Cognac - Day 2

We got up rather early to see if there was a free spot at the aire de camping and were rewarded, 3 of the 4 campers had left. I chose the spot that is closest to the river La Charente. This free parking space for campers has free water, a place to empty your toilet, bathrooms, a garbage area and most importantly free electricity (we can run our fridge for free now). One of the first things I did was continue catching up on the blog writing, I am now only 3 weeks behind, much better than the previous 1+ month. We ventured into town without knowing where anything was and had a pleasant time doing so. We found an information point that had an Information centre marked on it, so off we went. This center turned out to be the history center for the town of Cognac. It was free to visit so we decided to stick around the 20 minutes or so it took to see everything. Julie came across some extremely nice candles in the gift shop and was deterred in buying them because of transportation issues (no place to store them). We then made our way to the Tourist information center after we were provided with a small town map at the history centre for Cognac. We both wanted to take a tour of one or more of the cognac distilleries here in Cognac and the tourist office said that we could find an English tour at the Hennessey distillery. So off we went to the Hennessey building. The tour ran us 9 euros each, was about 1 hour long and we had the chance to taste a new and an old cognac. The best part of the tour was the aging cellar, where they have barrels of cognac aging, it basically smelt like wine. About 2%, or around 12,000 L evaporate in these cellars per year and they call it “The Angels Share”. The tour guide made a joke, saying “you can imagine what state they are in up there”. Julie and I found it amazing how much work and how much product they go through just to get one bottle. We made our way back to the visitor building for the tasting. Julie and I have determined that we are not old enough yet to appreciate cognac. Other distilleries on the list that I would like to visit would be Remy Martin and Courvoisier, but Remy Martin is located just outside of the town centre and Courvoisier is located in a different town altogether, but still in the Cognac region. It being Halloween and all, I did my best to bring Halloween to Julie in a country that is just starting warm to the idea. We did see some kids dressed up though. We watched Hocus Pocus and some of the Simpsons Tree House of Horrors episodes. While we were at Anna’s place in Germany we read that France is the country that is embracing Halloween the most at the moment and that McDonalds is the best place to go on Halloween night. So that is where we went for something to eat. However, they only had a glass cabinet with Halloween decorations in it. To make up for it though, we learnt that all McDonalds in France provide free internet access. So we also loaded a Supernatural episode before making our way back to the van. Julie brought her vampire teeth with her (in the hopes of getting to do something for Halloween) and put them on during Hocus Pocus to feel more Halloweeny. I told her that she would just have to do a huge party when we are back in Canada next year and that I would let her start setting up for it in September. It was a great day and the weather has been great so far. Tomorrow is a national holiday for France, All Saints Day, so we will probably just be hanging out and possibly going back to McDonalds to finish uploading the updates to the blog. After that, it’s off to La Rochelle, the white city.

Cognac

An extremely long 434 km drive to Cognac proved to be worth it. Initially we drove to a town around 140 km away from Cognac which once again was an extremely nice place to park for free. It even had a place to do dishes. That being said, it was around 4pm and I knew that Julie wanted to be in Cognac for Halloween. In my wisdom I suggested to continue on and make our way to our final destination of Cognac. I have to say, this drive was probably the more eventful one we’ve had. We first got stopped along one of the back roads by a herd of cows and a few farmers guiding them. The van was pretty intimidating for the cows. The second time we had to stop was for an accident, a car rolled over in the ditch. The back roads are very windy and I can see that it would happen a lot. I mentioned earlier that day light savings has taken affect; well we seemed to have forgotten that when that happens the days are shorter. When we left to finish the drive to Cognac, at around 4:30, it was still sunny. It took only a matter of minutes before the sun started to set and almost the entire drive was done in the dark. Once in Cognac we found a parking lot, but no sign of the aire de camping, at least not until I got out of the van and took a look around. The aire de camping has room for 4 RV’s and all the spots were taken. That being said we spent the night parked in the parking lot. It is so much warmer here in Cognac it was worth the drive. Oh, and today marks our 100th day in Europe.

