Our grand tour.

[berni109]

Sitting at the campsite attached to a hotel for the second night. Lawned pitch's and full facility except for a washing machine which is a shame because today has been a scorcher. 15 mins walk to the entrance for our tour of the death camps.

Managed to attach ourselves to the English tour so at least we could understand all of the grizzly detail.
20% of those that arrived through that gate were forced into slave labour and starvation the other 80% went straight to the gas chamber.
Words can't explain how I feel having seen and heard the horrific details. The piles of kids shoes had me choking back the tears.
Yet attrocities are happening today in Europe only one country removed from where we are.

 

[berni109]

If you are ever in that part of Poland I recommend a visit but I think you need a fairly robust disposition not to be moved (perhaps to tears) by what you see.
Anyway moving on we are heading westwards towards home. The online toll system for the A4 motorway can catch you out because you need to know what junction (by name) you are joining at. Paid up for our transit but the stupid sat nav (or is it the operator) took us to the junction before. Rolled up at the toll gate thinking we had already paid but gate no open. Fortunately there was a person in the booth who took some more money from us but they were not happy.
P4N came up with a couple of goodies today.
Opole was brunch time stop in a massive carpark in what felt like the back of beyond. Turned out to be a 10min riverside walk into town for savory pancakes lovely. Coffee and cake in the centre of town was a disappointment by comparison.
Mid afternoon we got to Worclaw and parked up in a country park carpark 2mins to the tram

 

[berni109]

stop to town and if you are over 65 it's a free ride. It happened to be st. Johns fair and the market Square was full of little timber stalls selling all sorts of tat. Just like a Christmas fair but at the wrong time of year.

Same building front and back - obviously ran out of money by the time they got around to doing the back.

Probably my imagination but these buildings have a very Dutch look about the gable ends.
Rounded off our short visit with a rather good authentic Polish meal. Massive portions that we struggled to eat.
Diesel was £1.19 lt so filled it to the brim before we get to Germany - wonder if that's enough to get to Luxembourg.

 

[berni109]

Legnica was closed when we arrived there today. Saturday just before 10 and hardly a soul about. No cafes open and one bread shop with a queue out the door.

 

[berni109]

This is the church on the main drag. Designed by two architect brothers who could not agree on anything. Other than being a tower on each corner that's about all the symmetry there is. (Sorry just made that up).

interesting decorations but I could not make it out and i looked at it for quite a while until the cafes opened.
Sad but there was nothing else to do in Legnica.
Filled up with diesel at the biggest fuel station I have ever seen in Zgerzelec. I used pump 22 and there must have been the same again for the hgvs. The place sold more or less everything and of course I chose a till where an hgv driver was stocking up with bread, sausage and ham for his journey into the wilderness that is the rest of western Europe.
Parked up in a spot by the river in Gorlitz. Obviously used to be a single city until someone decided the river should be the dividing line between Poland and Germany.

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[berni109]

The leaning tower of Gorlitz. You didn't know they had one did you and that makes two of us. Got a ways to go to catch up with Pisa. Towers of differing designs mark the outline of the city walls but there is very little left of the actual walls.
Walked over the bridge back into Poland to spend the last of the zloty on a couple of drinks and an excellent pizza.
So end the Polish leg of the grand tour. The secenary in the south in the mountains is spectacular once away from that area and along the A4 motorway it boring flat and monotonous.

 

[Bouncer123]

1st stop - on the way to tunnel staying with son & DIL and toddler in Brookwood near Woking.
Brookwood has reputedly the largest cemetery in Europe. Yes it is very quiet around here. When the cemetery's in London got full up the railway company used to run excursions for Londoners to bury their dead here. There was even a siding directly into the cemetery. Can you imagine coaches full of mourners and a couple of trucks on the back full of coffins.
On a lighter note although it almost brought tears to my eyes we walked to the local pub for an afternoon drink. Beer, larger, 2xg&t and carton of juice a mere £33. Could have had a full meal and wine for that in Spain. Needless to say we wont be going to the pub again if I have anything to do with it.

 

[Grianan]

Very much enjoying your your tour blog and your photos. Thanks for making the effort!

 

[Wanders from Glos]

I don't know how I missed your tour blog, just had a great time reading through. What a marvellous trip.

 

[berni109]

Falls off the bottom of "what's new" in no time at all.

