YOU WIN SOME.... AND YOU LOSE SOME!

Kaiserslautern
With one week left to mosey back to the UK, this was our first stop.  We drove up a narrow track through woodland and on arrival I was filled with apprehension as my eyes took in the rather ramshackle and hickledy pickledy scene - was this really the campsite?  Directly in front of us was a low, long narrow 'makeshift' looking building with a few folks relaxing around a table outside, all looking at us with grins on their faces (were they smiling in welcome or laughing at what was to be in store for us here?).  There were the usual long term caravans with the typical randomly built homemade 'extensions' clustered in the shade of the surrounding trees.  We emerged gingerly from our motor home and were greeted by the owner who led us to one of the handful of tourer 'areas' just around the corner.  He pointed to the shower block tucked under the trees and explained we did have to pay for showers "but you can share - they're very big" he said - and left us to settle in. 

How quickly those first negative impressions evaporated.  So the site wasn't all neat, tidy and pristine but, oh so charmingly and adorably quirky and what a friendly couple.  Love and care was evident all around - Friedrich and his wife had put their personal stamp on this place and it really was just like being welcomed into their home and garden.  So unlike the typical campsite in so many says - and for those reasons, a real gem.   


We discovered we had our own access to the lake with beautiful views across to the pine clad mountains.   We could sit on the steps and dip our feet into the water, set our chairs up on the grassy bank, swim if we fancied and there was even a little boat ready to use.

That long, low building housed a simple little restaurant (the only part of the building available to the public).  All other needs were managed through a hatchway - ice creams, orders for food/drink, purchases of basic items and the all important kitchen - and was the food good!!  Everything homemade and cheaper than you could ever imagine! That was evidenced by the number of folks who seemed to appear from nowhere every evening for dinner!   We tucked into the tastiest burgers and chips washed down with wine and beers followed by coffees all for €13! 

A novel way of displaying the menu at the site entrance

At the far end of the building was their garden which they'd taken great pains to fence with various bits of wood and branches adorned with a multitude of every conceivable standing and hanging containers all filled with assorted potted plants.  

We were blessed with sunny weather and when we weren't relaxing in our own little place by the lake reading or watching the canoeists and kayakers, we took advantage of the lovely walks and cycle paths around and beyond the lake. 

Quiet time ....

... fun time

If you look carefully, you'll spot 'Poppy' along the left side of the pic  (yes, we finally settled on a name for our second motor home!).  And I think you'll agree, it's a beautiful spot!

On the morning of our reluctant departure Friedrich made us some tasty homemade waffles for breakfast - delicious!

 

This site didn't pretend to be anything other than what it was - it didn't need to.  We'd stepped into another world for a while - a welcoming, comfortable world.  We didn't want to leave and later regretted we hadn't stayed longer and left ourselves less time for the remaining sites we would use.

After all these weeks of travelling, the sights we've seen, experiences we've had - we will always remember those couple of days spent at Gelterswoog.

LUXEMBOURG
Berdorf - what a contrast!  Absolutely nothing to complain about - a perfect little site - spotlessly clean, immaculately laid out in the heart of the Ardennes but for us nothing more than a place to overnight.  Not helped I guess by the torrential rain that descended just after our arrival resulting in a paddling mud bath around our motor home!

Driving through those bizarre rock formations of the Mullerthal region

BELGIUM
Oteppe - oh dear, now this was definitely not our cup of tea!  On first impression everything looked so promising.  The castle entrance, a very smart large reception - until we drove around the corner to find a pitch!  It was a massive area housing not only hundreds of statics and permanently pitched caravans but the biggest children's playground I've ever come across, a large indoor and outdoor pool (that did look inviting!), a complex of bars, shops, cafe etc - it was 2 hours before we finally parked up and even then we were behind a grubby building but at least we had some space and it was reasonably quiet - and we'd made the mistake of booking for 2 nights!  A place definitely in need of some TLC - and so was I!
But not to berate it too harshly, I guess it served a good purpose for families - and we'd been so spoilt!