Saint-Remy-de-Blot

Due to a GPS mix up we drove for nearly 2 hours today before we clued in we weren’t heading through our destination towns. This however, turned out to be great news. The towns we were heading to have places to camp, but for a nominal fee. The place in St. Remy though, was free. Although this town was really just a street with some houses and a few farms it was extremely charming. It seems as though the town people really keep their village up. Our parking space was one of the nicest so far in France. One of the bathrooms however had a continental toilet. How charming. This drive was again very scenic and we enjoyed it very much.

Lyon

The drive to Lyon could have taken us around 2 hours, but as the highways in France are tolled, we needed to stay off the highways and use the back roads once again. The drive took us around 7 hours instead. The longest part of the drive was heading through Lyon’s downtown area which happened to be packed with traffic. The drive itself though was great. We were in or near France’s part of the Alps so it was very scenic. We had spent the previous night finishing our plans for the winter months and our first stop for France was supposed to be Chamonix. This Alp town, we figure, would have been too cold to visit so we ruled it out and decided to head to Lyon, our second city on the list. We arrived at the campsite in Lyon at 8pm which was exactly when they are supposed to close. We stayed for two nights and spent most of our time trying to find a phone that worked with Julie’s phone card (we didn’t find one), buy food and shower. Since I have been extremely behind in my blog updates I also spent the better part of the day getting caught up on writing them. The main sites to see in Lyon were some buildings along the river, but we saw them partially during the drive so we decided once again to move on to our next destination, Cognac. We also woke up today to realize that France has recognized day light savings time. That was funny for us, because it didn’t change much, but gave us an extra hour before check out. On our first day in the Lyon Campground, we managed to show up at the same time as the cleaners for our showers. Thwarted, we made our way back to the van and a moment later there came a knock on the van. A man and his daughter were standing there with 3 grocery bags and asked us if we speak English. Turns out they are from British Columbia and on there last day of travels. They had extra food and were wondering if we could use it. Of course we took it, we were both so blown away by this that we didn’t even get a chance to introduce ourselves or learn their names. When they left, Julie and I sat stunned. Another moment passed and there was another knock, again the same people with another 2 bags. They gave us all their pots and pans and utensils and some more food they found. It was all pretty amazing.

Geneva

We almost took a detour to see the city of Lausanne, but we couldn’t justify the stop with so little to see. The only thing that I would have liked to see would have been the art gallery they have. It is only paintings from inmates and mentally ill patients. The drive to Geneva was relative easy, albeit long. However, once in Geneva it was another story. The road system is once again a mix up of streets. I was extremely thankful that we were going to a campsite just 7 km outside of Geneva. When we arrived at the campsite we both noticed immediately that it was closed for the season. Oh well, the parking lot outside the campsite looked like as good a place as any to spend the night. It was still relatively early in the day but we weren’t really feeling up to venturing into the city as we spent the previous night in a highway rest area, the traffic of which, kept us from having a decent sleep. So we rested and continued to figure out our approach to France. With it being so large we wanted to plan our route and figure out where we were going to stay. It looks like we will spend around a month in France before heading into Spain for the winter. The following day didn’t get started until around 2ish and we managed to head into town using the bus system. We would have paid for the use of it, but the driver’s door didn’t open up and we were forced to get on in the back, so tough luck for them. The main thing I wanted to see in Geneva beside the city itself was the Jet d’eau, a fountain that shoots a jet of water 160 meters into the sky. I saw it from the bus stop we got off at and it resembled the Kapuskasing fountain in the Kap river, though Kap’s doesn’t go quite as high as this one. We wandered around the city before we finally found the tourist office and collected tons of free information on the city sites. They also had many walking routes to take to tour the city, though we followed none of them. I was surprised, though I shouldn’t be as our guide books told us so, that there were so many French speaking people in Geneva. They say that every single road in any direction in Geneva leads to France. We stopped in a park to have a small snack and Julie was rewarded with many sparrows taking dust baths right behind our bench. We then made our way towards the lake and came across a fountain with two statues that Julie insisted I take as many pictures as I could of them, so that she could use them for her next Halloween party when we are back in Canada. It wasn’t long after our wanderings that we made our way back to our van for the day. We both felt like we were once again walking in downtown TO, but with more filth and more pollution. I really did enjoy seeing all the Bentley’s, Ferrari’s and BMW 6 series though.

