2007-07-01

After a difficult night, because of a difficult Sophia, we arose at 8, and ingested our breakfast in the beautiful breakfast room of the Hotel Ritter St. Georg, with a view to Steinstraße.

17/6

We were fairly relaxed, and aimed at checking out at around 10 o'clock, which we just made. Then it was time to walk around and experience the city in which we had spent the last 14 hours.

The car was parked on Steinstraße, and when we had finished packing it, we continued on foot up Eiermarkt until we reached the impressive Sct. Martini church. The church has been beautifully restored following the massive bombardments of the WW2, which destroyed most of Brunswick. We visited the church about half an hour before the service of that Sunday, and thus were just in time to hear one of the soloist practice his or her singing accompanied by the well sounding organ of the church.

From here we crossed the Alstadtmarkt with the also beautifully restored Gewandhaus (which today is home to two high class restaurants). By Poststraße, Schützenstraße (with Karstadt's imposing parking house) and Schuhstraße, we arrive at the nice Kiohlmarkt square which, however, we quickly left continuing on Hutfiltern. Between Hutfiltern and Schuhstraße is a beautiful arcade called the Burgpassage, with a nice glass roof. All the stores were closed (Sunday in Germany is NOT a good day for shopping), but the arcade was still open.

The Passage led us back on to Schuhstraße, from whence we continued 50m to an Italian icecream bar on Vor Der Burg. Here we spent 20 minutes, enjoying some ice and cofee respectively, as well as the 11 o'clock glockenspiel on the small square where Vor Der Burg, Schuhstraße and Sack all meet.

A quarter of an hour later it was time to visit one of the major attractions of Brunswick, the Dom Sankt Basilia and the old Dankwarderode castle, the latter with a foundation dating back to about 1175. We were voluntarily detained on Burgplatz, however, around which both of the sights are placed, as Brunswick is this years German Science capital. And this exact weekend, the city played host to a major technics and innovation theme, with tents, events, etc. on and around the square. So we settled for a quick look inside the entrance of Dankwarderode, and a 10 minutes tour of the cathedral and the underlying crypt. The cathedral is in it's way central to German history, as it is home to the remains of Henry the Lion and his young wife Mathilde of England. Henry, in the 12th century, expelled the Slavs from present-day Germany, and contributed to the unification of the North German areas. He also founded cities such as Münich, Lübeck, Lüneburg and Brunswick, which he made his capital. On the Burgplatz is a sculpture of a lion, made in his honor in the year 1166, which makes in Europe's oldest bronze sculpture north of the Alps. (I think the one which is on display today is a copy of the original, which, however, still exists...)

Anyway, we continuted past the town hall on the Platz der Deutschen Einheit and on to the old residential palace of the Ducal family of Brunswick, on Bohlweg. The palace looks quite impressive and huge from the outside, but it appears that it was almost totally destroyed during the war, and has only been rebuilt and reopened in latter years, as a museum and shopping center. But it IS huge - and very German.

We continued our stroll back to the car along Waisenhausdamm, Kattreppeln, Huttfiltern, Kohlmarkt, Jakobstraße and Brabrandtstraße, and left Brunswick around 12:15 after having had a nice stay in this historical city.

About twenty minutes later we found ourselves in the equally historic, but much smaller and better preserved Wolfenbüttel, 10km to the south of Brunswick. Wolfenbüttel has always belonged to the ducal family of Brunswick, and one of their favourite palaces is in that city. Also, it was in Wolfenbüttel that one of the first newspapers of the world was published, in the beginning of the 17th century, and the old Herzog August library today owns one of the world's finest collcetions of 17th century literature. In the 1770s the author Gottfried Lessing was librarian in this place, and his house next to the library is open to visitors today. We didn't have time to stay long here, but did talk a walk into the well preserved town center, which is filled with beautifully renovated half-timbered houses.

The city really is incredibly pleasant, and the many half-timbered houses are actually used for housing, and not just as museums, which adds something to the atmosphere of the place. Quite recommendable.

We drove on south by the L615 and B82 on to the capital of the Harzen mountains, Goslar. Louise and I had never been to Harzen before, but we would like to see why so many of our parents and grandparents generations go there so often. It turned out to be worth the slight detour.

We arrived at 14:30 and instantly got ourselves a table on the Restaurant and Hotel Kaiserworth on the central square of the city. The restaurant served a brilliant three course menu for £16.95, which Erik, Louise and I all had. It consisted of, among other thigns, Cordon Bleu a la mediterran, which is to say chicken breast with a filling of Parmesan chesse, Parma ham and Rucola salad. A nice change for the usual Cordon Bleus with boiled ham and cheap processed cheese. The desert was a home made chocolate mousse with frozen Vanilla parfait - also delicious.

At 1600 hours it was time to begin the last long ride on to Cochem an der Mosel. The tour went along the B82 to highway E45/A7, the standard nord/south-going highway which most Danes know from bus tours to the south. We followed it past Göttingen and Kassel until, after Kirchheim, we turned west on to the A5. This took os past Giessen (where the road turned into E44), Leun and Löhnberg, and finally to Limburg where we once again joined the highway net taking us to Koblenz. We stopped for a short while for a beer/cola/coffee-stop in the small and insignificant city of Biskirchen where we found a Sports Bar and Pizzaria, QuellenHof & Pizza Musti, which turned out to be quite nice, actually.

At 2100 we arrived at the Hotel Brixiade on Uferstraße in Cochem at the Mosel, just in time before the removed the buffet. After dinner we went to our rooms on the third floow, with balconies and a view to river, city, wineyards and Reichburg, the town's landmark castle.