Germany 2022

2022-08-23 : Day in Marburg
The original plan for today was to take a side trip to Alsfeld but we decided that we’d rather see Marburg thoroughly rather than both places in a rushed way.

We started with a walk up to Kaiser Wilhelm Turm because we’d prefer to do a big climb before it gets too warm. On the way back we stopped at Spiegelslust and enjoyed first coffee at around noon. We then walked back to town and checked out the old town, walked up to the Schloss, and then more old town. I started getting some heat symptoms, so we slowed down for a while, put my cooling cloth on my head and had a beer back at Ufer Cafe


2022-08-24 : To Goslar
I learned an expensive lesson regarding my KeepGo data plan yesterday. Turns out that using maps all day, exchanging photos with the Laggais, and uploading pics to DAMDetails actually burns through a lot of data. Who knew!!?? D’uh. I’ve switched data roaming off on all of my apps, and I’m trying to recharge my KeepGo. Good thing I have paper backups.

Our E9 rail passes are working out great! I just wish the program was going to be continued in September. Since it isn’t, we’re thinking about renting a car for the first week of September.

We had a good long journey to Goslar today, skipping over Trendleberg. We will probably only do one side trip from here although we have three to choose from.

After we got to town we decided to walk to the campground instead of using the bus. The campground is a ways out of town… I think moving forward we’ll use the bus. We had a long 3km walk on a trail that sometimes forgot to exist. When we got to the campground, it was very nice and the proprietor says we’re the first Canadian guests she’s ever had. Cool! There is no restaurant here so we made do with skanky cheese that Brent has been carrying since Canada, almonds that I’ve been carrying since Canada, plus beers, potato chips and kuchen from the little campground cantina.

There seems to be one place in this campground where the Wifi works - a small set of stairs to nowhere, near the wash building. Me and a 13-year-old boy have been sharing the spot.


2022-08-25 : Hahnenklee and Goslar
Our campsite came with complementary passes to use the 830 bus which comes by here. What a great thing! We were both interested in seeing the waterworks in the area, and the best place to see some is up at Hahnenklee (which is sort of Goslar’s ‘Whistler’ before Whistler got crazy busy). Considering that Hahnenklee is a 7km (one way) walk, we didn’t thing we would go but then we figured out that the 830 goes there!

So, off we went first thing in the morning to Hahnenklee. We had breakfast and coffee at Moock Cafe then we went for a walk on Libesbankweg, which is one of the local hiking trails that takes you up past the Hahnenklee gondola, then around to see several of the lakes and dams of the area.

After Hahnenklee, we came back to the campground briefly and then set out for Goslar. We had a poke around the beautiful city and had dinner and beer before returning to the campground for the night.
I started feeling like I might be coming down with something this morning. I often get a kind of scratchy throat when I’m getting dehydrated, so I thought that’s what it was but then the scratchy throat started to feel more like I’m getting sick. I did a Covid test - if I have it I’d like to know asap so I can quarantine. The test was negative. The scratchy throat progressed to my ‘I feel like my lungs are stuffed with pink fiberglass insulation ‘ feeling that I get when I’m sick. Sigh. If I’m sick I’m going to track down the two asshats who were on the train(s) to Marburg and left their masks off until AFTER they coughed and/or sneezed and put the boots to them.


2022-08-26 : Day trip to Wernigerode
I’m coughing more today but feeling less sick than yesterday. I’ll do another Covid test tomorrow before we leave Goslar, just in case. I’ve emailed Cousin Robert so he can make an informed decision about meeting us on Sunday. Cousin Robert opted to try and meet up with us later in our trip. I think that’s a good choice. Hopefully it works out.

It has been quite warm here just about every day. I don’t deal well with hot hot heat, but one thing I’ve discovered is that I can wear my cooling cloth as a head scarf. What a relief!! Why didn’t I think of this before!
We’re taking this trip at a slower pace than I had planned - skipping some side trips in order to enjoy and explore places more thoroughly. From Goslar we had three possible day trips - Trendelburg, Quedlinburg and Wernigerode. We chose Wernigerode simply because it was the shortest trip to and from Goslar. It is a truly hidden gem. Or, at least hidden from Canadian tourists. There were more than enough German tourists to make up for the lack, though.

