Brumablog

After those energy-rich days exploring Istanbul we were ready for a reduction in pace and we got our wish at a great little campsite (La Cabana) on lake Iznik Golu not far from the Yalova ferry. The small city of Iznik can boast a very large and impressive story historically; it’s also famous for its porcelain tiles made here for many Sultans. We spent a couple of days relaxing on the lakeside, eating well at their restaurant, and doing some necessary laundry. We watched friendly local commercial fishermen net small fish they call “Hamsi”, similar to an anchovy. We joked around with the guys by playing the “animated language” game and when they eventually left, they gave a big bag of the little fish to the campground owner to prepare as part of our dinner. Like the fishermen, most of the Turkish people we’ve met are amazingly wonderful (unlike those little fish… in my opinion only). BTW, all the meals we had at this campground were fantastic including the eye-popping traditional “Turkish Breakfast”.

Moving on, we spent a travel night at the interesting Rainbow Hills before entering Ankara, the Capital of Turkiye. Very big, very modern and very busy. We planned on stopping here and visiting Ataturk’s Mausoleum. He was the father of Turkish democratic reform and modernization. He is truly revered by the people of Turkiye. Unfortunately for us it was a holiday, the mausoleum was packed with visitors and therefore parking was impossible. We squeezed in a lame sample picture from the road below, and moved on.

After a few hours of driving on an impressive, modern, six lane highway, we arrived at a location that is considered a world treasure. Cappadocia is a region with human connections that date back more than five thousands years. Amazing cave dwellings dug into the sides of soft volcanic cliff formations reminded me of Bedrock City for those of us that remember good old Fred and Barney from the 1960’s Flintstones Cartoons. “yabba-dabba-doo!” Cappadocia encompasses about 300 sq/km and it includes “ferry chimneys”, caves and underground cities. We visited one underground city that could accommodate 5,000 Christians, their animals and all the food necessary to survive an attack. We lasted about 15 minutes inside that freakishly amazing and impressive cave structure before feeling strangely claustrophobic and short of breath. For us, crawling through a small part of this structure was just about right. Cappadocia was also a major trading location on the “Spice Road” and was also known for its prized white horses. If all these facts are not enough to impress you, then I’m sure the modern “Hot Air Balloons” will. Every morning, wind permitting, the sky is filled with tourist filled balloon baskets gently floating over “Goreme”, the main town centre of Cappadocia. This is a very impressive spectacle to see, especially as the rising sun breaks over the distant mountains and lights-up the hundred plus colourful balloons. Wow!

Onward to the southern coastline of the Mediterranean that overlooks the mountains of Cyprus. We were caught by surprise as we thought this coastline would be quiet and quaint but apart from the steep mountainous region what we discovered was a busy built up coastline with many miles of modern mega-resorts and fancy condominiums.

We’ve now dropped anchor for a few days on the beach at Manavgat (Side). Here’s where we’ve sought out and made contact with a truly amazing woman doing truly incredible conservation work. We were introduced to Seher Akyol by another amazing and inspirational British couple by the names of Chris and Marianne Fisher. These two wonderful individuals also have a fantastic story and share it weekly in a popular YouTube site called “Tread the Globe”. Every week for the last four years we’ve faithfully followed their “around-the-world” event filled adventures driving their steadfast 2005 Fiat Campervan called “Trudy”. During the dark days of covid they were essentially locked-down in Turkiye so during that dreaded time they traveled the country extensively (interestingly, this is how we developed our desire to motorhome Turkiye). So… how does inspirational Seher Akyol fit into this picture? In this mega development rich area huge resort like complexes are starting to pop up all along these magnificent beaches and people looking for beach time were unintentionally destroying a crucial ocean turtle nesting ground located on Bogaz beach.

A number of years ago Seher quit her regular good job, set up a beach tent and went to work saving Caretta (Loggerhead) turtle nests and the baby turtle hatchlings. With no financial support she lived full time in her tent and worked tirelessly every day walking many kilometres up and down the beach in the hot sun locating the turtle nests, staking them out for protection, chasing away intruders, both day and night, and educating everyone she could.

Chris and Marianne happened to meet her during a leisurely stroll on that beach and Seher was excited to tell them all about her work; but it soon became obvious that she was hungry, exhausted, unsupported, and almost broken, all her hard work was in jeopardy.

This situation would never go unanswered by Chris and Marianne. Immediately they called out to there vast network of YouTube followers for any financial assistance possible. They helped Seher then, and continue to work with her now to provide the resources she needs to keep her important ecological project going. We’re on that list of contributors and we really wanted to meet this inspirational woman on our travels through Turkiye.

