The Journey Begins

September 8

Uneventful flights except for the woman seated ahead of us on the Halifax to Newark leg smelled like she had pee’d her pants. When she got up, we realized that she indeed had had an accident. The poor woman! Flight attendants on Continental were very friendly and attentive. We were both able to sleep, albeit fitfully on the flight to Frankfurt.


September 9

Landed in Frankfurt at 8:30 Frankfurt time which is five hours ahead of Halifax. Time. After minimal sleep on the plane we took a taxi to McRent…$30. Euros (tip included) to pick up our van. We completed our orientation and headed out to the nearest grocery store to stock up on supplies. The concern about expensive food in Germany is unfounded…the groceries were very reasonable.

While Michelle put the groceries away, I tried to find reverse…and kept getting first. I pushed and pushed and twisted the gearshift and still no reverse. We managed to drive back to McRent where we quickly found out that I had to pull up, not push down, in order to get the vehicle into reverse.

The vehicle, by the way, is a beauty…exactly as advertised on the web page.

After leaving Frankfurt I kept seeing arrows pointing to Earfarht and thought that Earfarht be a very big place with all of those signs pointing to it, but yet I did not see it on the map. I eventually discovered that the word means Exit.

We planned to drive as far as Bad Hersfeld for the night and so plugged the lat and long into the gps and headed out. The Autobahn is not scary at all, however, it is similar to driving on the 401...those who want to pass, want to pass in a hurry. From here on we plan to take more scenic routes and avoid autobahn.

Today we just needed a place to crash. Unfortunately the GPS led us to an empty corn field outside the town of Bad Hersfeld. My backing up skills were quickly tested! I learned that using the lat and long is not always exact . I put in the address…street and town and tada…within 10 minutes we were parked at our first German Stellplatze. After figuring out how to get the electricity working a visitor arrived…a guy from Berlin named Helgee had lots of great advice for us. It’s great that almost everyone we have met so far, speaks English. We were exhausted and fell asleep around 9.

Distance: We drove 160km in 2 ½ hours.


September 10

After a long sleep we awoke to a sunny morning, ate breakfast and then figured out how to use the chemical toilet dump station…not that complicated really, only when the directions are in German.

After that round of fun we unplugged, plugged in our route and headed out to Quedlinburg. I programmed the GPS for “no thruways” to avoid the Autobahn and see some scenery. The scenery was indeed spectacular…rolling hills, lots of farmland and many quaint little towns like Nordhausen where due to a roadblock I found out how Gracie Globescout handles on narrow cobblestone streets. She’s a big girl and today I almost lost the mirror on the passenger’s side…did I mention that the cobblestone streets were very narrow. There will surely be a deduction from that $1,000 Euro deposit I left with McRent.

Lori (the voice on the GPS) found us a good alternate route that took us right to our Quedlinburg Stellplatze, An den Fischteichen. We set up the electrical, cooked something to eat (some German sausage, potato and broccoli) and then headed out for a walk. I took the GPS with me (for security reasons we have been told not to leave anything valuable in Gracie.

It’s a good thing the GPS was with us because we forgot the name of our street and had to get Lori to guide us back home. Quedlinburg is a very old town with some great old buildings and lots of cobblestone streets for pedestrians only. It was wonderful to see so few cars driving around the town and lots of people driving bicycles. In fact, we saw lots of people, of all ages driving bikes. There are even separate lanes on the sidewalks for bikes.

Distance today: We drove for 5 ½ hours today and covered a mere 198 km. (A couple of detours because of constructions, lots of stops because of construction and lots of small towns to drive through at 30 km)

September 11

We found out how to dump the “gray water” this morning. I find that Gracie is easier to handle than my car is when I’m towing the boat trailer. Michelle is good at giving backing up directions.

We have also discovered that not everyone in Germany speaks or understands English. In fact, today the phrase book got a good workout. It seems that people in the small towns do not speak English. Apparently it is mandatory to take English in school up to around grade 7. After that you can choose French, Spanish, Latin or Greek. I was told that many choose French because France is a neighbour, but I have yet to encounter anyone that could speak French. A man who stopped by to chat somehow communicated to us that he could speak a little Russian, but nien English.

We programmed the GPS to take us to Berlin avoiding the autobahn and we were surprised at the great roads today…only one detour and Lori (GPS voice) guided is around it quite easily taking us through some quaint little towns. I noticed that all the houses are made of brick. We also saw lots of wind power windmills today.

We bought some diesel for Gracie today even though the tank was still ½ full. The cost was 1.35 Euro /litre and the ½ tank cost $60 Euro.

Driving in Berlin was rather scary, frightening in fact…it seemed that every turn we had to make was a left and that meant lots of lane changes. However, I didn’t hit anything today and only got honked at once!

We eventually reached our destination: WohnmobilPark Berlin…a stellplatz in the city. Helgee (who we met in Bad Hersfeld) greeted us and was very helpful in helping us plan our day trips to Berlin. We plan to stay here for three nights. We took a walk around this area of Berlin called Tegeler and found out where to get the U Bahn to get to the centre of the city. Again, lots of bike paths and parks. The cost to stay here for three nights, have electricity and fantastic showers is $64 Euro. The site is quite secure and our “stuff” will be safe in the van when we go off on our excursions.

Michelle said that she would like this trip a lot more if we didn’t have to drive.

In spite of everything I read in the guide books, Internet spots are not easy to find. Helgee says that WiFi is rarely free in Germany, but I did read that the Sony centre in Berlin provides free WiFi. We will find out either tomorrow or the next day.

Tomorrow we will either go into the centre of the city or take a tour boat ride from here. The tour takes about 5 hours and since Michelle was so stressed today about the driving today, a boat ride might be a good idea. Surely we can’t get lost while taking a boat ride!

I am currently typing this in the co ed shower/washroom/laundry room. It is the only place where I could find a plug to charge the laptop. The electricity we get in the camper is only good for the fridge.

Distance today: 453 km in 6 hours, only 1 of which was scary.