Zurich/Bern

We drove 232 km to a highway rest stop in Bern before we called it quits. Our second attempt to drive to Geneva was thwarted due to traffic in Zurich. The fastest way to Geneva from Vaduz did take us through the famous banking city of Zurich. The drive itself was extremely fun, because we passed by many mountains and small towns, lakes and went through many tunnels. When we arrived in the city boundaries, Julie spotted 4 people parachuting. One thing that Switzerland is famous for is its adrenaline sports. Zurich looked like Toronto, though Toronto does seem to look cleaner. The way the Swiss have their roads set up though is nuts. Many times they have “X” intersections where the one road going to the right crosses another one going to the left. This wouldn’t normally be an issue, but there are no lights so it’s basically yielding. Why they couldn’t have a bridge or lights is beyond me. It was a maze of cars trying to get to the other side of the road. It took us 2 ½ hours to get through Zurich. So we stopped in Bern when I had enough of driving for the day.

Vaduz

We decided to drive into Switzerland and possibly even complete the drive to Geneva, our one and only stop for the country. At the border crossing we tried and were unsuccessful in purchasing the highway sticker. In order to use the highways in Switzerland you need to have a vignette, otherwise you face a 100 Swiss franc charge and you have to buy the vignette. We were going to stay off the highway, but with us wanting to get to France for warmer weather, we don’t care anymore. We also think the 40 Swiss francs for the vignette saved us in gas because the back roads wind around mountains. We know this because that is how we did the majority of our drive to Vaduz. Yup, change of plans. Vaduz is not in Switzerland. It is the capital of Liechtenstein. An extremely small country (5th smallest, 32,000 pop.) measuring only 6 km wide and 25 km in length, and it is still ruled by a monarchy. What I found crazy is that there are over 80 thousand businesses listed for this country which is more than double the population. It is the only country in the world to be named after the people that purchased it. Its last military engagement in 1866, 80 soldiers left and 81 came back (the extra being a new Italian friend). Until 2005 the cows were fed hemp to keep them mellow and producing better milk. On the countries national holiday, the King invites everyone to his castle for wine and beer. They speak German, but apparently are very Swiss, they even share the same currency, the Swiss franc. However, we didn’t spend much time here. The night we free camped in another designated area and the following day we visited the tiny capital. There are apparently 2 things you should do here, send a post card because the postal stamp is dentures (Liechtenstein is the largest manufacturer of dentures in the world) and go hiking (over 400 km of trails). We’ve mentioned the weather we have been having in the Alps previously, so we decided to just send a postcard home. The main hike sounded cool though. The capital is surrounded by mountains and has the castle towering over it. It was very cool to be there even if at times it seemed to be like a ghost town. There are only 5000 people living in Vaduz after all.

The Castles

Hohenshwagau Castle

It was 18 euros to visit this castle with a tour (the only way possible). We made the short hike up to Ludwig’s family home and we both found it odd that it was all yellow. The castle was pretty plain, not all that impressive and the inside was about the same. Some cool things we saw; what was probably the first lazy-boy chair, Ludwig’s father’s room where he could have lamps lit on the floor above his to reveal stars on his bedroom ceiling. They had many large displays on tables etc. Most were pretty cool looking. On the tour we saw a few rooms, the Kings, the Queens, the Dinning room and the games room. But that was it. We had a decision to make, either drive on to Switzerland and skip Neuschwanstein castle, drive back to Fussen, or drive back to Shongau and see Neuschwanstein castle the next morning. The first two cost money, and the later was around 50 km away. We decided once again to visit our Fussen stellplatz. We parked in the same spot as before, next to our new neighbors.