I’m happy to report that Seher is as wonderful in real life as she appears to be in all those “Tread The Globe” YouTube episodes. Has she made a difference? Yes! She has fought off the commercial development of this vital portion of Bogaz beach. She has obtained park status from the government for this delicate beach area. She’s had all the bright white lights along the beach altered so they don’t confuse the mother turtles as they come up the beach to lay their eggs during the nighttime. People now ask her for permission to walk on the beach. All large ocean going fishing boats with big nets must stay 27 kilometres off-shore, dramatically reducing the number of drowned turtles. She has carved out an education centre and provides lessons to thousands of children and adults every year at her Dekafok beach interpretation centre. She now works hand-in-hand with education and biology departments of major Universities. She has achieved national and international recognition and yet she still lives in the little interpretation centre on the beach guarding her turtles every day. But, best of all, she has saved many, many thousands of turtles and by educating people she has changed attitudes regarding the protection of these incredible animals.

Oh… BTW, as we were sitting with her and having coffee on the beach education observation platform, she picked up the phone and on speed dial, called Chris and Marianne who have just arrived in Calcutta, India where they’re waiting for Trudy to arrive by ship. We had a wonderful conversation with them and even made plans to meet them in August when they’ll be visiting on Vancouver Island.

Meeting Seher and experiencing her hard work saving the Caretta (Loggerhead) turtle will be one of the major highlights of our entire trip through Turkiye.

You can find more information about Seher Akyol and her passionate project at (www.dekafok.org.tr).

Early morning from our campsite

March 12 was an exciting day for us and it all began with another warm airport send-off from Cam. Thank you buddy for the ride and the encouraging words.

WestJet to Calgary then Toronto followed by a lengthy overnight KLM flight to Amsterdam. A long, tiring, awkward and guaranteed luggage looser flying ordeal… or so we thought. To our delight everything functioned like clock work; surprising us considering the relentless airline horror stories you hear so-much about these days. Flights were smooth, the layovers provided an opportunity to exercise our legs and with only half the KLM flight filled, we scored extra seating to stretch out on. Best of all… our checked bag arrived with us. Yah! Despite that extra KLM space we were still in need of recuperation on arrival at Schiphol Airport so the four minute walk to a king sized bed at the airport hotel I booked was a godsend. By the following morning we had basically crushed the Jet-lag and were all ready to hop on the train to Germany from the airport station. We arrived in Dulmen at about 2:30 pm where Martin (from Dumo) picked us up in what would be our brand new Burstner Motorhome. He drove us to Dumo Rent where we spent a couple of hours saying hello to everyone and taking care of rental details. First things first, a quick trip to the local superstore for some basic groceries and miscellaneous household items, then off to our first night at a Stellplatz in Dulmen. Our Burstner Motorhome was the perfect choice (thank you Dominik) for traveling to Türkiye in. A bit narrower than past units we’ve had yet very comfortable and better suited for those squeezeee Mediterranean roads.

We wasted no time getting started on our long southern journey and spent our second night in a familiar campsite in Kassel, Germany. They’re rebuilding the freeway system around Kassel so finding our way in and out was a real challenge and time consuming too. We exited the autobahn at Wurzburg to drive our preferred secondary roads that meandered through spectacular Bavarian countryside dotted with old towns and villages. We stopped for the night at a fantastic medieval walled village called Mainbernheim and after exploring the old town we had a delicious traditional German dinner in a Michelin rated restaurant that’s been operating since 1819. Night four was spent on a farm Stellplatz with a river view, near Passau. We shared coffee with the farmer and discussed world politics before purchasing a couple of bottles of wine from his collection and ending our fun evening in this beautiful rural hillside setting.

As we were close to Linz, Austria we decided to stop and visit the infamous Mauthausen Memorial Concentration Camp. It was built next to granite quarries where enslaved inmates produced building material for prestigious Nazi building projects. Many prisoners died carrying heavy blocks of granite up the “Stairs of Death” to the camp above. So many disturbing and horrific stories about this camp that should never be forgotten especially when you consider the crazy apoplectic political vacuum we see in the world today.

