MOTORHOME TRAVELLERS' DIARY FOR SEPTEMBER 2004

GERMANY

What follows are extracts from a diary we kept during our travels in mainland Europe by motorhome, bicycle and sometimes motorbike in the years since we early-retired in 1995. We travelled through Germany as part of a journey from Greece to the UK. The route was Greece - Bulgaria - Romania - Hungary - Slovakia - Czech Republic - East Germany - West Germany - Holland - ferry from Rotterdam to Hull.

To see the diaries for the whole route, click here and look for 2004 August, September and October.

25 September KNEZNICE, Czech Republic to KONIGSTEIN, Germany Camping Konigstein €18.50 (+ Showers €0.50) 87 miles

Continuing on E442 (road 35), our drive began through the woods and below the castles of the Cesky Raj National Park. We bypassed Turnov on a new motorway, then followed a good road to the city of Liberec, with a well-signed route round.

Here we turned left onto the narrower road 13, still subtitled E442 as far as Decin (with road works suggesting a future improvement). From Novy Bor to Decin (pronounced Dechen), we crossed another thickly forested national park. It was Sunday, with plenty of people out picking berries or fungi, their cars parked along the woodland paths. There were a couple of Bohemian Crystal factories tucked away among picturesque villages.

At Decin we met the River Elbe, wide and fast-flowing even here, so far from its mouth (in the North Sea beyond Hamburg). Holding our breath under a 3.3 m high railway bridge, we turned north out of Decin on road 62, following the Elbe to the Czech frontier less than 10 miles away. We spent our remaining Czech Crowns on diesel in the border village of Hrensko and entered the former East Germany at Schona, with just a wave of our passports.

Another 20 miles west along the extremely busy, organised and tidy River Elbe (which we crossed in Bad Schandau), we came to Konigstein, with a long campsite on the river bank. As we settled in – and heavy rain fell – the Receptionist explained that the whole campsite had been rebuilt after severe floods in 2002 closed the site for a year! High water marks on houses in the town confirmed the story.

27/29 September At KONIGSTEIN, Germany Camping Konigstein

Like all good German rivers, the misty Elbe was busy with both pleasure steamers and working barges. In the absence of a bridge, a small passenger ferry crossed from below the nearby railway station on demand, between 5.30 am and 10.30 pm. The line carried many freight trains, stacked with new VW cars, made in the Czech Republic and on their way into Germany, where car-workers are unemployed!

We had an afternoon ride along a stretch of the Elberadweg: a cycle path following the opposite (north) bank of the river for 163 miles/260 km, from the Czech border at Schona, via Dresden and Wittenberg to Dessau. We began by crossing the Elbe on the little ferry (taking 2 minutes and costing a total of €2.6 with the bikes). A very minor road led eastwards on this side to Rathmannsdorf, where we recrossed the river on a new bridge, then continued on the now quieter south bank through Krippen, past Bad Schandau across the water, and through Schona to the Czech border. The main road and frontier post are on the opposite bank, before the Czech village of Hrensko. On our side, we simply came to a sign saying that we were entering the Czech Republic on a path only open to walkers, cyclists and non-motorised wheelchairs! The lovely village of Dolni Zleb, 2 miles along, looked half-abandoned but had a pair of hotel/ restaurants open. An excellent meal by the fire in the Piccolo Hotel cost a total of €12 and set us up for a return ride in the rain.

Trains ran hourly from Konigstein via Pirna to Dresden's main station, costing just €12 for a one-day Familienkarte, which covered us both for a return journey. The track was still under repair from flood damage but the smooth 3-decker trains ran to time, despite stopping at many commuter stations along the Elbe. We took the 10.08 train, arriving at 11 am, for a day in Dresden (again, in the rain).

All was being rebuilt on a magnificent scale, as we walked round the Altstadt (old centre). The worthy Baroque buildings were being restored, after the bombing of February 1945 and their subsequent neglect through the Communist era. The Kreuzkirche church was still closed for renovation. The more famous Lutheran Cathedral, the Frauenkirche, has been rebuilt from the ground up, starting in 1992 from a pile of rubble. We were able to walk round the exterior, reading the explanatory notices and marvelling at the photographs, old and new. The interior was still unfinished (rededication planned for 2005), though tours were offered at set times. The nearby Zwinger Palace (now an art gallery) and Semper Opera House were grandly imposing. In addition to sightseeing, we lunched in the Karstadt Department Store and found an internet centre for an email session before catching the busy 5 pm train back to Konigstein.