We’re keeping the day short to give me another opportunity for an early night as, although I’m feeling better than yesterday, I’m still not feeling great.
The heat on this trip is killing me. A couple of times when we were with the Laggais I just completely wilted. I hoped that I would grow accustomed to it but that’s not happening. I have read that once you’ve had heat stroke you’re more likely to really suffer in the heat and I think that’s what’s happening to me. We’re rethinking the rest of this trip. We have been talking about renting a car as of September 1st because the nine euro tickets will be finished then. That opens up lots of opportunities for us to go where it’s cooler if my plotted route is going to keep us in the heat. We’re also rethinking Mexico and our next cycle tour. I think that touring in Mexico might just not be possible for me. So we will have to go back to the drawing board for a winter trip. Maybe we’ll still go to Merida or someplace else in Mexico. Or maybe we’ll head back to Bequia to see Susan. For the cycle tour, I’m thinking about shifting it earlier again. Maybe starting in Barcelona in April, heading north through Spain and France, then east into Germany to do the Neckar north to south, then to be up in Switzerland in June. I’ll have to research weather normals to figure out if that’s a reasonable plan.


2022-08-27 : To Lüneburg, got the ‘Rona
Leaving the Campingplatz was a bit of an adventure this morning. It started raining yesterday evening and rained on and off through the night. It gave us a nice little reprieve for tearing down and packing up this morning, which was nice, and we were able to check out and have a coffee before the 8:42 bus. The busses have been running a little unpredictably, so we walked across to the stop as soon as we were ready, which was about 8:25. It was drizzling when we walked over, but soon the downpour started and oh how it poured down. Our Larry Ponchos failed the Rain Poncho Test. They are better than nothing… by a small margin… but we will be replacing them with Euro Store ponchos at our earliest opportunity. The rain eased up slightly just before the full bus flew past us with the bus driver waving both arms to indicate either there was a wasp in his cabin, or he wasn’t stopping for us. He didn’t stop for us. How disappointing. Brent suggested calling a cab but since our German SIM (c/o Dietmar) is only for emergencies, we went back to the Campingplatz and asked the attendant to call one for us. The rain stopped and 15 minutes later we’re in a cab enroute to the banhof, back on schedule for our trains to Lüneburg.

As the day went on, my cold started getting the better of me and then our train to Lüneburg was canceled. Our new route involved a milk run with two extra transfers. The way things have been going with tight connections I was doubtful as to when we would actually get to Lüneburg, but it worked out ok. Bonus train 1 worked great. Bonus train 2 was running almost 15 minutes late so re resigned ourselves to taking the one-hour-later bonus train 3 (thankfully there was such a thing). But when we got to Uelzen, to our delight, they had held bonus train 3 and we arrived in Lüneburg before 3pm. Yay!

After a great meal in Lüneburg, we made our way to our Airbnb which is awesome. I felt my ambition melting away again, and although I was sure I just had a cold, I did another Covid test just to be sure. Well… dammit. I have the dread disease. We don’t know yet if Brent has it - he doesn’t seem to have symptoms… yet. That’ll change our trip plan for the next week or so. I’m glad, though, that we got our fourth poke before we left Canada.


2022-08-28 : Isolation Day (R4, B1) in Lüneburg
Brent started getting symptoms last night. I don’t think we’ll bother testing him yet. We’ll just assume and isolate. So far both of us have mild symptoms - it just feels like a cold. The current requirements in Germany are to isolate for five days from onset of symptoms. Since I didn’t know I had it for 2.5 days (d’oh!) that means I have to isolate through Sunday. Since Brent started getting definite symptoms at end of day on Saturday, we’ll assume that we need to continue isolating through Thursday and we’ll hopefully be clear by Friday, September 2nd.

I have talked to the Laggais, and it sounds like none of them have it, which is good. It also supports my theory that we were exposed on the train(s) to Marburg on Monday. A pox on those asshats who were coughing and sneezing on the train without masks on.

Guido has offered his place to isolate, and Ira has offered help if we need it. Hopefully we won’t need anything, but it is so nice that they’ve offered, and we have folks to call if things get more serious.
I woke up before 6:00 this morning feeling pretty good (relatively speaking). I suggested to Brent that we go for a walk around town while everyone else is still sleeping so that we can at least see some of this beautiful place while we’re here. For all the times I’ve wished that the throngs of tourists would get out of the way of my photos… well, it would seem that they actually add to the appeal. The empty city was a little lonely and stark. We saw lots of beautiful places, but I think my favorite was a little street called Auf dem Meere. We were back to our AirBnB before 8am to do some resting and isolating.
We had a reservation to stay at a hostel in Lübeck on the 31st. I have canceled that and we will go straight from here to a campground near Stralsund to continue our isolation.
This is our second major illness while traveling. The first time was when Brent got the *Budapest Sewer Belly in Croatia. That time we spent several days laid up in Ogulin watching the **Kuna Bin in our AirBnB. Today we’re kinda missing the Kuna Bin.