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[berni109]

Quite and peaceful free night down by the river in Gorlitz thank u P4N.
Arrived at the ACSI camping in Dresden after an easy drive. Most of the trucks seem to be off the road on a Sunday which was just as well considering the amount of roadworks on the autobahn (motorway to u and me). We sailed through at the 80 speed limit but doubt you could do that any other day of the week.
Quick setup - needed the ramps out - then off to town on the bus from right outside the gates.
During the war the allies purportedly destroyed 90% of the place but you would never know.

And an interesting freize saying something like 'the pesants will love and follow their master'. Course they did/do!
Bit of scran, couple of drinks and ice creams best part of €100. (How the east Germans must love being part of the west at those prices.) Of course most of the people out and about indulging were those very same Germans and nobody was batting an eyelid at the prices. Like my kids are always telling me - u are living in the past.
Now here is a tip for those that love shopping as much as I do. Go the German cities on a Sunday - everything is closed.

 

[Camper pair]

I have really enjoyed your story!! Very entertaining! Also appreciated the coffee and cake comments - we do just the same, and also appreciate it when it does not cost the earth!! We have just returned from a long tour in Spain and Portugal and enjoyed the excellent coffee and especially the pastei de nata through the whole of Portugal, and at reasonable prices! 2 coffees and a cake - Eur 4.50. Looking forward to reading your next update!

 

[Jake Royd]

Enjoying your thread and really surprised at the long run of cloudy wet weather.

I did this with a newly purchased Swiss vignette. The solution was a long handled fly swat and duct tape. I guess a long strip of cardboard from a cereal packet would work too. Place one strip of tape, sticky side out, around the end of fly swat, place a second strip sticky side down sideways all around to secure first piece, leaving a good bit of sticky side uncovered, and then go fishing down the gap between dashboard and windscreen.
Works a treat, fished out vignette and that evening, a pitch neighbour’s GHIC card.

I have this problem too.
I don't learn , always putting a ticket in the Fiat clip. It then immediately slides out and posts itself down the gap.
There must be a kilo of paper down there somewhere

 

[berni109]

Yeh not exactly fit for purpose are they.

As far as coffee and cake is concerned it will be a shared cake for the rest of the trip.
Not tight but just thinking about my cholesterol and weight. Honest!

 

[Poms_from_Adelaide]

Yeh not exactly fit for purpose are they.

As far as coffee and cake is concerned it will be a shared cake for the rest of the trip.
Not tight but just thinking about my cholesterol and weight. Honest!

We always end up sharing one slice because the food police always tells me at ordering stage he doesn't want any because 'not healthy', then when my delicious looking slice arrives, he 'helps me out with it'!

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[berni109]

Gender reversal in our case.
Given the age we live in there must be a pronoun for that.

 

[berni109]

Not an early start today after scrambled egg on toast for breakfast and getting everything emptied and filled so we are sorted for a couple of days.
Jena was a welcome first stop after a couple hours on the motorway. Don't remember being in the inside lane because of the member of trucks on the road.
I thought I remembered the name Jena and then it came to me. Carl Zeiss used to have a massive optical based factory there. In my first job we purchased a piece of optical machinery from them that cost many thousands of £ and that was back in the Communist eara of East Germany. That's at least 50years ago- funny how your mind conjures up such things yet you can't remember what u had for dinner yesterday. Anyway I digress.

The old market house Jena. Quite a mixture of very old areas and new buildings side by side.
Lunch was at a really old authentic gusthof in the town but sadly failed to live up to the ambiance of the place. Guess we just ordered the wrong thing but using Google translate is obviously not an exact science.
Next up Erfurt. Parked at the new Stallplatz that the town has invested in at the park and ride. Its more like a good campsite with full sparkling new facilities. The town seem to have banned all the other parkups in the vicinity. Short walk to the tram stop and in town centre in no time for a couple of euros.

The half timbered buildings in Ludlow are better in my opinion.

Had our best cup of coffee in Germany but the young lady who served said they do coffee Australian style whatever that means. I'm obviously not cut out for the strength of coffee normally served.

 

[berni109]

What a pleasure to get away from the autobahn after an hour or so. Lovely half timbered villages on the back roads to Marburg. IMHO this place is well worth a detour if you are in the area.