Neuschwanstein Castle

I set the alarm today to make sure we didn’t have another night at the stellplatz. Even though we do enjoy the electricity, bathrooms and internet, we don’t enjoy paying 12 euros and don’t enjoy the cold. We need to get south fast. So we arrived back in Shwangau to visit Mad King Ludwig II castle, Neuschwanstein. Initially, we were going to take a horse drawn carriage to the castle, but with it costing money, not guarantying us the proper arrival time for our tour and the large lineup we opted to walk. The walk to the castle is said to be extremely tough, it is around a one kilometer hike up a steep road and usually takes around 45 minutes. We found it quite easy and it only took us 25 (We both agree that Vainden in Luxembourg was a tougher climb). This castle was dedicated to his friend Wagner, thus in every room he paid tribute to one of Wagner’s operas and to swans, the royal families favourite animal (also the symbol of the knights that once occupied Hohenshwangau castle Ludwig II family home). This castle is stunning. Justly world famous, also thought to be the inspiration for Walt Disney’s castle it is truly larger than life. It was once again 18 euros to see (we could have seen both castles for 17 euros each if we showed up early enough the first day) with a guided tour. They showed us only the completed rooms, the first being the servant’s quarters which were large and seemed quite nice. Everything has so much detail on it. The doors, window frames etc. all have been hand carved with crazy designs, very lush. The next room we went into was the King’s reception room. It was completely finished except for his thrown. This room was large, stunning and had paintings and gold leaf everywhere. I have never seen such a large chandelier, or one that is that impressive. We later moved on to the king’s quarters, where we saw his bedroom, the living room, the guest bedroom and his dinning room. King Ludwig II bedroom was amazing. So many wood carving decorations, a reading chair that was almost like a thrown, he even had running water in his vanity, something that was a true luxury at the time. His bed however is the main site. It is so stunning. It took 4 years to complete and over 30,000 hours. The detail in the carving is a work of art, simply beautiful. The other rooms continued this theme and were equally impressive. Between his bedroom and the living room there was an artificial cave, weird, but a very cool idea. We made our way into the concert room, which was large and once again painted with one of Wagner’s operas in mind. They still hold performances in this room. It was then down many flights of stairs to the kitchen, which we were able to visit on our own. It was extremely large and a very nice kitchen. All the stoves were wood burning and painted black. They also had large copper pots and pans. The combination looked rich.

Romantic Road - Fussen 3 days

It was 12 euros per night with electricity and when we pulled into the parking lot across from the gym, Julie had the laptop out and was constantly refreshing the network to see about free internet. We succeeded to get free internet in one spot in the parking lot. For this reason only we ended up spending 3 days in Fussen, well almost the only reason. The stellplatz also had bathrooms and a shower facility (50 cents for 3 mins). There were grocery stores within sight of the van so we walked off to pick up some supplies, mainly 2 bottles of wine and some food. Our intention was to visit Shwangau and see the two castles the following day but we woke up with a shock. Snow, and lots of it. Once again it was very cold and this time it was snowing instead of raining so we decided the day was best spent in the comfort of our warm van catching up on emails, blogs and TV shows/movies and hoping it would be nicer the next day. Oh and it was around -5 that day. It doesn’t sound that cold, but when you only plan on being in summer weather, i.e. no winter clothes, and you sleep in a van, 10 degrees feels cold, so you could imagine how we felt with -5. Needless to say, the heater was on and off throughout the day. We woke the next morning to similar conditions, but we slept in and by the time we got ourselves ready to head out, I decided to check out the castles website only to learn that we had 5 minutes to drive 4 km and get tickets for the last tour. This wasn’t going to happen so we stayed in the van another day and this time watched old episodes of House because we only got into the show before we left for Europe. Our determination to not sleep in again and miss out on the castles, didn’t really work out. We managed to be on the road at around 2:30, when the last castle tour was at 3. So when we arrived after finding free parking (no attendant) and made our way to the ticket booth only to learn that we could only view one castle due to the time we were pretty disappointed but not entirely surprised.

