Episode 16
We arrived in Berlin fairly early in the day so after finding our hotel we left the car in the car park and took the Uban (underground) into the city centre.For those of you who are old enough to remember the Berlin Wall, the main city centre from before Soviet times was behind the wall in the Eastern Sector of the City. Since the wall came down it has once more regained its old place in the scheme of things and a stroll down Unden den Linden is a stroll through the beating heart of the city centre. Heading west along this lovely tree lined street brings one to the Brandenburg Gate and that too was behind “the iron curtain”. L had seen the Berlin Wall back in ancient times, 1970, but D had not visited Berling during it’s life so the first thing we did was to go and see the 1.5k’s of the original wall that has been left standing as a permanent reminder of those years when the city was divided. This remaining wall stands along the river bank and is covered with graffiti that was painted on it in the first few days after it was ‘opened’.The Berlin wall was initially erected overnight on the 13th August 1961 on the order of Nikita Kruchov the Soviet leader at the time. That first morning it consisted mostly of closely spaced armed guards and some barb wire if L remember correctly. After that the wall that became so infamous was erected. There was actually two walls, one a few metres inside the other with the strip of land between know as the ‘death or killing strip’. the wall was around 175k’s long , 3m to 4m high, encircling all of ‘western Berlin. Just one or two corridors, several hundred k’s long were open for transport from West Germany to enter the city with border controls at each end and a special permit had to be bought before entering to drive along this corridor in either direction. The airport at Templehof was in the Western sector of the city and the place where all those planes landed during the Berlin Air Lift. (if you want to know more about this incredible feat then google it).There are numerous museums around the city that tell different parts of the Berlin Wall story. The wall finally came to an end on a November day in 1989 when a mass of people from the East rolled up at Checkpoint Charle expecting to be able to cross, the guards unsure of what to do with such a huge crowd didn’t fire of them and so they forced their way across. The guards quickly following suit so as not to be shot for allowing this to happen. Or at least that is how one story goes, though there are some differing versions. As my lot were driving across the US at the time they didn’t hear just what the catalyst was that brought the wall down.The most famous check point for crossing into the Eastern Sector was Checkpoint Charlie, and the point is still well marked with foreigners posing as the armed American guards We strolled from that long stretch of preserved wall along the specially laid marker line of where the wall used to be to Checkpoint Charlie. Along the way we passed an area where lots of people who live in there cars park and live. Some were foreigners but most were at least German. We read about one of the tunnels that was dug under the wall for people to use to escape from the East. Near here is another small section of preserved wall too. Below that piece of wall are some of the Nazi torture chambers though there was such a crowd here that we didn’t go down for a look.then we made our way to the Brandenburg Gate, quite a famous Berlin landmark that was just on the wrong side of the Wall for those 38 years. There had been a lookout tower, just on the western side of the wall where visitors could climb up and look over into the Eastern sector. L remembers doing that but there wasn’t really much to see, just watch towers and armed guards with dogs she thinks. the thing is she can’t remember seeing the Brandenburg Gate, just looking over into the east. Her brain is definitely not what it could be.Not far from here on the bank of the river is German Parliament or Bundestag, the lovely old building was known as the Reichstag during the Nazi era. A visit to the dome of this building is possible however, it seems it has to be booked weeks in advance. Too much forward planning needed for my lot, they aren’t good at that.On a nice sunny day we joined a walking tour, the guide was a young English chap living in Berlin and no-one on that tour apart from my lot were old enough to remember the wall coming down, never-mind about it going up all those years ago. Strewth, they must be old my lot, hope neither of them peg out soon. It’s a worry for me, what would happen to me then. It might not seem like we did very much during our time here, but gee we walked quite a few k’s and despite mostly bright sunny weather we did get caught in a couple of rain showers.For me the visit to the chocolate shop with all those lovely chocolate models was a highlight, if only I could have really got amongst it. L threatened me with total distruction if I fell into any. Not far outside the city is the site of the former concentration camp, Sashenhausen and we visited there too. When the soviets took over they continued to use it as a prison but still built a memorial to those who died here in Nazi times. Bit odd really when you consider those notorious Russian gulags where far more people died than in the German concentration camps. Most of the buildings were pulled down back in the 60’s, so almost everything we saw is a re-construction and all very similar to what my lot, me too, have seen elsewhere.After leaving here we headed off westwards taking some smaller roads that took us over some of the same places we’d visited back in May on our way towards Denmark. Most of the trees are showing some autumn shades but not as pronounced as we'd seen a few days ago. We drove around Magdeburg and on towards Quedlinburg and through the hills we’d passed through before this time heading towards Kassel. Then on towards Koblenz where we crossed the mighty Rhine river. All along the way farmers are busy with harvesting crops or preparing the fields for winter crops or to leave in fallow until the spring. The route we had taken had proved to be very frustrating. we kept coming to roads works and detours. Detours seem only to have a couple of pointers then you are on