Did I mention the beer? Well, it’s cheap, they do a great dark beer and IPA, and it’s never less than 5% abv. I’m doing my best to try as many varieties as possible. On the subject of staples, they don’t think much of vegetarians here and there’s not much gluten free food either, but sausages.......

We’d been given a tip to go to the Spreewald region. It’s a national park that is riddled with rivers and canals. Great place. We popped into the tourist info but they didn’t speak much English and there were no English leaflets, this is German tourist country. Although we can’t expect them to cater for English speakers, it seems unusual after Scandinavia. We spent a day walking around the quaint town of Lübbenau, visited the excellent museum of old farming houses and local life and watched the woodpeckers, deer and coypu at the campsite. Coypu are a kind of cross between a beaver and a rat. The next day we hired a kayak and spent the day gently paddling around the many canals and rivers of the park stopping off at a bar for a beer. Getting back into the boat V lost her balance and nearly came a cropper (but only ended up getting 1 foot wet!) - that’s what comes of drinking during the day! We had to negotiate two locks and saw the rare black woodpecker, again, and a mink. This is a lovely part of Germany that is famous for its gherkins. C had some lovely dill pickles and even gherkin beer! V wasn’t so keen.

Our aim is to get to the south of Germany to visit the Eagles Nest, Hitler’s summer house, and Neuschwanstein Castle, the one that inspired Walt Disney. So we need to head south.

We spent a day driving South on the autobahns, they are great for covering the miles but as Connie is no hotrod we need to be careful of black Audis and BMWs that cruise at 80 to 100 mph. Even though we only travel at about 60 mph for comfort and economy it’s amazing how far we can get in a day. We are now in Bavaria in Germany’s largest national park, on the Czech border.

Cx Vx