Romantic Road - Day 4 & 5

It was fairly uneventful today. It was so cold and raining that Julie and I stayed in the van under the covers and talked about our future plans past Fussen. It was around 1 or 2 degrees outside and the town we were in was small like many others so we decided it wasn’t worth freezing our butts off for and when we arrive in Fussen, we will have to pay at the Stellplatz so it was an easy decision to just hang out for the day. It was so cold that night that Julie wanted me to start the van to get some heat and I didn’t need any convincing. This is when we had a very ugly situation with fellow campers. It honestly made us think about just heading home. A German couple came out and yelled at us to shut off our van because the van stinks, we tried our best to tell them we were freezing and only needed the van on for another minute or so but they kept saying “not our problem”, it got to the point that he was banging on the van and trying to get in. Luckily the van was locked and the situation didn’t have to escalate. I eventually shut the van off and I suggested to Julie that we try our heater in the van. Up to this point it hasn’t been working for us. It worked in Batchesgaden and Regensburg both places we had electricity for. So we were under the assumption that it only worked when we are hooked up. Despite it being an awful situation, we did learn that our heater does work when we are not hooked up. So we had a warm sleep in a 15 degree van but woke with it being much colder than the night before. Reluctantly (mostly because of the other campers) we decided to head the 50 km to Fussen which brought us through the towns of Peiting, Rottenbuch, Wildsteig, Steingaden, Halbelch, Schwangau (where we got our first glimpse of the famous castles) and finally to our Stellplatz in a gym parking lot in Fussen.

Romantic Road - Day 3

The previous night we managed to see all the sights in Danauworth so we left in the morning towards the largest city on the Romantic Road, Augsburg. The city is one of Germany’s oldest (around 2000) and has probably the oldest housing project for the poor. Apparently today, you can still rent an apartment for less than 500 euros a month in the Fuggerei, but there’s a catch. You have to pray for the soul of Jakob Fugger (The Fugger family is the reason for Augsburg’s wealth and the affordable housing) every day and there is a long waiting list. This town seemed awfully grimy as we drove around it looking for parking and when we found a place to park for our camper, we left shortly there after. The parking called for 12 euros/day. With it being the largest city on the road (260,000) and the least attractive or least “Romantic” we continued our adventure down the Romantic Road. Before we stopped in Schongau, and our free camp spot for the night, we passed through Friedberg, Landsberg Am Lech, and Hohenfurch. The camping spot was large enough to accommodate many rigs and also had a bathroom near by. By the time we arrived in Shongau it was so late that we decided to just call it a night.

Romantic Road - Day 2

We had an early start today, all thanks to being at a truck stop, once they get going at 6am the noise never stops. It was however, for the best. As our first stop for the day was Dinkelsbuhl (or as I like to say Dinkelsbutt, it’s just easier and sounds funny), which had 16 towers and some of the original fortifications to see and was only 30 km away. We had a quick breakfast of cereal (the breakfast of choice nowadays) before we headed out. On the way to Dinkelsbuhl we passed through the town of Feuchtwangen. Outside of the towers and fortifications, we weren’t sure of what there was to see in Dinkelsbuhl. We did manage to get internet access outside of the Minster of St. George, “one of Germany’s most beautiful late Gothic hall churches”. We used the internet connection to finally get some posts up on the blog, as it has been well over a month. Sorry guys for the delay. When our computer ran out of battery power we decided to just keep heading down the road, this time passing through the town of Wallerstein and stopping in the town of Nordlingen Im Ries. The aerial view of this town is pretty cool. The town itself is still completely surrounded by the original town wall. When researching, we learnt that you can still walk completely around the wall, so we decided this town was worth a stop. In addition to this, it had a free place to stay for the night. It was pretty cool to walk the wall, but outside of that, there was not much else to see. It was also still pretty early so Julie did some research and found another free place further down the road in Danauworth, roughly 30 km further down the road. So off we went, on the way, we passed through the town of Harburg. When we arrived in Danauworth, we hooked up the van for some electricity, one euro for the night and I convinced Julie to head into town to see the street this town is most famous for, as well as look for a grocery store. The town itself has two rivers running through it, the Danube and the Wornitz. The Reichsstrasse is said to be the most attractive street in Southern Germany. It was nice, but I wouldn’t go bragging about it.