Ypres
Back to where we started - a good place to end we felt.

Cloth Hall

A retracing of our steps around the town as well as the discovery of  St Georges Memorial church - equal in its importance to the Menin Gate and perpetuating the daily act of remembrance, it is a permanent memorial to the dead and a meeting place for visiting relatives.

 













 
Every item in the church:  furniture, chairs, plaques on the walls, windows,  banners - are all there in memory of someone who gave their lives for freedom.  This was an extraordinarily humbling and startling experience - it is still impossible to begin to grasp the magnitude of such loss of lives - around 1,700,000 men and women of the Commonwealth forces died in the 2 world wars.

"We can truly say that the whole circuit of the earth is girdled with the graves of our dead...  I have many times asked myself whether there can be more potent advocates of peace upon earth through the years to come, than this massed multitude of silent witnesses to the desolation of war."  (King George V, Flanders, 1922)

- 90 years on, and still the world rages with battles and wars . . . . .   

On our final evening of this, our maiden tour of just over 10 weeks, it seemed fitting to witness the Last Post ceremony once more at the Menin Gate - as moving as ever which on this occasion included the haunting music of the Northumberland pipes.  We returned to our favourite Cyper Restaurant in the main square for supper in the evening sunshine and reflected on what has been an amazing tour.  The next morning (Tuesday 18th June) we would be heading to Calais in time to be back with the family for my birthday. 

We were delighted from the very start with our new motor home and during our time away we have transformed it from an impersonal motor home and truly made it ours - lace curtains and beautiful tablecloth from Bruges, the scarlet red Venetian fruit bowl and beautiful wine glasses from Neckargemund along with a few extra accessories.  We have travelled in utmost comfort and total freedom just under 1200 miles, through Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany and 'Poppy' definitely now feels like home! 

            ~   The Canvas of life is growing ever wider   ~


POSTSCRIPT
On the evening of our return to the UK, we were back in the fold of our family celebrating my birthday, Sarah & Sam's first wedding anniversary and belatedly, Father's Day! 

Jon's deliciously scrumptious birthday cake!

                            

 






















 

THE ELUSIVE UMLAUT (Ü)

Fürth

Feeling an urgency about our departure, we were soon heading further north to a very pretty area known as Odenwald where we found a camp site in Fürth which fortunately, without having given much thought to where we'd land, happened to be a lovely spot.  

It had been an interesting journey - the clear sparkling rivers and streams of a week or two ago had now become angry torrents of dark muddy water crashing along the river bed, wrapping themselves around tree trunks that had previously been on dry river banks.  As we climbed higher and higher leaving the flooding behind us, we found ourselves driving through low cloud giving us very poor visibility and it wasn't until the next day when the weather cleared that we could actually see where we were - in the heart of the countryside looking across the valley to the distant forest clad mountains - beautiful.  Due to the terrain of the area, the site was terraced and divided into little hedged bays giving us the luxury of privacy and virtual lack of sight of any other motor home or caravan - we even had our own picnic table and bench, fresh water tap and drainage - which all together created the sense of having our own little garden.  Birds in abundance in the trees all around singing their hearts out - one of my all-time favourite sounds in life - sometimes you don't realise you how much you miss something until you have it back again!

Still in jim-jams and enjoying breakfast in the sunshine

Unique garden 'ornament'

Couldn't resist snapping this pretty example of how some folks choose to name and number their houses!

Our timing was perfect - we were able to join in the evening festivities in the town.  Our nostrils were bombarded with tantalising smells of cooking wafting in the air from the numerous stalls lining the main street and any other little corner they could fill and the town was full of music delivered by 4 live bands no less spread through the small town.  It was alive and buzzing and even though it had poured with rain all the previous night and most of that day the rain finally let up for the evening and though very cold, hundreds of folks turned out to share the fun of the evening.  A real party atmosphere and we had such fun especially as we'd quite unexpectedly stumbled upon the party evening which came to an end with a great firework display - which slightly took the edge of our disappointment at having to miss the fireworks of Heidelberg castle that same evening!