Town square with their own St. George killing the dragon not to mention the wonderful buildings .

 

[berni109]

Be somewhat difficult to park outside your house to load up if you lived here.
Most of the town is similarly half timbered with a few older places constructed of stone. Surprised that this place has never burned down given the close proximity of all the wooden framed buildings.
Brunch today at a riverside cafe was really good but the coffee we had later was the worst we have had on our whole trip. Why is it we can never pick 2 good places in a row? Perhaps tomorrow - ever the optimist.

 

[berni109]

Oh forgot to mention this incident. Stopped at traffic lights in a line of cars on a slight gradiant. Lorry at front starts off and one of its twin rear wheels drops off and rolls all over the road and between the 2 cars in front of me without hitting either of them. thought it was coming back for me but hit the kerb and fell over. I've heard of it happing but never witnessed it before.

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[berni109]

Last night we stayed on a farmers field which frankly was a €10 mistake (wish they all cost so little). Should have stayed on the stelplatz in Marburg. Thinking we would get a headstart for today's journey we left Marburg late afternoon and headed across country for a peaceful night in the fields. Heading out this morning we found our intended route closed to traffic so had to backtrack almost to Marburg.
The number of roadworks on the autobahn today was unbelievable on our way to Koln. Most of this was through hilly terrain and the second lane was down to 2.1mts. so stuck behind slow lorries for miles and miles. Thankfully we all kept moving had it been in the UK there would have been 5 mile tailbacks.
Got a space at Cologne stelplatz late morning and by the time we left for the train to the city it was full. Helpful German guy wizing about on his electric scooter directing the operations. Him no Engelish me non sprecken zie duitch but we managed admiraily with sign language.
Our luck ran out with the weather today. It's been sunny and warm for a while now but we caught a massive thunderstorm while we were on the hop on hop off tour of the city. Interesting to see the proletairiats huddled under umbrellas and shop awnings while we smugly looked out from the top deck of a dry bus. Occasionally things do work out for the best.
Managed to find quite by chance a traditional restaurant for a traditional lunch and both were excellent. Also found out why in this area of Germany they serve beer in ridiculously small glasses often wondered in the past.

It's to keep it fresh rather than it sitting there waiting for you to drink it. And of course they can charge you more.

There's that bl°°dy crane again keeps photo bombing me.
The cathedral is not as old as it looks - it was started a very long time ago but they ran out of money (like the church is ever going to do that they just couldn't extract it fast enough from the population) and it wasn't finished untill the late 1800's.

 

[Leith Laddie]

Really enjoying reading your grand tour - what an adventure you have had.

 

[berni109]

Dear readers I could not bring myself to post yesterday for fear of falling foul of the expletive police.
What a f*****g fiasco but catastrophe has been avoided.

guess where this is? - clue it's a lovely half timbered town about 180 miles east of where we were yesterday. And not only that it's where we left our passports. How can one/two be so silly I hear you cry.
We were hoping to check into a campsite in the bit of the Netherlands that hangs down in the right corner near Maastricht. Thought it odd that there were few trucks on the road but lots of cars heading west out of Germany in the same direction as us. Turns out it's Corpus Christi holiday where everybody and his dog goes camping for a long weekend.
Arrived at selected campsite and I asked the better half (keeper of documents) for the passports. Opens bag and then a blank look they are not here. Turned the van interior upside down but we both knew it was a lost cause. Went to try to book in anyway but site was rammed to capacity and it was just the same at the other 6 I tried phoning.
Ended up parking initially in a golf club car park where we had a reasonable lunch and they were happy for us to stay parked for the day but we moved out to the side of their access road overnight. It's on p4n.
So we sat and pondered where the missing passports might be and concluded 'I' probably left them in the leather bag shop where we were making sure they would fit in the zipped compartment of a bag.
Let's phone and ask but it's a bank holiday no one at the shop. Sat there and fumed for the rest of the day running over scenarios of emergency travel documents and the cost of it all not knowing where they were for definite.
Had to wait till 10 today when they opened. You can imagine the relief when they said they found the passports on Wednesday and handed them to the town police station. No response to town police phone so phoned main station who checked their system and told us they were not recorded on the system. The saga continued while we were driving 180 miles back the way we came on Wednesday. Transpires the town police station was closing early but they did have them and couldn't be bothered to wait 10 minutes while we walked from the carpark but they took them back to the shop where we were reunited with those vital travel documents.
Anyway all is well and the stress is lifted and akl it cost was 2 days of our lives which are gone forever and a tank of fuel. The girls in the shop got a small box of chocolates each for all their efforts and tooing and frowing down to the station. Customer service of the highest order.
Sitting in a nice little stelplatz at Frankenburg (p4n) tonight before our westward trek resumes but can't face that motorway again we'll try a different route.
Hopefully sleep more soundly tonight without this problem playing on our minds.
Diesel was €1.57 today
Popit SIM still working well