Onward to historic Graz, Austria that’s snuggled by mountains and is a great place for a days walking tour. Unfortunately getting to Graz will be expensive for us. In Austria you purchase what’s called a “Vignette” sticker to place on your front windshield if you’re driving on motorways. Essentially it’s a user pay road tax. Mechanical readers across the motorway read the vignette and if you don’t happen to have one, your licence plate is recorded and, ya-hoo! you’re sent an expensive penalty fine in the mail. “We don’t need a vignette… we’re just driving the secondary roads”. Oops! It was supposed to be the second right-turn about twenty meters AFTER the first right turn. Guess where the first right-turn road funnelled vehicles onto and guess which turn I took?. Ouch! Lesson learned. We zoomed across Hungary and we’re now close to the Romanian border so, Türkiye and all it’s delight, are almost in our sights.

Ten years ago on February 8th, 2014 Margot and I left Victoria to begin a year-long retirement motorhome adventure in Europe. It was truly the most amazing year imaginable. Since 2014 we’ve made three additional trips back to Europe with each one lasting about three months. We have visited many wonderful countries, seen incredible sites and experienced the very best of people and cultures. This never gets old for us and we seem to never tire of these experiences so… here we go again! On March 12th we’re off to our favourite destination… Europe 2024. This trip however will not only cover Europe but much of Türkiye as well. We’ll be driving our motorhome south through Romania and Bulgaria to ultimately explore the ancient world of Western Türkiye. This will actually be our second attempt at making this trip and hopefully turmoil in the world will not interfere with this plan as it did in 2022 when we diverted the trip to Portugal. Again, we’ll be renting the motorhome from our favourite dealership, Dumo Reisemobile in Dulmen-Hiddingsel, Germany where they have faithfully taken care of our motorhome needs and always treat us like family.

Once again, as you see, I’ll be firing up my BrumaBlog which is mainly intended for “Friends and Family” to help everyone keep track of where we are and what kinds of things we’re up to. I also use these Blogs to produce hard cover books of our travels that make gratifying journals with actual pages. I’ll try to keep the words to a minimum, pictures to a maximum, and not overwhelm your in box. Let the journey Begin!

Bruce

This beyond belated blog is intended to wrap-up and complete the story of our latest motorhome trip in Europe. For each of our major trips I eventually publish a travel book based on my published blog posts and then these postings become a chronological hardcover diary of our most significant trips together. Upon returning to Canada in June we became so busy, so quickly, I never did get a chance to complete the final blog entry for this trip and therefore this posting will fix that. 

May 25th – June 8th

After a traffic congested exit from amazing central Paris we headed eastward to Reims where we saw the magnificent Gothic Cathedral Notre-Dame and got an up-close sense of how it dominates the city centre with its grandeur. Onward we drove through the Champagne region with a wonderful drive along the “Route touristique du Champagne”. Miles of rolling hills with immaculately groomed vineyards and wineries of all types, size and age. Enough to impress even a die-hard beer drinker.  We camped the night in an “Aire” just outside the defensive walls and moat of a very interesting little fortress village called “Rocroy”. We can highly recommend the little bakery just off its main central square. North to Dunkirk then east along the popular Belgium coastline and on into the magnificent Netherlands. We skipped across the beautiful Dutch islands populated with picture perfect farms and villages as we made our way towards “The Hague”.  Along the way we saw first hand why the Dutch are considered worldwide as the masters of water management. The water control systems along this route are something you have to see to believe. Miles and miles of extremely high dikes, causeways with hundreds of flood gates, huge tunnels, locks, canals and bridges of all sizes. So impressive and so easily taken for granted when driving about the country’s beautifully groomed and dry lowlands. As rising water levels challenge many regions of the World, there is no question who should be in charge of trying to solve the problem, and then control it. 

Once we reached Leiden we were once again greeted with love and warm smiles from the best family relatives imaginable. It was a brief stop with Hedy and Kees to drop off some bulky luggage in preparation for our upcoming flight home from Schiphol Airport. We moved on quickly toward Dulmen Germany where we returned our rented motorhome to our good friends at Dumo Reisemobile.  Every-time we arrive here we feel like we’re among good and caring friends. Once again they took care of all the details. Michael & Anne, Jorn, Dominik, Eddy, Sanna, Sandra and all the Dumo staff make us feel like we can hardly wait for our next return trip to Dumo. Speaking of good friends, we cannot forget to include in this list Hendrick and his mom Anne who own and operate the Hotel Van-Lendt in Buldern just outside of Dulmen-Hiddingsel. Every stay we have with them is truly amazing in every way. It’s like a perfect reunion providing us with a chance to catch-up on all the latest news, and we never leave this beautiful hotel with the feeling of “this was just another transaction”. Thank you again to all of our wonderful Westphalia friends. 