Weinheim -

It was a short journey on the little shuttle train serving the handful of villages between Fürth and Weinheim so we took a couple of trips.  Though we had a minor contretemps with the auto ticket machine on our first return journey!  

A simple task one would think - we typed in 'Furth' as destination and were presented with a huge selection of Furths with varying appendages!  Plugging for what seemed the obvious option produced a fare of 58 euros - that could not possibly be right choice for  just 5 stops up the track!  With only a few minutes until our train was due,  I scurried to the info desk only to find a queue.  Sensing my agitation the guy in front very kindly offered his assistance - and laughed when I told him we were being charged 58 euros fare for Furth.  In moments he had punched in all the correct info - apparently we were heading for Furth, Bavaria on our selection!!  Furth Odenwald was €3.70 a piece - that's more like it!  Our helpful fellow traveller left us with the one simple task -  paying for our tickets.  Insert credit card......... oh dear,  it didn't like that!  Lights flashing, words flashing - all in German - we hadn't a clue!  Lass behind us patiently (very patiently by now!) waiting to purchase her ticket said we needed to take out the card.  OK, so now card extracted, we pay in cash we guess.  Ah, machine tells us it only accepts 5 or 10 euro notes - did we have one? Of course not, 20 and 50!  So I dashed into the patisserie just inside the station and returned with two 10 euro

notes, by which time the patient lady behind us had disappeared to find another machine devoid of these irritating foreigners!  Would it accept that 10 euro note?  Didn't matter which way up we turned that note, pushed and coerced, it just would not take it.  At that point I was all for getting on the train without a ticket - we'd already missed the first train - were we to miss the next?  Nothing for it,  cancel the entire transaction and start again - after all we know what to select this time and as long as we select English we could read the messages this lump of metal is trying to convey!  By this time we were both trying to hide ourselves behind the machine in case the guy who'd helped us might spot this daft couple still button pushing!  

"Select destination" : Furth O (Furth Odenwald)  Great!  This is better, tickets on the way!!  Number of passengers: 2.  All looking very promising!  'Tick, tick, tick' the machine clonks away and there's the price:   172 euros - what???????   Bavaria was 58 so where on earth in the world were we off to now?!   By now we were having a total fit of hysterical giggles.  And now another patient traveller was waiting to buy his ticket - with a rather pained expression on his face we observed!   It had to be 3rd time lucky  - off we go again:  "Select Destination" - careful now!!  Which Furth?  Think.  Suddenly,  I had an epiphany moment and recalled seeing our helpful fellow traveller press the 'ü' - not the 'u' - and there it was: Fürth Odenwald - 3.70 euros.   In goes the 10 euro note - snatched so abruptly for a moment I thought Michael was going to hurtle down the chute with it!  And miraculously our 2 tickets appeared.  Having won the final battle of retrieving our tickets that then sat frustratingly obstinately up behind the letterbox style flap where no fingers could reach we gave way graciously to the guy behind us and scurried away as fast as we could to melt into the crowds!   

Still plenty of time until the train was due on platform 6.  Follow the arrows: down the stairs, under, along, up - platforms 2, 3 and 4 - where was 6?  We'd gone as far as the tunnel went with nowhere else to go!  Back onto platform 1 from whence we'd first started - I was about to make a total fool of myself and ask in the info office where platform 6 was hiding when M exclaimed "there it is!!" - '6' right down the far end of platform 1!  What it was doing playing hide 'n seek around the end of platform 1 we'll never know but sure enough, there it was.   I do believe it took longer to secure our tickets and locate the elusive platform 6 than the train journey itself!  Good thing Weinheim was worth visiting!

 

Peeking through the branches of the oldest cedar tree in Germany - 293 years old!