Romantic Road - Day 1

After a frantic rush to get ourselves ready to leave the campsite (fill up on water, dump toilet and garbage, shower etc), we were off by 12:30. About 5 minutes into the drive I stopped the van and Julie and I had a brief argument. She was telling me to turn onto paths, not roads and I didn’t trust her directions. We had a laugh afterwards because we both forgot to switch the GPS back to “Truck” from “Pedestrian” mode. This is not the first time we’ve done this. So, following the correct route to our next town, Tauberbischofsheim we were off. We discovered earlier that these suggested driving routes don’t always suggest the most exciting towns (e.g. The Fairy Tale Road), so we marked out the few we wanted to actually stop at and the ones we could camp at for free. As for the rest of the towns, they were just waypoints for the GPS to get down the road properly. Tauberbischofsheim was the first “drive-thru” town. We didn’t however input all of the towns until after this one, because we didn’t think we needed too. We then drove 10 km to the town of Lauda-Konigshofen and then another 10 km to Bad Mergentheim. For whatever reason, Bad Mergentheim reminded me of the movie Willow and the character Mad Martigan – this was once again completely wasted on Julie as she doesn’t remember the movie all that well. We continued driving through the towns of Weikersheim, Rottingen, Creglingen and finally had our first stop at Rothenburg O.D.T, roughly 98 km from Wurzburg. Rothenburg ob der Tauber (which means Rothenburg above the Tauber River) is a famous stop for a few reasons. The first of which, the Castle Road and the Romantic Road cross paths here, and it has many festivals with performances throughout the summer. However, it being October 15th, there are no such festivals. We would have stayed longer in this town, but it was 2 euros for parking per hour, so we stayed for 1 hour. The main shopping strip was littered with tourist aimed shops, Christmas shops and stuffed animal shops etc. Christmas seems to be very important in Germany as we have noticed Christmas shops in every single town and in some cases have seen decorations up. After our hurried, and to some point disappointing, exploration of Rothenburg O.D.T we made our way through Schillingsfurst on our way to our free camp spot in Wornitz. Wornitz is not a town on the Romantic Road, but is along the route. The stop was once again at a Truck stop rest station.

Romantic Road

This is Germany’s most famous driving route. So it’s no wonder that we are doing the drive too. It’s around 360 km of road that starts in Wurzburg and finishes in Fussen, a town located just 4km away from Ludwig’s castles. Every town on this route has many things in common. They are small, old, medieval, and have been relatively untouched over the centuries. Wurzburg is in a valley surrounded by vineyards. The market areas are mostly linked together which made it a pleasant walk through town. They had many odd statues and some pretty impressive churches. The most impressive site though, was the fortress on top of the hill, Marienburg. We crossed the Main River walking over the 15th century old Alte Mainbrucke (old bridge). The walk up to the fortress seemed unending, especially when you think you’ve reached the main area, only to realize you’re just within one of its many walls. Once on top the view was once again, amazing. We wandered around this huge fortress for some time taking many pictures before heading back down. Unfortunately, Julie hasn’t been feeling well lately so this walk took a bit out of her, that being said, we ended our tour of Wurzburg and made our way back to the van for the night. On the way down from the fortress we passed a bagpiper and I convinced Julie that it was OK to throw in some coin since she did stop to enjoy it. Oh, and earlier that day we checked ourselves into the campsite and purchased propane – it was so cheap that we decided to buy an extra tank so we can avoid running out in the future.

