Thursday 4 August 2016

Essential German

Today's travels have led us through the lower part of the Teutoburg Forest where we found some monuments that are essentially German. 

The Externsteine - the intriguing rock formation near Bad Meinberg. 

Our quest for the day started in Lemgo, where it rained continuously overnight (which caused acorns to land on our roof at varying stages throughout the night!), and ended in the city of Paderborn. 

The beautiful reconstructed Rathaus in Paderborn. 
Our first stop was the town of Detmold. With hindsight, it may have been advisable to have skipped this stop! All we wanted to do was to add money to our phone account - a simple task you would think! No! Not for O2 even after we purchased a voucher from the kiosk. Two O2 shops in the town and both were useless. Left very frustrated. The story continues later in the day - stay tuned. 

Thought you had heard the end of the Varus War - it has another chapter just outside Detmold where a large statue to Arminius, also known as Hermann, commemorates his victory in this battle. The statue is the highest in Germany and it has become one of the most visited German tourist sites. The statue was seen as a unifying factor for Germany at a time when it was coming together as a unified state. 
The Hermannsdenkmal - memorial to the victory over the three Roman legions commanded by Varus. 
A little further down the road, near Bad Meinberg, we found The Externsteine, a natural rock formation that has been a fascination for people over the last thousand years. The rocks attract many visitors a years who ponder their mystic elements. 
Huge rocks ...
... some with a slight lean ...
...  And from across the lake. 

It was getting late in the day when we visited Paderborn. We thought we would give O2 another chance to redeem themselves. Once we located the O2 shop we presented the phone voucher (the one that the other two shops couldn't or wouldn't try to process to our phone account) and within about 30 seconds the guy had the account loaded with the voucher value. We were dumbfounded! It seem to be a very simple process, so why couldn't this have happened in the other O2 outlets?

We then were able to look around this energetic town before we located our overnight in Paderborn. 
Paderborn....
.... the reconstructed church
... the old city wall, now converted into housing. 
Today. ....
... Early 19-hundreds ....
.... 85% of Paderborn destroyed after bombing raids in 1944and 1945. 

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