Wednesday 28th May

Took the train to Milan & then the metro to the Cathedral, which has an amazing exterior with multiple pinnacles & hordes of statues & we took turns to inspect the interior. This was as surprising as the exterior as it was so austere with the exception of its stained glass windows which were wonderful. The other odd feature was that the columns supporting the roof had statues mounted on plinths about 6m in the air which made them very hard to see from the ground & thus rather took away from their effectiveness. It is huge but was in some ways rather a disappointment.

Returning to the main station we caught an airport shuttle out to the airport, about 50k from the city. Here we checked in our baggage & after walking what seemed like miles, found our departure gate for our Bremen flight with Ryanair. This was easy & on time & to our surprise when we arrived in Bremen we just walked out of the terminal with no customs or passport check of any sort.

Unfortunately it was raining & we didn't know where to catch the bus but a very kind Italian girl explained that she was waiting for the same bus & we stood & waited for the 7pm bus. Unfortunately this had been delayed but eventually arrived & off we rolled towards Oldenburg where Monika, our friend, was waiting for us. She lives about 15 minutes from the centre & we were very happy to reach it & meet Peter, her partner. Her 3 year old house is set in a lovely garden & after a light meal we were glad to get to bed.

Thursday 29th May
Today is Ascension Day, a public holiday & is "Father’s Day" which, in Germany, means the men get together for a drink at the pub, minus their families, so there are still things that they can teach us!!
After a latish start Monica took us out for the day to Hook zee, a fishing village on the north sea coast. This is on a creek which feeds into the sea through a cut. From there we drove to the beach which was on the seaward side of a high levee where we paid for beach entry to a vast flat area covered at high tide but reaching far out into the bay. The wind was cutting & we were rugged up & surveyed the area before retreating on to the sea wall. Locked up wicker double covered chairs which people hire for the day in the summer were scattered around. All in all a somewhat bleak beach with a long wharf reaching out into the sea at one end.
From here we moved on to Jever a small town renowned for its lager. Here we visited the Schloss (castle) which is a museum with a wide range of pictures & artefacts which had a wonderful. After a quick vist to the local church which housed a wonderfully ornate tomb set in an encompassing elaborately carved timber housing, we moved on to Dangarst with another small beach on a very brown sea water lapping the shore. Here we had lunch in a very crowded restaurant. This was memorable as we each had dishes based on uncooked, soused herring fillets. I had them with green beans & fried potatoes & Jane had hers immersed in diced apples in a sauce of yoghurt & cream. This we followed up with a rhubarb tart, a local delicacy.

After lunch we went to the house of Franz Radziwill, a German expressionist influenced painter who moved towards surrealism in his later life. The pictures are somewhat bizarre & we preferred some examples of his earlier life.

Returning we organised our future travels in Germany with massive help from Monika & sat down for dinner. Peter who had been working at a show today returned & seemed pleased with his efforts.