And now back to Holland and a final few days of fun and heartfelt goodbyes with our dear friends and family there. Despite a minor covid related issue that required a few adjustments to the plans, we managed to have another wonderful visit with everyone and we will cherish this visit, like all our others, forever.

A little “Road Ramble”

Fancy-free living is not always care-free living. Unfortunately things can and do go wrong wherever you may be. When you’re on the road and your health and/or welfare is negatively impacted it can be extra stressful. Over the years we’ve been super fortunate in this regard and have experienced very few health related situations but on this trip we did have a few issues to deal with.  Some were illness related and one was hospital related. In all these cases the final results were positive including the overnight hospital scare I had in Quimper, France. Our desire to travel remains strong, but we’ve learned the value of having flexible “back-up” plans and procedures in place for as many situations as possible. Pre-organizing your thoughts and actions for various scenarios can potentially save you a great deal of stress, anxiety, and time. Generally a good idea for home living too, but even more important for when you’re traveling and on the road. Kinda like having an earthquake preparedness plan in place, but for traveling.          

Changing plans on the go:

This 2022 trip to Turkey unexpectedly morphed into an opportunity to revisit and explore new parts of previously traveled regions of Europe. Our original plan was to travel a circular route through Western Turkey arriving there via Romania and Bulgaria.  Unfortunately the Ukrainian war situation negatively impacted that plan. Not wanting to put additional stress on limited resources and harbouring a certain amount of apprehension about traveling in a turbulent region, we reluctantly decided to concentrate our travels on the Western side of Europe instead. Thankfully we had a predetermined plan B option available and though this was a discouraging turn of events for us, our real feelings of grief and concern were for the Ukrainian people impacted by this unnecessary Russian aggression. Hopefully this horrible situation will soon come to a peaceful and lasting conclusion.  

We really did enjoy our motorhome travels on this 2022 European adventure and even though we had to deal with a few minor setbacks along the way, we recognize how privileged and fortunate we’ve been to have had the opportunity to travel like this and we will never be taking that fact for granted.

After celebrating Margot’s birthday in splendid Albufeira, we started to make our way east along this increasingly popular resort-rich coastline towards Spain. Faro is not far from the border and things started out so well with us scoring a coveted camping space at a nearby campground on a beautiful sandspit beach. Unfortunately, however I ended up with what I think was food poisoning from some “fresh fish” and required a number of down days to fully recover.  As a result of loosing those days we had to move quickly along. We drove east through Sevilla turned left at Cordoba and made our way north towards Toledo (places we have enjoyed before in past trips). El Escorial, northwest of Madrid, was a very interesting stop for us with its incredible 16th century palace and nearby “Valley of the Fallen Monument”.  We capped off our visit to Spain with a really nice stop at the 1020-1287 Loarre Castle north of Zaragoza. What a fascinating castle, and the vista views from it’s defensive walls were absolutely stunning. Over and through (tunnel du Somport), the Pyrenees we drove onward into France. Bypassing Bordeaux we stopped at an interesting little place called Blaye that is situated further along the extremely long inlet into Bordeaux. Here a major and long standing fortification was built to protect Bordeaux from invading forces coming from the Atlantic and its origins date as far back as the Romans and Vikings.  Another more modern fortification further north was also an interesting stop. At St. Nazaire the Nazi’s built a huge fortified submarine repair and supply base that is still standing today and now used as a massive multi purpose structure. St Nazaire also has one of the largest dry docks in Europe and for this reason it was a major target of the Allied forces in WWII. In fact, the most daring commando raid in history took place here attempting to neutralize that dry dock and the details around that event makes for a very fascinating story, if your interested. I had a quiet and laid back birthday in Quimper, Brittany before we headed off to the Normandy coast for a overnight stop on Utah beach and a respectful visit to the Canadian war cemetery outside Caen. Onward to Paris where we completed another long walkabout that connected many of the major sites of Paris including Norte-Dame Cathedral that is still undergoing restoration from that dreadful fire. It’s now time to put our feet up for a couple of recovery days before wrapping things up and returning the motorhome back to Dumo Reismobile in Germany and completing this unpredictable 2022 adventure. 