Bamburg

Our intention was to be in this city for lunch, but seeing as we tend to sleep in lately, mostly due to the cold weather, we were here around dinner time. The market we saw seemed lively and fun. I would love to go back to this city for a full day and spend the night in one of the breweries rooms. Yes that’s right, the breweries in town offer up rooms for a small fee. So the reason we came here: To sample the beer. Bamburg has a unique style of beer; it has a smoky bacon taste to it. Julie and I sampled the beer with an order of Schnitzel, a green salad and potato salad. Schlenkerla, the pub we went to, was jammed packed with people, so at first we were unsure of where to go sit. We ended up walking through 3 sets of doors before finding an almost empty room. We sat down and another couple joined us a bit later. We realized that almost the entire room had been reserved and we were sitting on the one table that wasn’t. We made our way back to the van and continued our drive to Wurzburg, the town that is at the start of the Romantic Road and the location of our camp site. We had hoped to park outside the campgrounds that night for free, but because the owners live on the premises, they heard us pull up and invited us in.

Eisenach - Wartburg Castle

We ran out of propane that night, so I decided to drive us to a nearby McDonalds. Erfurt is about the size of Milton, and from what we saw at night, we decided to check out a nearby Castle instead of visiting the town. Wartburg castle is another Unesco world heritage site. That being said, they charged for pretty much everything, even a climb up a tower. Julie is starting to hate Unesco sites, they seem restricted and expensive. We made the hike up the long road to the castle only to learn that they had parking further up the road (it had a barrier when we arrived, but was gone when we left). Even though the hike took a bit out of us, it was extremely worth it. We had a great view of the castle from below and a nice hike through the forest. It’s still a bit cold and there are so many leaves on the ground now. Once we got to the castle we found that it wasn’t all that exciting. Our next stop for the day was Bamburg.

Leipzig/Erfurt

We made our way to Leipzig and I decided to check into the engine light issue as it was getting Julie nervous. My assumptions were right, the coolant was low. It turns out the outdoor store carried everything but engine coolant, so when we left for Leipzig our first stop was a gas station along the highway. While I gassed up, Julie went off to search for the bathrooms and a young lady approached me. Turns out she was from Poland and she and her friend were looking for a ride to Frankfurt. Unfortunately we couldn’t help them but we did end up giving a lift to 3 guys around our age to other gas stations along the way. We should have asked for money, but didn’t. The guys were from Poland too. Finding a decent parking spot in Leipzig proved to be difficult and while driving around the city, we determined it wasn’t worth a stop for us. It was late in the afternoon, so we decided to drive to our free camping spot for the night, in Erfurt.