your own, we’d run out of signs and the sat-nav got totally confused and wanted us to go back and try again. This slowed out trip considerably and added at least 100k’s more to our journey as well as slowing us down considerably waiting for lights where there wasn’t any detours. After crossing the Rhine we drove up the wonderfully pretty Mosel valley. Steep mountains rise up sharply from the river with only a narrow strip of flat land on either side of the river. The river twists and turns all the way through these hills and there are many towns, they almost run into each other with just a vineyard or two separating one town from the next. It’s a very popular tourist region and the 2 lane road is busy with tourist busses and motorhomes as well as the usual traffic. Well we are tourists too, so can’t complain too much. many huge great caravan and camping sites along the river bank and despite the fact that the summer holidays are gone they still seem very crowded with tourists. Likewise the restaurants we passed. Ninety percent of the businesses in these towns appear to be eating and drinking establishments and they all seem to be doing a roaring trade. People come to sit in the cafe, sip the wine and admire the view. Perhaps it looks even better with a few glasses of wine inside one. It is really pretty there isn’t any doubt about that.All the east and south facing slopes are covered in vineyards some at impossibly steep angles. Some too, appear not to get much sun, but perhaps they do in midsummer, now the sun has retreated to the south quite a way as it is nearly equinox.Much of the grapes appear to have been harvested. Off all the vineyards that were situated near enough to the road for us to see the grapes only an odd one still had fruit to be harvested. None of the vines were yet showing their autumn colours even those that were mostly in the shade. We didn’t have time to linger along this route or follow it right to the head of the valley, it was much to slow a route and we had limited time as L had booked the channel ferry and that can’t be altered. Suddenly when we came around one of the many bends L spotted a castle high above the bank on the opposite side. She recognised it immediately as one that she and Kathy had climbed up to back in the Spring of 1970. She thinks that they stayed at a youth hostel near the bottom of the hill, and climbed up one afternoon. There was still much snow around and the grapes weren’t showing any green leaves that she can remember, but then lets face it, it is a hell of a long time ago and L’s memory isn’t all it could be. Again we took a route across Luxembourg and into Belgium where we ran into heavy rain nearly all the way. That too, slowed us down as it was so heavy at one point everything slowed to a crawl. It was late in the afternoon when we finally arrived at Dunkerque. We camped the night, as is our usual habit, in the terminal car park along with many others and caught the 6am ferry. We didn’t encounter any hoards of refugees as we feared we might. They had been causing major disruptions at Calais. However, 2 lads with backpacks asked David for a lift to the UK, he said they looked as if they might be refugees, and next morning as we passed through British border control they told us that a couple of lads had been picked up around the terminal area so it quite possibly was them. The British have imposed big fines for those caught transporting illegals into the UK either wittingly or unwittingly, such as climbing on top of or underneath trucks, busses and motorhomes. The bad weather of the last day across Belgium stayed with us and visibility was very poor on the channel crossing. Also there was some sort of disruption, no idea what caused it, at Dover and we spent almost 2 hours cruising back and forth along the coast waiting for a berth to become available to our ferry. The one it was given proved very awkward for it to get into too.A wet trip back to Arundel and to Heather’s where we were enthusiastically greeted by Heather, sadly Trevor the cat had disappeared a few weeks ago and not been seen since. I shall miss Trevor, we had been known to sleep together although it didn’t happen often:After spending a couple of nights with Heather whlie my lot got themselves organised for their move into their on-site van at Brookside, we finally made the move to that van. Now we are fully ensconced at the van. Our home away from home. The internet leaves a great deal to be desired and L has spent a great deal of time doing battle with it, needless to say the internet or lack thereof rather, has won and L can often be seen tearing her hair out while D just does a great deal of swearing turning the air blue. For more than a week the weather remained quite wet. D did some work on the car while L spent the same amount of time trying to clean the interior. All that leather takes some cleaning. Now for the past week we have had some lovely weather with bright sunny days that are warm enough so long as you stay out of the breeze/wind. Even though it is warn L hasn’t washed me, so I’m still a disgustingly dirty stuffed toy, because she says it isn’t ‘that’ warm:Apparently L has, in a fit of efficiency, booked out trip home. We are leaving here on the 12 November. There was a bit of negotiation between my lot and that was the compromise date. We shall be having a stop-over in Abu Dhabi and L hopes to organize a trip to Oman and perhaps into Dubai too. She needs to do some work on that soon. We are scheduled to arrive in Brisbane on the 23rd November all being well.D has spent all week pulling the dash out of the car to replace the blend motor, or some such thing and putting it back, still having trouble fitting it back and all for nothing too, it seems. The dam blower is still blowing hot one side and cold the other when it should be blowing cold all around. D has run out of ideas on that one.Now I shall just sit here and probably not do much until we are ready to leave in 6 weeks or so. I’ve had trouble with the secretary getting her to finish this episode to keep all my fans happy. Think i need a whip to whip her into line.My nest episode will most likely be about our stop in the Middle East and that won’t be done until after we get home. Cheers for now…..Bennybeanbear© Lynette Regan October 3rd 2015