tour” of the city center to try to take in as much as we could in a short time. The tour as always was informative and gave us a quick view of the city and it’s history.

The Speicherstadt is multiple blocks of warehouses with canals built in the late 1800’s when this area was duty free. They lost their duty free status in the 1990’s and have now been converted to hip studios, restaurants, and galleries.

At the end of the tour we were by the new Elbphilharmonie Hall. This concert hall was recently completed in 2017 for over €800 million, and besides the concert hall there are apartments and a hotel in the building.

The exterior of the Elbphilharmonie Hamburgs newest landmark.

The concert hall reportedly has the best acoustics in the world, and is designed so that no one watching a concert is more than 100 feet from the stage. Today they were celebrating their 10 millionth visitor to the Hall so they had free concerts and apple strudels.

The interior has the stage in the middle. They were setting up for a symphony concert.

The interior is beautiful, the exterior attempts to be modern and striking and we think misses on the striking part. The observation deck has a panoramic view of the very busy Hamburg harbor.

The view of the harbor from the Elbphilharmonie, Hamburg is still a very busy port.

Our last stop was a brewery in St. Pauli which is the former (current?) red light district for Hamburg. It turns out the brewery was across the street from the RV parking I had meant to use, so it was a missed opportunity to save on some walking. We stood out from the crowd, not because we were American, but because we were not young, hip, and tattooed. The beer was good, and the people watching fun so we indulged in two rounds instead of our normal one.

The exterior of the very hip brewery in the St. Pauli district.

June 6, 2019 Lubeck GE

We have found a city in Germany that we really have a good feeling about. As we have traveled around Europe we find cities or towns that we kind of instantly like. Examples are San Sebastian, Seville, and Malaga in Spain, Dijon, Gardes, and Flavigny in France. It is hard to describe why, but it just happens. So far on this trip we have not had that experience with any German cities. We have discussed this several times over the trip, we have not had a bad experience here, but overall we are lacking the connection we have felt in Spain and France.

Before we headed out of Schwerin we headed to the town to take a look around. It has one of the nicest castles we have seen, and it avoided major damage during the war and was part of East Germany so it’s old town has not been modernized like most cities in Germany. Our tour of the city was quick but we enjoyed it.

Schwerin Castle survived the war intact. My personal favorite castle in Germany.

Another view of Schwerin. It was a really pretty city.

Today we found a city that we have connected with in Lubeck. It is a relatively small port city on the Baltic Sea with a long and interesting history as a trading city. But almost as soon as we arrived we liked the feel of the town. Our parking spot is right across the canal from the old town, they do not gouge you for the spot. After several weeks of hearty German food we opted for seafood and found an old slightly upscale restaurant with a great atmosphere. The waiter not only served us efficiently but took time to have a nice conversation about travel, and the way different cultures take care of the elderly. It was an unexpected personal connection.

The interior of our restaurant, it used to be the sailors guild hall.

Lubeck is also famous for Marzipan which is a confection of almonds and sugar. We decided we needed to sample some Marzipan so we went to the most famous bakery in town. The pastry was quite good, and not as overly sweet to Ton as American pastries.

A Marzipan pastry. Niederbergers has been producing Marzipan since the 1800’s.

We ended the day at one of the best breweries we have been to in Germany called Brauberger. Their specialty is a Zwickel beer which is a cellared Lager. It was quite good, and we split a pitcher and had a good time people watching.

A view across the canal into the old town from near our parking spot.

The sign on the city gate says Harmony within, Peace without.

I know this sounds like many of our days, but this one was our best so far in Germany. As we were walking back we discussed staying another day here even though we are feeling some time pressure, and are quite a long way from Belgium.

This happy devil captured some of the spirit of Lubeck that we liked. The story is that he was conned into helping build the church by the workers who told him it was going to be a wine bar.

