After our lunch stop in Dresden, we continued to the city of Leipzig. In Nikolaikirche, one of the major churches in the city center, the peaceful demonstrations which led at the end to the revolution in East Germany, started after the Monday afternoon prayers.
We have stayed overnight in the STEIGENBERGER Grandhotel Handelshof, a five star hotel with loads of amenities, including Sauna! Luckily we got a good price via Hotel Reservation Service.
On Friday morning, we took a rather short trip from Berlin to Dresden to visit the old city center. Dresden has been magnificently reconstructed after the final bomb raids in 1945.
We had lunch in the restaurant “Sophienkeller” which is designed and constructed in a historical medieval way, so are the waiters and the food. Absolutely delicious.
Wednesday evening, we arrived in Berlin, the capital city of us Bretzelitos, after a nice drive from Hamburg, really well done by Sven.
Today, we did some severe sight seeing. We would like to share a lot of pictures with you about the places we have seen. It has been the Victory Column of the 1871 war against France, the Soviet Memorial of the second world war, Reichstag and Bundeskanzleramt, Brandenburg Gate, the Holocaust Memorial, Tiergarten and the Berlin Wall Memorial.
And we have seen the Dark Force 🙂
Have a look!
At the end, when leaving Berlin, we have added up 1811 km… 🙂
On our way to Berlin, we stopped in Hamburg to visit “Miniaturwunderland” and get some impressions of the harbour.
The “Miniaturwunderland” exhibition and museum is a replication of real world activities which might happen somewhere on the world. The action is based on a model railway and airport build-up, high technically sophisticated. Six large industrial PCs control the whole area. The simulation adaptation and animation, as the most crucial parts are active, programmed and controlled by computer science supervision.
A speciality of “Miniaturwunderland” are, as well known from comics like Clever&Smart, the side pictures.
But now… Have a look by yourself!
Afterwards, we had a small walk around the “Speicherstadt” in Hamburg and had a view into the harbour.
After a bit of a sleepless night due to some severe light show activities with heavy rain and stormy winds around 0330, we took our breakfast at nine, packed up our things, paid and departed from Dagebuell.
In comparison with our trip towards the north sea, we take the Autobahn routing today. Hence, national roads towards Flensburg and then A7 over 155kms.
First target of today will be Hamburg where we will visit Miniaturwunderland in the new harbour city. We have reserved two tickets this morning to jump the regular queues at the entry point.
Afterwards, we plan to continue to drive in the direction of our capital Berlin. Let us see once more how far we get today 🙂
First, excuse me please, no pictures today.
Why?
Quite clear… when swimming in the North Sea and sitting on beach sand, you do not use your camera.
After getting up and having an opulent breakfast, we took the ferry boat towards Foehr at 0940. Arriving 50 minutes later, we saw some shops and the bank. So some shovels and a volleyball, not forgetting about some remembering stuff with regards to our visit, changed the owner.
We started to construct some “channel system” in the now dry part of the tidal area. A bit of a reminiscence and nostalgia indeed, as we have done it very successfully several years ago
After some time on the beach, we took lunch at Mehmet’s place and returned quickly to the beach.
In the afternoon, Sven got contacted by three young girls from the island of Foehr. We all kept playing around the wooden harbour pier, pushing us each other into the sea and having a lot of fun. I got into it as well, together with Sven… all harmless and without any worries in any direction.
The weather was perfect for North Sea perception. 23 degrees and cloudy skies with loads of sunny spells. And the water even better… 21 degrees.
We both got a bit of sun tan today, let us have a look how it will be and how we will look like. 🙂
Finally, at 1840, we took the last ship back to Dagebuell to join our hotel after dinner.
We arrived in Dagebuell at around 1430 and checked-in our hotel next to the sea, called Strandhotel. After some short and quick refreshments, we to the ferry boat to Foehr and took some pictures. Several different expressions have been taken on the boat and inside the city.
After another 100 kms north of Hamburg, we have crossed the Nordostseekanal. Have a look!
Sven took controls of our car in the morning after our luxurious stay in Bremen. He ran into bad traffic and loads of Autobahn construction sites. But we headed well through all constraints. Elbtunnel in front… Hay forward!
Our hotel room in the ATLANTIC hotel
Our hotel room in the ATLANTIC hotel
After leaving Sven’s past home area in Niederkassel around 1745 today, we continued on German Autobahn routes towards the north-east. First on A59 passing by CGN airport on which we were able to witness two UPS MD11 landings, then on the A3 which had the usual traffic jams due to accidents and “stupidly driving people” (Quote of Sven) and another 288kms on the A1 after the Leverkusen interchange to reach Bremen around 2130.
We had quite some traffic on the road with additional jams, but it has been not too bad. Sven improved his skills on the Autobahn quite a lot… like judging other people’s potential behaviours, adapting speed by regarding the traffic around and understanding other drivers’ necessities.
Here in Bremen, we found a room in the ATLANTIC GRAND HOTEL for quite a competitive price. After unpacking, we had a fantastic and outstanding dinner in the hotel restaurant, follow by a cigar in the smoking bar next to the restaurant. Around midnight, we both went for a walk through the city centre, but unfortunately we found everything closed.
A nice day with a nice ending in a hotel we did not expect as such. 🙂
We both are looking forward to see the sea tomorrow 🙂
Sven made his first driving unit from Dasburg to Bonn through the Eifel mountains. So we arrived well around 1700 in Bonn to drop Anke at her parents’ house in Bad Godesberg.Thanks for the mineral water in the garden, it has been highly appreciated as we experience hot weather… 38 degrees, no clouds… thank god that our air conditioning system works well in our car.
Next stop will be Sven’s old home… he needs some short trousers out of the laundry which he did not take with him when moving to France.
Then further on… let us see how far we get today!
After a 438km ride from Rambouillet, we have arrived in Germany, actually in Dasburg which lies in the middle of the Ardennes-Eifel mountain range. Quite clear that Sven is driving now, so I have some time to write a bit here. ALDI DailyFlat is great for that, just EUR 2 per day and a gigabyte free of traffic. I bet I will not use all of it.
The routing we did today has been the standard well-known Luxembourg transition between Paris and the Cologne area. Leaving Rambouillet via N10 northbound. Due to low traffic, we opted for the boulevard peripherique exterieur to join A4 in the direction of Reims. No worries at all, the drive around Paris was uneventful and calm. After reaching the Champagne, we took A34 north-eastbound in the direction of Sedan. After a short national road passing, we entered Belgium near Bouillion. Some more kilometers on national roads and finally also on belgian autoroutes, we arrived in Bastogne. In the middle of the Ardennes mountains, we crossed Luxembourg, not forgetting to fill-up the car for cheap in comparison.
So far up to now, later more. 🙂
2330 in Rambouillet… Off to new spheres in vacation proceedings
Tomorrow, Sven and I, we both will start in an interesting adventure. Going back to our Bretzelito country after moving to France. First, tomorrow, we will go by car to Dasburg, just after the luxemburgisch-german border, the place where Sven will take over driving as he has the license for assisted driving in Germany. That is one of our prime reasons for our car trip through Germany… to let him get experience while driving.
The first city to visit will be Bonn, the home of Sven’s girlfriend Anke. After some days here in the Paris area, it is time to put her home as school restarts next week for her.
Let us have a look how far we get after reaching Bonn… plans are set for Bremen or Hamburg in the northern part of our Bretzelito country.
Time to get up early tomorrow morning!
And off we go!
beer, some view from the ferry transit and a nice sunset over the North Sea.
bretzelitos 