Days Eight & Nine
Andy had booked us into the Allegra Hotel right in the heart of Berlin with the added bonus of underground parking for the bikes. So after breakfast we did another couple of famous Berlin sites including the Brandenburg Gate.
The Brandenburg Gate is an 18th century neoclassical triumphal arch with 12 Doric columns topped by a classical goddess statue. It is one of the most well-known landmarks of Germany.
Leaving the Brandenburg Gate Andy had planned to visit the new Berlin BMW dealership. This place has just opened and is meant to be a bit of a ‘show piece’ dealer. However, because of the bank holiday it was shut!
So we hit the road and left the giant city of Berlin and headed for the north eastern countryside. This is mainly farming country with rolling low level hills and small villages and towns.
There is a definite difference between villages and towns of the former East Germany to the former West Germany. They are a little more run down, a lot still have cobbled streets and there are a lot more timber framed buildings.
We stopped for lunch at a small town called Blankenburg famous for these types of streets and buildings.
After lunch we headed for The Harz National Park, which is a nature reserve in the German federal states of Lower Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt. It covers an area of 247km². Because of the holiday there was a lot of visitors to the area although this did not prevent us from enjoying the twisting and undulating roads.
We then headed east to our hotel on the outskirts of Freudenstadt the Schwarzwald Hotel. Nice quality hotel but a little cut off from the nearby town. However we made the best of it and had a great meal and a few beers in the hotels adjacent pub.
Day Nine
We awoke to a very misty morning which was a shame as Andy had planned a stunning ride alongside dams in the Ruhr valley famous for being destroyed by the RAF Dambusters in 1943. Whilst the roads were great and twisty our view was spoilt by the fog that did not lift until lunchtime. By which time we were fast heading towards France and the Chunnel.
On the long ride back up to Ilkeston I decided that I would put some effort in and do a ‘proper write up’ of the trip as we both felt that Germany had given us fantastic trip and experience certainly a trip worth sharing.
Hope you liked it.