June 5, 2019 Schwerin GE

Once again we feel like we are running out of time for the trip. We spent last night setting out priorities because we came to the conclusion that we did not have time to see everything we wanted to see. The first thing we struck from the list is Berlin. Ton has been there a couple of times already, and the parking for François did not look very appealing. We were thinking of a trip following the Rhine but that is gone, or will be reduced to one or two cities. Having a feel for what we did want to see we made the decision to take a big drive on the autobahn to get up to the Baltic Sea coast of Germany.

Our drive today was 420 kilometers which is one of the biggest in our European trips. We chose to use the autobahn thinking that we would cover that distance in about 5 hours. The autobahns are very similar to our interstates and you can usually count on a pretty steady speed, but not today. There was a tremendous amount of construction going on along our route so we spent a lot of time in long lines of trucks with frustrated BMW’s and Mercedes darting amongst the slow traffic trying to get to open highway. At one point the road came to a complete halt and we sat in place for 30 minutes, when we got back up to speed we had no idea why we had stopped as there was no sign of an accident or construction.

We arrived in Schwerin about an hour later than we planned, and found a nice marina/Wöhnmobilplatz (another word for aire in German). Schwerin is a lake front town and looks nice from the marina so we decided to head that way, Just as we were leaving to head into town we noticed what looked like a thunderstorm building in the distance. We decided to head back to François and wait out the storms. So really there is nothing much to report today besides our long drive.

The Marina, with a thatch roof boat house in the background.

June 4, 2019 Colditz GE

When I was 11 or 12 my friend John and I were totally fascinated with the story of Colditz Castle and the allied prisoners of war who were held there during the war. The Germans designed the POW camp at Colditz to hold the most difficult prisoners, people who had attempted multiple escapes or were just a large scale pain to the Germans. John and I read the book by one of the prisoners called Escape from Colditz and spent a large part of the summer pretending to be prisoners trying to escape from Colditz. Today I got to visit the real thing.

It was not on the plan, but when we were traveling from Dresden to Leipzig the other day I saw the exit on the Autobahn for Colditz and told Ton the story and she insisted that we visit it. It was a short drive down from Leipzig with the only adventure being Greta insisting there was a road to follow when there was not one, after 10 minutes or so of circling Greta’s imaginary road we followed our noses and eventually found our way to Colditz.

The castle has been in existence since the middle ages, and was for a short while the home of Augustus I of Saxony. After a while it fell out of favor as a royal residence and became at different times a hospital, prison, and mental hospital. When the Nazi’s came to power it was used as a concentration camp, before being converted to a prisoner of war camp in 1939. During the war it held prisoners from many different countries including Poland, Holland, Belgium, France, the US, and Britain, with the British making up the bulk of the prisoners.

The courtyard of Colditz Castle, which during WWII was a POW camp for recalcitrant officers.

A formation of prisoners in the Castle courtyard during the war.

Today we were fortunate to be the only ones on our tour of the castle which was led by an Englishman named Alex who had married a local Saxon girl. He did a fabulous job of showing us around the castle explaining the living arrangements of both the prisoners and the guards. He talked about the various escape attempts. The most fascinating was the French tunnel which as you would expect was the work of the French prisoners held there. They dug this tunnel for over 9 months and covered over 500 feet going up and down around the stone that the castle rests on including cutting thru the original wooden supports that were adjacent to the chapel.

A horizontal shaft of the French tunnel that was uncovered during renovation.

The German government has spent a lot of money fixing the castle in addition to the museum they have converted the old German guard quarters/Mental Hospital (under the East Germans) into a hostel. If you are in the area we recommend it. It was nice to see a place that had given me a great adventure one summer when I was a kid.

June 3, 2019 Leipzig GE

We spent the day touring around Leipzig which is a nice city. This is an up and coming city in Germany, which means it still has a little roughness around the edge which we liked. Dresden’s downtown felt like it had completed it’s makeover, in Leipzig it felt like it was well on its’ way but still in progress.

We went to St. Thomas Church which was the base of J.S. Bach for many years. As we entered the church a youth orchestra was beginning to practice for a concert. We sat and listened to them for a few minutes which seemed a fitting way to pay homage to Bach.

Bach’s statue in front of St. Thomas church.

