Bad Lippspringe

The next week or so sees us revisiting many places we have been in the past: 

Wolfhagen

Bad Arolsen

Bellersen

Höxter

Holzminden

Salzhemmendorf

Most of these are either on or close to the River Weser and we get in loads of cycling albeit returning very cold from each day's venturing. Our highlights were:

 Having a few beers with Harold below in Wolfhagen. He recognised us the second we walked in to his bar (which is quite worrying!)

The lunchtime Konditorei break in Bad Arolsen and I catch Nina eyeing up the sweetie counter,

Enjoying Nachos and a few more beers in a Tapas Bar in Höxter,

A nice lazy day in the Therme at Salzhemmendorf,

Time now to change path and we head to Bad Lippspringe more by accident really than by design as we set our sights on the ferry at the Hook of Holland in a fortnight

Odd sort of place this and mainly renown for its Health Clinics

Guys enjoying open air chess

Hameln is not too far from here so guess this may be the Pied Piper

As we walked back to the van we came across this guy, Ian, in his German Irish bar

You can guess the rest…..

Gordon and his good lady who were a great chat

Air and Army bases in these parts help keep Ian's bar popular with both locals and off duty personnel 

We entered at 5.00pm and left I'm sorry to say at 0130hrs after far too much of the Black Stuff evened out with far too many Jägermeisters

Next day we groggily headed off to Hövelhof where we parked next to the Bahnhof and set off cycling to rid our systems of the excess toxins…

Despite most folks' opinions I quite like these..

Blending in quite nicely with this Cover Crop of Rapeseed and adding a wonderful aroma to the surrounding environment

Oh no, Pendleton gets a call halfway through a training session and the momentum is lost….

Olympics?, when?, where?

Reality resumes and we take in this brick factory blotting out the natural landscape

Over the road we encircle this wetland which we guess is where they got some of their raw material from originally. Nice conservation work guys!

Paths of Pain and Gain...

No perimeter fences here, just Trust….

Our overnight stay at the Bahnhof was surprisingly tranquil and this fine scene greeted us next morning

Erfurt

Moving northwards slowly we enter the former DDR and head for Erfurt

Having parked on one of several P & Rs available we set off in to the city on the tram which when leaving the Parkplatz circles the van slowly as part of the route. This gets us thinking it will be noisy later but the night actually was quite calm, the trams stopping before midnight

Looking back from the 'Domplatz'

The 'Rathaus and Fischmarkt'

Inside Erfurt Cathedral and yet again the enormity of it all blows you away

The 'Wise and foolish virgins'

On the Domplatz with the Cathedral and St Severus church alongside

Just to show its not all immaculate here in Germany

There does seem to be more of this crap though in the former DDR (GDR in english) we've noticed

(how I'd like to catch someone doing it!)

Biggest yet!

Ahhhhhh

The route to the toilets was plagued with 'adverts'

Another emporium….

Hogging the bar...

I get an earful here as Nina has not packed the brollies on my advice and so down it comes

Our meanderings 'over the border' take us to Ilmenau, Bad Salzungen, Bebra and Homberg where we enjoy several chilly cycle rides

This was our one and only 'Asia Bamboo' experience with a mixed up meal involving the starter coming after the main event

Very odd too for me as the Chef on leaving tried his best to correct my German pronunciation

Our first experience of talking German with an Oriental... 

Forest Radweg