Today we left Luebeck driving to Berlin, but on the way we stopped by the small town of Wittenberg. The trip to Wittenberg took us about an hour and a half out of the way, and the rain was heavy for quite a bit of the way making the driving more stressful than anticipated. We stopped for a break thinking that we should just forget the side trip and get on to Berlin, but by the time we had finished our snack, the rain was gone and we decided to continue on the planned route.

The detour to Wittenberg was down a two-lane road through a beautiful rural countryside. The Schlosskirche, Castle Church, in Wittenberg, a UNESCO World Cultural Monument, is where Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of the church and started the Protestant Reformation. It's in a tiny town that has a tourist information center, but other than that, it seems relatively unaffected by the few visitors who were there. It is not on the usual tourist route. No admission was charged to visit the church. They had a big barrel used for receiving donations, and they charged one Euro to take photos inside.

After a short visit to the church and the grounds around it, we were back in the Mercedes and on the way to Berlin. The traffic and construction were heavy as we neared Berlin, slowing to a crawl just on the outskirts of the city. When we were able to change roads, get off the A110 and head north to the airport, we started moving again and made it on time to return the rental car. Just barely. With all the construction and the rain, the trip that should have been a total of about five hours, took closer to eight.

We finally found the right place to return the car to Avis at the airport. The person checking it in asked about a bit of scraping on the rim of one tire. We had not noticed it before, but he insisted that they did not have a record of that for the car. I don't know how we could have caused it, because we did not scrape up against anything. It was in a recessed spot on the rim so that whatever scraped it would have to have been very low or it would have scraped the fender, too. There was a scraped place on the opposite side corner that was recorded in Avis's information, although we didn't notice it until we got to Luebeck. I took photos of the car when we picked it up in Hamburg, but I didn't see either scrape. The one that they knew about shows up a little bit in one of my photos.

With all our luggage, we walked from the car return lot and office to the taxi line near the arrivals area of the airport. It isn't a far walk; we are just tired and loaded with too much luggage. The cab ride to the Hilton was uneventful. After the long day we opted for dinner in the hotel at the Mark Brandenburg Restaurant--a good choice for us.

Addendum: The insurance that was available through the credit card that Phil used to rent the car paid for all the charges for the repair. It took some paperwork and a few phone calls, but it was completely taken car of.