Leipzig embraces its’ role in the downfall of East Germany, and as you walk around town you see plaques telling stories about key events in 1989. It is humbling for me to walk the ground to see the role that common people played in bringing down a government with the repressive power of the old East German government.

This cross is part of the story of the revolution of 89, as people would come to the church to leave messages for friends as well prayers.

Leipzig is also the site of one of the great battles of the Napoleonic era. At Leipzig Napoleon was defeated by the combined army of Russia, Prussia, Austria, and Sweden. This defeat led to his first exile. There is a huge monument to the battle on the edge of Leipzig. While the scale is massive, (it takes over 500 steps to reach the top) the aesthetics of the monument were not to our taste. We gave it a quick walk around without buying a ticket to go inside, and moved on to one of our favorite activities.

This massive monument to the Battle of Leipzig was finished in 1913. Huge statues and huge blocks of stone.

This picture is from Auerbachs Keller that has been operating since the 1400’s, they claim you cannot say you have visited Leipzig unless you visit here, so we had to stop. It is supposed to be Faust and the Devil on top of the barrel.

Our last stop was at a brewery in an old train station near downtown. Bayerischer Bahnhof Brewery is one of the originators of Gose style beer. We usually don’t much like sours but this one was good and Ton claimed it helped with her allergies so we had a second round. The brewery is located in one of the old train stations in town, the station was closed down around 2001, but the entrance hall was a historical site so it was saved and eventually converted to a brewery. It may be the nicest brewery we have ever visited and we have visited a few!

June 2, 2019 Leipzig GE

Today was a day of rest mostly. We woke up and decided to get some chores done, the biggest of which was laundry. Leipzig was next on our list and I found a campground with washing machines so we were off to Leipzig. After an uneventful 120km drive on the autobahn we arrived.

It’s about 90 degrees today so Ton and I are having dreams of beer.

It was around 10:30 when we arrived, I went in to check in, and was asked if I had a reservation, when I replied negatively she gave me a lecture about planning, making reservations and added that check in time was 2pm, after she got that off her chest she checked me in and we were off to our spot. Having settled in we went to find the laundry room to scope out the equipment and the cost, but the laundry room was locked. Back to the office to find out that you needed to check out a key and buy tokens for 30 minutes of electricity. We were a little perplexed about the whole buying electricity thing but guessed we would figure it out. After getting our laundry sorted I headed back to get the key and tokens, the office was jammed with people checking in so I waited patiently, and was amused to see another person with poor planning skills get the same lecture I had gotten about the importance of reservations, this time in German. Then the next person in line bought a bunch of tokens and took a key, shucks! Hoping there was more than one key I continued to wait only to be told as I expected, that there was only one key. After 3 hours went back to check on the key, and the same lady a little shamefaced told me that the key was still not back, but gave me the space number of the person who had it, so off I went on my quest for the key. They turned out to be a nice couple who said they would be done in 8 minutes (how precisely German of them), sold us their 4 extra tokens, agreed to give us possession of the key, and explained the purchasing of electricity with the tokens.

Tomorrow we are off to see Leipzig.

June 1, 2019 Dresden GE

We made the short hop up the Elbe River to Dresden this morning. We had a bit of an adventure checking out of our stellplatz in Meissen. As I said when we checked in it is quirky. The first thing is they hand you a key and insist you lock the gate every time you enter or exit. Each day there were 10 to 15 campers there and we each had a key to the gate and everyone did their duty to insure each others security. To get the key you have to leave a €20 deposit at the municipal swimming pool which looms over the aire. There is a nice clean bathroom on site but again the instructions are clear, lock the door every time you use it. One morning I was in doing my thing when one of the maintenance guys came by and locked the door while I was in there, fortunately I had my key. The parking is a free for all and there is only two electrical posts so everyone is running a 100 foot electrical cord from their vans to the power post. This became a problem when the maintenance crew showed up to mow the grass, but we all pitched in and shifted cords around to clear paths for the mowers. Finally, in the middle of the aire is an immense abandoned pool from the communist era that has trees and bushes growing from it, everyone seemed to need to hop the fence to get a closer look at it like an archeologist. All of the eccentricities made it kind of charming and a memorable place to stay. So as we were leaving I needed to return my key and retrieve my €20, when I walked in there were 50 people in line to check in for the pool, with 2 people at the desk to handle them all, so half an hour later I got rid of the key and we were on our way to Dresden.