Berlin

This was an extremely long drive and once we arrived in Berlin it was pretty hectic to drive in due to all the construction. It was a 314 km drive, mostly uneventful but we have two lights “blinking” on the dash now and are unsure of what they could mean. Our free camp area was located on the northern part of Berlin in the Tegel area. It was in the parking lot of an outdoor store and they really had an impressive amount of goodies. It’s a good thing we were broke. The following morning after we explored the camping store we made our way into Berlin via the subway and managed to find the free tour done by New Europe. The group was so large that they split 4 groups off based on language and then split up the Eglish group in 2 until there were about 20 of us left per group. Too bad I didn’t speak French as it was a small group of 2 people. My guess is that they usually have more English speaking people as there were 2 other guides that tagged along with our guide Nick. Like the Munich tour, it brought us along many important sites and gave a great history on everything. We started with the Brandenburg Tor, Berlin’s most famous gate. On top of the gate is a woman riding a chariot (she represents victory), apparently when Napoleon came through these gates he liked the statue so much that he brought it back to France. When Napoleon was defeated it was returned back to Berlin and now it faces in the opposite direction facing the French Embassy, it was altered a bit and the market was renamed after Paris. In a way, it’s kind of like running salt into an open wound for France. There was also an extremely famous and expensive hotel in this plaza, and sounded pretty boring until the guide mentioned that it was the very hotel that Michael Jackson dangled his baby out of. We then made our way over to the memorial to the murdered Jews. It was pretty odd, but you couldn’t help but be moved walking through it. After that we stood over the site where Hitler’s bunker was, the bunker he killed himself in and got married in. No bunker is there now and no signs saying it ever was. We then walked past a huge Nazi built building that is now being used for government things and is supposed to be in an upcoming Tom Cruise movie. Apparently it was pretty eerie seeing the Nazi flags on the flag poles when they were shooting the film. The next stop was a section of the Berlin wall. Julie was expecting something remarkable, but it was a pretty simple yet very effective. It was here that we heard some interesting stories of escape attempts, failures etc. The best was about two guys going across the death strip in a cow costume and succeeding. Check Point Charlie was next on our list of stops, and was rather “touristy”. The history of what happened here is more interesting than the area itself. We then had lunch at a famous American restaurant that we can’t remember the name of at the moment. We then saw chocolate houses and monuments in a very expensive chocolatier. After this, we made our way to Babelplatz where the first Nazi book burning took place, we also saw the monument of empty bookshelves for the book burning. In the square there was also a very odd giant garbage bag hanging over the edge of a building containing manikins, computer stuff, CD’s etc. We weren’t too sure what it was supposed to symbolize. We then went to Alexanderplatz where we got to see two identical churches, one for French speaking and the other for German speaking people. It was then off to Museum Island, where the famous TV tower stood in the back ground. The tour was extremely informative, fun and all in around 5 hours. Julie and I wandered around a bit more on the island (wouldn’t know it was one though) and made our way over to the TV tower. On the way we saw an impressive fountain for Poseidon, Julie reminded me that all of his fountains to date have been impressive. The only things left for us to see were some museums on the island, the government building and the Teirgarten Park. We decided to skip the park due to the cold weather and it being a park. We made our way to the government building just on the other side of the Brandenburg Tor to have our free tour. The building is fairly interesting, as the roof is a dome ceiling made of glass. The line up was long and we ended up talking to a few people in line. A young lady named Lesil from Colorado tagged along with us during our walk through the building. It was pretty cool, apparently the artist designed it so that whenever the politicians want to know who is in charge they just have to look up and see the people, it also allows a clear view of the proceedings for the people above. The view at the top was great. After we finished the tour Lisel asked if she could join us to the museum we decided on and off we went. All the museums are free on Thursday nights after 6pm, so we chose the one that had the Gates of Babylon (one of the wonders of the world). The museum isn’t quite what Julie and I had envisioned but was still worth seeing. We did run out of time near the end and had to cut the tour short. Both of us think that a guided tour would have been better than the audio guides as they didn’t cover everything in the museum. We said our goodbyes to Lisel and made our way back to the van. Tomorrow it’s off to Leipzig.

Dresden

We stayed in Hainichen the night before we went into Dresden. We then completed the drive around noon to Dresden’s town center. For once we were able to find parking without any problems, the parking was even a pull in. The tourist information center was only about 3 blocks away so it was fairly easy to find. Once there we received a map of the centre. Julie had a look at the map while I took some photos and off we went to explore. There was quite a bit to see in Dresden for free, all buildings and statues though. We thought about entering one museum but in the end we skipped it. The museum was about ceremonial weapons. The sights we saw were the Semperoper, Frauenkirche, Zwinger, Allertinum and the Rustkammer, all very impressive. That being done we wandered into the market area and had a look around. This is where Julie and I had a fairly good laugh. There was a restaurant called “Ontario”. It had a “typical” Canadian dish of Caribou and was extremely expensive and very packed. The sites we saw in Dresden were well worth the visit and it would be nice to see what the new city centre across the river has for night life, as that’s where the main strip of bars are. Off to Berlin!