 

[Leith Laddie]

We had a problem with missing passports when we arrived in Split because the previous campsite had retained our documents and didn't give them back to us. Frustrating that we wasted a morning, fuel and motorway tolls. We did enjoy Split though.

 

[Riverbankannie]

We loved the campsite at Jena, very lad back. Erfurt pleasant, it claimed the houses on the bridge were unique but I have seen similar elsewhere.

Many places in Germany look old but were rebuilt the same after the war. One if the things that slightly got to me as they seem to have come of the mess so much better than us.

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[berni109]

Had visions of that happening where campsites hold on to your documents which is why we have always been so careful with them. Yeh right!

 

[berni109]

There's no doubt that the German economy is booming from the look of the places we have visited. Although a few town centres are starting to look like the majority of UK towns and cities with empty shops. Believe it or not we actually came across some charity shops.
Massive post war investment by the allies is one of the reasons Germany came out of the war economically better off.
Most places are clean and tidy where the population at large seem to take pride in their environment.
Totally the opposite of the couldn't care less attitude in the uk.

 

[Leith Laddie]

There's no doubt that the German economy is booming from the look of the places we have visited. Although a few town centres are starting to look like the majority of UK towns and cities with empty shops. Believe it or not we actually came across some charity shops.
Massive post war investment by the allies is one of the reasons Germany came out of the war economically better off.
Most places are clean and tidy where the population at large seem to take pride in their environment.
Totally the opposite of the couldn't care less attitude in the uk.

I must have been in the parts of Germany with the serious graffiti issue.

 

[berni109]

Very pleasant start to today with a quick walk around Frankenburg and coffee and croissants at the supermarket because everywhere else was closed. What is it with Europe and getting going on weekends. Guess it might be that being retired for so long every day is like a weekend for us.

Obviously the owner of this one had money and replaced the cow shite and mud with brick infill. Wonder it didn't fall down with all that extra weight.
Good journey north up through the hills and then an almost empty motorway through more hills and across to the Rhur.
Sitting in the shade with a couple of beers at a newish stelplatz near Mores feeling chilled after the excitement of the last few days.
After a free night last night thought I should lash out €8 and get the van fettled for our last few days.

 

[berni109]

Spent a few hours sitting in the sun at Moers and spent an extra €4 for a couple of showers at the swimming pool spa. €12 all told and better than many campsites.
All set up for a visit to our friend in Antwerpen where we parked the van on the street and forgot about it for 24hrs.
We got the last place at the Gentbrugge sportpark Aire and we were early.
10mins walk to the tram for town and €5 return fare.

Intact since the middle ages.

Ronald mcD get in everywhere

And yet another castle. This one belonged to Gerald the Devil and has a very chequered recent history.

And one for our new king.
This won a noble prize for architecture so someone thinks it has merit, I couldn't see it though.
We must have picked the most expensive restaurant in Ghent for our lunch at least it felt that way as we purused the menu. We just had a main course and 2 small beers and it was close to €100 but it was extremely good.
Tuesday was a visit to Brugge. Camping Memling was full and I did not fancy being packed in like a sardine on the official Aire. P4N came up with a little parking spot virtually on the ringroad and as luck would have it we got a spot that was just across the canal on a lifting bridge and through one of the old gateways into town. Lunch was much more reasonable today and very tasty but the drinks we ordered with it were extortionate, small beer and small water €10. That's what tourists are for!

Our entry to the city and the van was 20mts away.

The classic Brugge photo.

Left mid afternoon and drove off to a nearby free spot but it was only a car park and a bit cramped plus stinking of dog s*** so investing €14 on a new Aire a bit further away. Pity I have no use for the free electricity.

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