2015 Blog: http://www.damdetails.com/trips/triplog/1/130

* Not a real thing, and therefore, not really what he had

** Not a real thing. We made up the term to describe the English movies shown on Croatian tv. They’re the worst of the worst. Even worse than what you would find in the $1 bin in a Blockbuster Video. We wouldn’t even pay a dollar to watch those movies. Since a Kuna was worth about 1/5 of a dollar, we decided that Croatia must be buying their movies from the ‘Kuna Bin’


2022-08-29 : Isolation day (R5 B2) in Lüneburg
Notes to Mom:

R: Good morning. We’re going to go out for an early walk again so we’re at least out of the house for a little while today.

M: How are you both feeling? I guess not too bad if you're going for an early walk? *hugs*

R: We’re both still a little sick. Not so bad that we can’t go for a walk but bad enough that we know we’re sick. Today is my last day of required isolation but only Brent’s second. Of course I will isolate as long as he has to.

R: It’s not as easy to isolate when you’re traveling though. We’re going to have to take three trains tomorrow to get to our next spot. We’ll have to just wear our best masks and hope we don’t hurt anyone.
We left before 6:00 for an early morning walk today. I wanted to go down to Am Stintmsrkt on the old harbor as the pics from there look really great. We weren’t disappointed! It was beautiful. The city started coming to life much earlier today than yesterday though so we high-tailed it back home a little after 7:00 so as to not expose people.


2022-08-30 : To Altefähr, Isolation Day B3
We left Lüneburg this morning heading for the campground at Altefähr. Three trains. The first train was 23 minutes of absolute cluster. The first part of the second train was similar only not quite as bad. We were happy to make both of our connections and arrive on Insel Rügen. We were really grateful that we’re both feeling pretty good and our bodies cooperated with regards to not sneezing and coughing on the trains.

When we reached the station for Altefähr, I didn’t even realize it was a station. It looked like the middle of a field. Brent opened the train door and looked out and said he thought it was the stop. I though no freakin’ way. He was like yeah I think this is it. Looking at the progress board, Altefähr had disappeared and I realized that it was, in fact, it, and we jumped off the train into the middle of the field.

The town of Altefähr is very nice and the campground is too. We really enjoyed (and envied) all of the cycle tourists riding in and watching the zeltplatz fill up.
EV10 goes around Insel Rügen so we’re not surprised to see all of the cycle tourists rolling in. It is surprising, however, to see how many people are rolling in with children. Brent thinks maybe they live on the island, or in Stralsund, and are just giving the kinder a taste of cycle touring.


2022-08-31 : Altefähr, Isolation Day B4
We both feel pretty good today, but not symptom-free yet. We spent a couple of hours doing a thorough walk around Alrefähr and then just hung out in the zeltplatz. We were hoping that tomorrow would be our day to re-test hoping for negative, but the way we feel today, we’re thinking that tomorrow will be another isolation day for us.
After sleeping away the afternoon we went for a bit of a walk down to the beach. It was interesting.


2022-09-01 : Altefähr, Isolation Day B5
We both feel better today but still not 100%. It’s another rest and isolate day. We had a breakfast picnic down by the water, looking at Stralsund across the channel and watching the swans on the water. We learned that swans sometimes keep one foot out of the water for rest and heat transfer. We also learned that Altefähr, which means ‘old ferry’, has been Altefähr since the 1200’s. Now THAT’S an ollllld ferry!!
We went for a walk along the cycle path. It’s the Ostsee route but also part of EV10. We did about 4km round and the trail is… well it’s not so good. It’s dirt, gravel, and in places broken concrete. Some of the gravel is very sharp chert. I don’t think we’ll put it on our tour lust anytime soon. After our walk, we provisioned up at Dit & Dat and then had picnic lunch down at the beach. I can definitely think of worse places to isolate.

After lunch we had a nap then went back to the beach for a snack. We finally had the chance to sit on the swivelly chairs. Turns out they’re not so great. Really uncomfortable posture and hard on the butt!


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