Münster

It was a cooler morning when we set off by bus to the centre of Münster. Being a Sunday morning there were very few people about. 

Given that Münster suffered heavily during WWII,  the reconstruction has been done incredibly well. This old Hanseatic town has over 1200 years of history, and being a university town today, the old and the new compliment one another very nicely.

The Prinzipalmarkt and the merchant houses and arcades. It is in this area that the community festivals and other happenings occur. 

The Domplaz and the Prinzipalmarkt have a combination of Gothic and Renaissance merchant houses with arcades which ooze wealth and success. 

The streets are lined with arcades with VERY expensive shops!

The St Lamberti Church is a late Gothic building with some very interesting stories. It was here that Cardinal von Galen preached his famous sermons criticising the Nazis. It also has three interesting cages high on the belltower - these were for the Anabaptists  who "mutinied" against the Lutherian  teachings and were tortured and killed  back in the mid-16th century. Their bodies were left to rot in the baskets to warn other would be 'decentors' not to meddle!

St Lamberti Church, cages and tower. 

One of Münster's landmarks is the Kiepenkerl, an itinerant trader with his traditional basket on his back, a short linen smock, red scarf, cap, pipe and gnarled walking stick. He was reponsible for both goods and news being  exchanged between towns. 

An exhibition in one of the oldest guild halls was quite outstanding and the moving. It was all in German but we could follow the story. It was by a Dutch artist painting from the perspective of his memory as a 12-year old in 1939-40. 

A brochure of the exhibition. 

We took another bus to the Münster university and the associated botanical gardens. The university's administration is housed in the Schloss-Residenez, the Baroque Residensez for the Prince-Bishop. 

The Baroque Residencez of the Prince-Bishop. 

The botanical gardens had some interesting plants with an outstanding selection of Australian plants - some we had never seen before! 

A little bit of Oz. They have very cleverly kept the eucalypts in pots! 

We also took in a delightful modern art exhibition there.

We returned to the van in the afternoon and decided to move on to Bad Iburg for the rest of the afternoon and for our overnight stop. 

Bad Iburg - as you can guess by the name has a burg or castle. This castle has some good pedigree, with it being the residence for the Prince-Bishop of Osnabrück when his palace in Osnabrück was damaged by fire. 

A quick look at the burg in Bad Iburg. 

And some sort of a German guild day with marching band and uniforms etc. They entertained us with their music and singing for the next few hours - music from the traditional marching band music to Abba and other well known tunes. 

Münsterland

A very restful night in Rosengarten, and the morning looked to have good prospects too. 

We travelled to Greven, just north of Münster to spend time enjoying the lovely surrounds of the canal and the marina. But when we arrived the heavens opened, and jackets went on,  and we knew we wouldn't get to lay about in the sun today. 

Our travels this morning took us through the farmlands of Münsterland. Of interest through these parts are the  Wasserschlösschen. Because of the low lying area traditionally defensive hilltops are not available, so the next best natural defensive  feature is water. So, the feudal noble families created what have become known as Wasserschlösschen (water castles).  About 100 of these still remain in  50 km radius of Münster - about 40 still remain in the original families!  

Farm buildings at Burg Vischering inside the double moat defensive perimeter.

We  visited the Wasserschlösschen Burg Vischering, one of the oldest and best preserved Wasserschlösschen in Münsterland. Founded in the 13th century it has been added to over the years.

Burg Vischering set in a very pictureque location. 

The drawbridge. 

Oriel windows being a feature. 

The south side of Burg Vischering. 

The quaint chapel in the grounds of the Burg. 

The Burg retains many of the medieval defensive features - the loop-holes for the archers still remain. 

Returned to Münster and parked up in a stellplatz from where we were ready to explore Münster tomorrow.  Relaxation for the rest of the day. 

Stepping Out in Dortmund!

Fixed! Hymer is back in favour too. The Dortmund service was great and the problem step is no longer. It turned out to be a small plastic bush that had broken and was stopping the step-motor from working. It could have been fixed 600km back! Fortunately we were traveling in this direction so now we will explore the area around Munster. 

Hymer world - Motorhomes almost as far as the eye can see. Nearly tempted to trade ours in!

Having all our worldly worries forsaken we set off in the direction of Munster but only got as far as Lüdinghausen and the small village of Rosengarten - where, living up to its name, was a whole village of rose gardens!

On our journey today we saw the contrasting environments of the modern world - a peek at the private serene world of a Schloss and the modern world's demand for energy. 

Schloss Sandfort and ....

.... it's moat.

Contrasting with a neighbouring nuclear power station .... 

..... with its towering stack. 

Arriving at Rosengarten we vowed not to drive another kilometre! Instead we took a long leisurely walk around the village and the extensive gardens of roses. A very special place. 

Rosengarten, a very tidy town. 

 

With some lovely sculptures 

Pendulum clock in rose garden. 

And the roses!

Deutschland Day 2

We have not driven such kilometres since a trip between Tennant Creek and Katherine in the Northern Territoriy in Australia! This time there were a "few" more cars and trucks on the road - but no road-trains! 

Some typical rural scenery as you drive across Germany. 

Hymer in Hamburg were useless! Fortuitously,  as we were trying to sort out who in Hymer could help us with our step, we had a call from Dirk and Brigitte and with their great language and negotiation skills they were able to get us an appointment with Hymer in Dortmund first thing tomorrow morning. So, on our bikes and off we went!