Town Hall/Castle Palace

 

 The pretty little winding streets of Weinheim

The Red Hat - an old guard tower 

Detail above an old shop doorway

Time to stop for a beer perhaps?

Collage of windows - Protestant Town Church

Spotted this bus outside the railway station - such a polite way to say - "Not in Service" !!

Return to Heidelberg

We had so enjoyed the peace and solitude of our cosy pitch in Furth with its abundance of wildlife - we'd seen red squirrels scampering around the trees, a hare leaping close by, an eagle flying overhead and joy of joys, from the train en route to Weinheim, a little deer grazing in the field.  But it was time to return to Heidelberg - we were going to start running out of time for a gentle meander back to the UK if we weren't careful!  During our stay in Fürth, during one of our rare internet connections, Michael picked up on the news to read:

"Homes have been evacuated across southern Germany,  the Czech Republic, Austria and Switzerland as rivers reach dangerously high levels".  

We read of lives being lost and one of the areas reported as being particularly badly affected was Baden Wurttemberg - the area from which we'd been evacuated, so we had no idea what to expect on our return!  What we found was total devastation of the site we'd left just 6 days earlier in Neckargemund - flood waters of 3-4 metres had washed over the entire site leaving behind mud and silt to be cleared away in and around the little cafe and kitchen.  Big heavy earth moving machines were at work.  It was expected to be a couple of weeks before the site re-opened.  It was a sorry site (forgive the pun!) for sure.  We headed across the other side of the river where there was an alternative site on higher ground which had escaped the flooding.  A site we may well have chosen in the first place, but had we done so, would never have been evacuated and discovered Fürth! 

Sunny warm weather had returned allowing us a couple of days to explore Heidelberg at last!  In particular we wanted to visit the Schloss (castle) - Heidelberg's heart-stealer that sits above the Old Town against a backdrop of wooded hills.  We took the modern funicular part way up then changed to one of the century-old rail cars for the final trundle up a gradient of between 27% and 41% to the top where we arrived 550 metres above sea level which gave out to superb views right across Heidelberg, the plains beyond and in the far distance, the mountains.  

 

We enjoyed one of the gentle woodland walks and came across some interesting creative work:

 

  











A striking and imaginative creation conveying the message "Please don't leave your litter behind"

 

Our comfortable picnic seat!

Before taking the return funicular, we enjoyed some refreshment - a beer and glass of wine:

half a pint of wine!

We disembarked part way down to visit the now partly ruined sandstone castle which also houses an 18th century wine cask. More than 9 yards long and 8 high - the largest wine cask in the world -  it can hold 55,345 gallons.  Sadly empty for many a year so no tastings! 

 

The steep walk down the cobbled pathway led us back into the heart of the city:

University Library

Jesuit Church - breathtakingly beautiful and pure

And tell me honestly - who could resist this choice!!

Then we discovered the Schneeballen ('snowball cake') - such a naughty temptation!  Shortcrust pastry strips arranged into a loose ball, each filled with a mindblowing variety of fillings then deep fried and finally covered in either a dusting of icing sugar or chocolate and or nuts!  Making a choice was almost impossible from the array laid out end to end the length of the shop counter! But a choice just had to be made and we finally settled on caramel and milk chocolate and nougat with white chocolate - heavenly!  These pastries apparently have a 'shelf life' of 8 weeks though I defy anyone to resist one for that long!   

Before saying farewell to Heidelberg (and those scrumptious Schneeballens!) we returned to our favourite little restaurant in the main square where we again enjoyed a delicious flammkuchen - another culinary delight we discovered in this part of the world.  A crispy flatbread, covered in the creamiest crème fraîche topped with your chosen topping - our choice was bacon lardons and sweet caramelised onions - beats pizza any day!

Main Square

From our campsite, it was good to see life on the river returning to normal - the well-laden barges back in business, folks enjoying the pleasure cruises once more.   All river traffic had been suspended until repairs to the lock just outside Heidelberg were completed after the damage caused by the flooding. 

Life was good and settled once more.