The Great Grimm Tour

leedude03

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Having Just got back from our annual tour i thought a little ride report was in order.
The rough plan was to take the ferry from Harwich to the Hooke of Holland from there we would ride to the Harz mountains then on to Colditz, Prague would be next followed by Krakow, slovakias tatra mountains, Austria then the Dolomites and finaly Slovenia where we would get the overnight autotrain back to Holland and then to the tunnel and home.
Well best laid plans and all that, Autoslapp who were to provide the return train journey back to Holland went bump, leaving us with a bit of a dilema of what to do, as luck would have it i had only booked digs in the Harz, Colditz, Prague and Krakow,so it was only the last part of the trip that needed altering to suit.so we contacted railsavers and got them to move the tunnel crossing to a later date to give us a little more time to get back up to calais.

So the new plan was Holland, Harz, Colditz, Prague, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Dolomites, Austria, Black forest, France, Home.

Onto the trip.

Home to Harwich for the overnight 11pm sailing, took us about 3.5 hours to get there, straight on the ferry, and we were off, I had booked a captains class cabin and was very pleased that i had, very smart indeed. We arrived in Holland bang on time after a realy calm crossing, so all that was left was to do the 340 miles to Lautenthal where we were staying in the Harz for 4 nights, this would take about 7 hours with a couple of good stops for dinner and fuel.
 

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A couple of the the small mining town of Lautenthal where we stayed
 

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A visit to the pretty little town of Goslar, a realy nice place. and the roads in the surrounding area are some of the best.
to be continued
 

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The next little town we visited was wernigerode with its small castle on the hill top,although the town was not as big as Goslar its still still worth a visit.
 

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Today we went to visit Dora Mittlebau a Concentration Camp, where the prisoners there were used to manufacture the V1 and V2 rockets inside the complex built into the hillside, this place was a sub camp of Bergen Belsen.
There is not much left standing on the outside but you can go inside the tunnels with a guide and get a glimpse of what went on in there and there are bits of rusting rockets scattered about. If like us you are into war history its well worth the visit, The picture of the building is the crematorium
 

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Quedlingburg was the next place to visit, this is quiet a large town with lots to see, there was a market on at the time of our visit with stall holders selling fruit and veg and lots of local produce.
 

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So we had 4 nights in the Harz region, and i would definitely recommend it to anyone wanting to go there, it has lots of charm and history and some really good roads.
Today we moved onto Colditz for an overnight stop, about 160 miles and had a good ride using only the smaller country roads, went through some beautiful countryside and arrived at Colditz around dinner. We were staying just south of Colditz so we decided to visit Colditz before making our way to the digs.
We decided to take the guided tour around the place, its a very big imposing building with lots to see and read about. What i found impressive was the ingenuity of some of the prisoners and the lengths they went to to escape.
 

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Hotel for the night after the visit to Colditz was in a great little spot called claussnitz and the hotel was really good, great room and good food.
 

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Was this a coach trip? I can't see any bikes!
 
I love Germany, off to Bavaria in July for 10 days. Love the pics of the towns and the architecture.
 
Left the Hotel bright and early for our next stop Prague, we had a place to visit on the way called Terezin, it was an old garrison town that was built between 1780-1790 and was used as a ghetto by the Germans during the second world war where they kept mostly political prisoners, it was also used as a propaganda tool for filming bogus clips of how well the germans treated the inmates. Google it for more info, i was blown away by Terezin it was so much more than i was expecting and could have spent a lot longer there. so if you are ever in the area, its just over the border from Germany into Czech pay it a visit .
Terezin was great Prague on the other hand for me was a complete let down didnt like the place at all, so many people had told me what a wonderfull place it was and you must go, well it just left me flat and wishing i had not wasted 2 days there enough said.
A few pics from Terezin.

to be continued.
 

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I was lucky to visit Colditz some 10 years ago, they had just started restoring parts of the castle. It still looked like it may have been in the war years. Your pics look as if it has been completely over restored. Terezin on the other hand looks unrestored.
 
I was lucky to visit Colditz some 10 years ago, they had just started restoring parts of the castle. It still looked like it may have been in the war years. Your pics look as if it has been completely over restored. Terezin on the other hand looks unrestored.

Yes Colditz has been restored and does look somewhat different than it must have looked during the war, Terezin on the other hand still looks reasonably authentic,
 
I love Germany, off to Bavaria in July for 10 days. Love the pics of the towns and the architecture.
thanks Snoooty, tis a really nice part of the world, the buildings and the whole area makes you feel like you have gone back in time.
 
Next stage of the journey was from Prague to Krakow, all motorway and a distance of roughly 350 miles and took about 7 hours with stops, i was pleasantly surprised with lack of traffic and it only got a little busier as we aproached Krakow and entered the toll road. Our reason for going to Krakow was to visit Auschwitz, Birkenau, Krakow and the salt mines, all of which we did.
Auschwitz and Birkenau, we spent a very long day visiting both of them started at Auschwitz at 8am and left Birkenau at around 6.45pm. My impressions of the two were very different, I found Auschwitz to be very educational orientated with lots of facts and figures and information about what went on, Birkenau in my opinion was totally different and really knocked the wind out of me, i have seen and read a lot about the two, but what hit me and you dont get this in books or documentaries, is the sheer size of the place and a feeling of utter despair.

pictures from Auschwitz
 

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Birkenau
 

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we decided to have a day off the bike today and took the tram into Krakow. Krakow compared to Prague was totaly different, i really liked the place even the old run down Jewish quarter, its a very laid back place without the hustle and bustle that Prague had. We spent the day there, the castle is a good place to visit and is very ornate, the old cloth hall is full of your normal trinket and souvenier shops but still worth a look, Oskar Schindler's old factory is worth a look as well, if you have seen the film you will recognise a lot of the place. We also took a walk thrrough the local indoor market where the they were selling all sorts from fruit and veg to second hand household items, a very busy little place with an old school atmosphere to it.
 

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