The air in Dresden lacks the quirks of Meissen and is quite packed, (apparently due to an American Football game that is being played tomorrow between two German professional teams) but it is an easy walk to the center of town. After settling in we headed to town. As we neared the city center we discovered that today was gay pride festival weekend in Dresden (actually it is a 4 day event)and we had found the staging ground for the parade. We hung around to see the beginning of the parade and it was quite entertaining. Dresden has a large and proud gay community.

One of the 20 mobile sound systems and improvised dance halls that made up part of the parade.

Next we walked thru town to look at all of the sites. They are nearly all rebuilt following a controversial fire bombing of Dresden by the RAF during WWII which caused a fire storm in the city killing around 20,000 people and destroying the old town.

The old town of Dresden fronting the Elbe River. A lot of construction and maintenance work being done.

The buildings are impressive, particularly the old palace of the Elector of Saxony. The Cathedral was rebuilt but they had a hard time finding matching stones for the walls that collapsed so you can clearly see the old and new stones. Most of the buildings in Dresden are quite black, I am not sure this is by design, but am guessing it is a result of pollution, as a few of the buildings look like they have been recently cleaned and are not black.

The grounds of the Elector of Saxony’s Palace. The buildings and grounds are quite impressive, you can see the contrast in the color between the building on the far left corner of the picture and the main hall.

This is part of a block long mural showing all of the Electors of Saxony including Augustus the Strong in the center who funded the Meissen Porcelain Factory.

We wandered around the old town for a few hours before crossing the bridge to the new town for a beer and curry wurst. After our beer as we were crossing back over the Elbe the gay pride parade came down the riverfront and since they seemed to be taking the same path we were taking to François we walked along with them for a while before stopping for one more beer as it was hot.

The Christopher Street Day Parade passing along the waterfront downtown in Dresden.

May 31, Meissen GE

A very light day for us. After sleeping in we took our time getting going in the morning with Ton updating her friends on Line, and me catching up on what was going on with the Timbers.

Meissen is famous for being the first place in Europe to manufacture porcelain. Porcelain from China and Japan was all the rage in the late 1600’s and imports were really expensive so the local prince told some of his best minds to figure out how it was made. Eventually they successfully reverse engineered the process and in 1710 opened the first porcelain manufacturing site outside of Asia in Meissen. It has been in continuous business since then.

The symbol of the Meissen Porcelain Factory with some examples of their product.

The demonstration of the manufacturing process is quite interesting as actual artisans from the company perform work as you watch them. The work is quite intricate and artistic, so it is fascinating to watch them actually perform the work as it is described to you.

The initial process uses a potters wheel and molds to form the piece.

We really enjoyed seeing the process. The work at Meissen is still largely done by hand unlike most porcelain manufacturers who have automated the process. As a result Meissen porcelain is highly valued and is expensive.

This lady is hand making details for the statues on the right.

This lady is hand applying the paint, they apply one color at a time, you can see different stages of the process in the background.

After the demonstration we walked thru the museum with over 3000 pieces from different eras on display. There was a lot of very interesting porcelains on display, and we spent quite a bit of time walking thru the exhibits.

A porcelain clock produced at Meissen in the late 1700’s.

This porcelain piece is available for €31,000. The cheapest thing we saw was a cup for €35.

We decided to head back to François a little early for the day after we picked up some things at the grocery. We relaxed for the afternoon, while I tried to have a conversation with our Dutch neighbor. He was quite a character, but also the first Dutchman I have come across who was not fluent in English. As a result I spent a lot of time nodding and smiling while maybe understanding 20% of what he was telling me. Still it was nice, and gave Ton and his wife some time to take care of business without us in their hair.