30 September KONIGSTEIN to MAGDEBURG-HOHENWARSLEBEN, Germany Rasthof Magdeburg €4.60 181 miles

Drove to Pirna and shopped at a super-Lidl. It had all the Christmas goodies on sale, plus a much wider range of food than the smaller stores outside Germany, with fresh breads and meats, flowers and plants. Most prices were lower than in Greece's Lidl stores (which we know well) and a trolley-full of assorted groceries cost about €30.

Following the signs round Dresden, we joined motorways A4 then A14 to Leipzig and Magdeburg. These famous cities of the former East Germany were all bypassed by the busy Autobahn system. We had lunch in the first Rastplatz after Dresden. On meeting the A2 (Berlin-Hannover motorway), we turned west and soon stopped at a big new service station, Rasthof Magdeburg by the Irxleben exit (listed in our Bordatlas of German 'Aires'). Catering for truck drivers, it even had an indoor swimming pool!

A separate area offered overnight parking for 10 motorhomes, with electric hook-up for a small fee – an excellent arrangement. We had just 2 neighbours.

1 October MAGDEBURG-HOHENWARSLEBEN to MELLE, Germany Swimming Baths Car Park Free Parking 182 miles

On a drizzly grizzly morning, we drove along the A2 from Magdeburg towards Braunschweig. At the site of the former East/West German border crossing at Marienborn (just before a service station and then the town of Helmstedt), we noticed a watchtower and turned back to visit the Memorial to German Partition.

This strange sad mixture of propaganda and history glorified the small East German uprising in 1953. The exhibition compared America's help to West Germany under the Marshall Plan with the excessive war reparations that East Germany had to pay to Russia. There were many exhibit boards of photos, newspaper reports, a video, etc, all free of charge. Guided tours can be arranged. We had lunch in the huge car park and had more of the recent problems starting the motorhome – most likely it is the immobiliser not knowing when to give up.

Then on, along very busy motorways with a Stau (traffic jam) at road works, but the rain had cleared and it became warmer. Past Braunschweig and Hannover onto the A30, where the A2 turned south-west for the Ruhr-Dortmund area. We bought some diesel (now nearly €1 a litre) in Bad Oeynhausen, when the A30 became a dual carriageway/main road for a stretch. We turned off into Bunde to check the car park listed in the Bordatlas but it was almost full and not very level. Continuing to Melle, where the Wellenbad was listed, we played hunt-the-baths and finally found a totally empty car park by the (closed) open-air baths. The nearby park had an interesting museum area of old houses.

2 October MELLE, Germany to ARNHEM, Holland De Hooge Veluwe Camping €20.50 128 miles

It was motorway all the way, with fewer trucks, being Saturday. As we moved left when road works forced 2 lanes into one, a motorist who felt that he had priority had to stop and pick up his broken mirror! The A30 took us past Osnabruck and Rheine (the turnoff for the Winnebago dealers we know at Wettringen), over the barely discernible German/Dutch border. You know you're in Holland when … the land becomes very flat (a steady 20 ft on the GPS) with lush green fields of cows and horses, huge Dutch barns, some thatched farmhouses and the odd windmill.

After lunch on a rest area, we continued west past Hengelo and Deventer, then south-west to Arnhem on the A50. Turning off for Schaarsbergen, 5 km north-west of Arnhem, we checked the 3 campsites in the area. Camping Warnsborn, our first choice, was closed (despite the books 'open till 1 Nov'). Camping Arnhem could only offer us a rough corner with a 4-amp hook-up as we were 'too big' for their pitches! Better luck at Hooge Veluwe (the name of the adjacent national park), which has 'De Luxe Comfort' pitches with their own tap and TV socket for a small supplement (normal price €18 at low-season).

Margaret enjoyed free use of the indoor heated swimming pool and there were lots of rabbits to watch – a good place for our last site before the Rotterdam ferry. We even have the novelty of hearing BBC Radio 4 (and catching up with the Archers!)