The lovely part of Germany we were going to explore will have to wait for another time. If we can get our step problem sorted out tomorrow, or even next week, we will have the opportunity to see this great part of Germany. 

An awful picture, but only one of the mighty Elbe River near Hamburg, whose course we tracked a couple of years ago. 

So, summing up the day - driving and frustration! 

Many more solar farms ....

....  And a new support structure for the windfarm towers!

Hello Deutschland!

Woke this morning in Poland and going to sleep in Germany! But that is about the excitement for the day.

Back in the land of serious recycling. Before shopping just insert your returnable bottles into the machine and it will deliver a cash voucher. 

Our purpose today was two fold - charge our German SIM card in Prenzlau and to exchange our new switch for our back step in Neubrandenburg. The first we achieved but the second indicated to us that Hymer has a way to go in the area of  customer service!!!! 

The rural countryside of eastern Gernany was in full harvest mode. What was interesting was the German commitment to renewable energy. This we had noticed in other parts of Germany as well. We could not help but notice just the huge investment in both wind and solar energy sources. With nuclear power stations being decommissioned throughout the country the big push into solar and wind energy is obvious. A shame about Oz's less-than-serious renewable energy policy!

Huge averages for new solar farms. Pic 1 is a stack of solar panels to be placed in the frames. Other pics are of the installation. Note the wind turbines in the background!

Wind farms throughout the agricultural landscape of eastern Germany. 

We visited Prenzlau, wandered around for a while, checked out the promenade along the lake with many other holiday makers. But with the approaching storm we decided to cut our visit shirt and start to head for Neubrandenburg. 

Pleasant lakeside promenade. 

It wouldn't be a blog without an ancient relic of some sort! Here is a chapel and an old town gate tower. 

The storm did arrive and it washed the van slightly too. 

Frustration at the Hymer dealership when they we unable to help is with a brand new Hymer switch. We now have to wait until we get to Hamburg to get it sort out. We couldn't even order a new one to be sent to Hymer at Hamburg!!

Still raining in Neubrandenburg so we decide to make our way to Hamburg more quickly than we had planned to do. 

An interesting house mural in Neubrandenburg. 

So we travel a little way out of town to our overnight stop in the old village of Penzlon. 

We are also in the land of the "Burgs". A burg in the village of Penzlin. 

Timber-framed house in Penzlin. 

View from the castle - with Hilton getting into the picture!

The witches playground at the castle's wall. Protestant Mecklenburg was one of the few areas of Germany that held witches trials. 

Just about to settle back for our last meal of pirogi, the last remaining link to Poland. 

Another pic from today:

This van pulled in beside us today!

Szczecin

Tuesday 26th July

Our last day in Poland! It has been an unforgettable experience, surpassing all our expectations. The variation across this vast country has much to offer the tourist. 

On our travels around Poland we have been fascinated by the regard in which the storks are held. These carvings sum up this popularity. And interesting to note that the stork migrates for the winter to North Africa - never crossing the Mediterranean Sea at any point other than at the Straights of Gibraltar.  

The people, and their obvious positivity, have turned a country that was very much behind the eight ball into one of progress and growing prosperity. The comparison of the Poland we first saw 36 years ago to the Poland of today is astonishing. Perhaps the biggest change has been the increase in the prosperity of the people. This can be seen in the large shopping complexes dotted over the country. A far cry from the days when you had to wait outside a small grocery shop for one of the ten baskets to become available before entering the shop! And the competition is fierce - Carrefour, Tescos, Aldi, Lidl, Auchan in the supermarket category alone, and the list goes on. 

The other great change has been the transport links. Motorways and A-roads have improved mobility greatly. Couple this with car ownership, and you have a huge change in personal freedoms. Enough of this!

Szczecin today! We spent most of the morning doing jobs we needed to get done before crossing into Germany tomorrow. But most with little success. The laundrette in Polish seems to be a "laundry service" - that is what we deduced from today. A waste of a lot of time with no result. Clean sheets will have to wait till tomorrow.

A view across the Odra River to the castle and old town. 

Some very clever street art under the road bridge. 

It is very much a working port  city and some of the infrastructure paid little attention to the aesthetics of the historical section. 

We did get to see a little Szczecin, a city of over 400,000 people, the important seaport on the Baltic.  For two hundred years it was controlled by Germany and was the port for Berlin.  Destroyed during the war, the reconstruction of the old town centre was done with little love and attention! The stroll along the Odra River is quite pleasant with some interesting observation points. 

The most celebrated building in the town is the new Philharmonic Centre, known as the Iceberg. The modern design is supposed to have taken its inspiration from the surrounding historic buildings. 

The Iceberg building "blending" with the historic!

The Zamek (Castle) of the Pomeranian Prince  was worth a look with its origins going back a thousand years, but what we see today is a reconstruction because of the bombing in 1944. 

The Pomeranian Prices Castle. 

An aerial view of the zamek. 

The castle's very distinctive 17th century astronomical clock graces the inner courtyard. 

It was getting late in the afternoon so we thought we had done well to this stage, we left for the village of Kołbaskowo. Here we spent the rest of the afternoon and evening. 

Other photos from today:

Multi-storey residential buildings are going up in great numbers on the outskirts of Szczecin. 

 More street art under the bridge.