After leaving Arles, France we drove a short distance to an interesting coastal holiday destination called “La Grand Motte”. This massive seaside apartment/marina complex is based on the design conception of one architect. Jean Balladur’s wave like pyramidal shaped buildings are intended to blend into the natural environment when viewed from boats offshore. Our first close-up impressions of this 60’s era resort were not that great but then when you see large sections of this complex from a distant vantage point, I must admit, it is impressive and it’s still a study destination for many architectural students. Onward to Andorra which today does not resemble the country that Bert and I visited in 1972 where we parked our VW van at the top of a mountain because we got good radio reception and then almost froze to death during the cold icy night. Actually many of those mountain tops are now populated with somewhat impressively large ski resort developments. Combining awesome skiing with tax free shopping has created a mega European winter  destination and has rendered this entire little nation unrecognizable via my 1972 experience. We actually moved through busy little Andorra fairly quickly (which is not too hard to do considering it’s size) but lucky for us, diesel fuel was a bargain on the way out.  

Spain is a fascinating country and is truly one of our favourite destinations. It has so much natural beauty, culture and history to offer that it’s impossible not to be impressed with it. With limited knowledge about the northern part of Spain we called on Kees to help guide us along and he did not disappoint. Extremely well informed and an experienced traveler throughout Spain he graciously shared some wonderful ideas and destinations with us… thank you once again Kees. Zaragoza, Logrono, the wine district of Rioja, Burgos, Leon, Astorga and Ponferrada along the “Camino de Santiago” (Pilgrimage walk to Santiago de Compostela) were all great suggestions. Also of interest was a fascinating archaeological site we stumbled upon in the Atapuerca Mountains. Here, Europe’s oldest human remains were accidentally discovered by railway construction workers cutting a trench for a new railway line. Some artifacts and human fossils date back an astounding 1.2 million years. They are still excavating this site. 

Into Portugal and down the coast to Porto we drove. The weather cooperated and we had a great time exploring the old town and eating the best Portuguese sandwich ever (as promised)… twice!  Continuing south we stopped in at the surfers mecca of Nazare. Here you find the largest surfing waves in the world (they can reach over one hundred feet high) and this is the place where surfing records are set. Even though the waves were rather tame during our visit we were still able to experience this beautiful and busy place bursting with its surfer energy and mixed together with the atmosphere of a traditional Portuguese fishing village. It was a very cool place to spend a relaxing sunny day. We are now in the Algrave area on the South coast of Portugal and working our way back east again towards Spain. From this point on, we have no real agenda as we start our return trip north so we’ll just follow our instincts and drive the roads less traveled.

From Venice we drove a short distance south to one of the smallest countries in the world, San Marino (60.5 Km2). It basically covers the upper part of a small mountain and with its impressive cliff hanging medieval fortifications it has maintained its independence since the 11th century. Interestingly, it’s also considered the oldest Republic in the world. Next we made our way to another beautiful mountain top town called Assisi (thanks George for this recommendation) to visit the birthplace of St. Francis  (namesake of San Francisco) and the impressive two level Basilica di San Francesco. All very impressive, especially when lit up at night from our campground below. Hadrian’s Villa east of Rome was our next stop and we were not disappointed. This place is amazing as well as amazingly vast. I knew that a Roman emperors summer villa would have to be larger than your average country club but this place is ridiculously gigantic. Its large, impressive, and well preserved ruins sprawl over an area the size of a small town making it a challenge to visit in just one afternoon. 

We made a quick stop in Rome to re-visit some of our favourite places and an interesting new visit to the”Castel Sant’Angelo” before heading to Pompeii and Naples. A rental car drive through Sorrento and along the compact Amalfi coastline was a driving challenge but a great way to complete this southern part of our Italian journey. After a quick scoot north we exited the toll road northwest of Rome and then followed the coastline past Pisa. The quick driving pace did not end at Pisa as we were now focused on reaching Spain and Portugal as soon as we comfortably could. Therefore, a few more toll roads required until reaching Monaco where we could no longer resist the temptation to drive along the Riviera coastline roadway all the way to Marseille, France. This blog concludes with us spending a great day visiting the World Heritage Site, Arles, France. This is the location where Vincent Van Gogh spent time recovering in a hospital and also painting a number of priceless paintings.

Crossing quickly over the Alps from Fussen, Germany and waving to a few late spring skiers along the way we arrived in one of our favourite locations in northern Italy. Highway 38 and 40 is lined with apple orchards and vineyards and passes through a magnificent alpine valley dotted with medieval castles all the way to Merano. Unfortunately, and a little disappointing for us, this fruitful valley was still a few weeks away from it’s glorious spring bloom. But, this drive is worth the trip at any time of the year and Merano itself is a beautiful mountain town/city with a number of historically significant and interesting sites  surrounding it as well. From Merano we drove south along the east side of Lake Garda, a very popular tourist location, to Sirmione, Italy on the south end of the lake. This interesting sliver of a peninsula with castle and village on it’s outer end draws millions of visitors every (normal) year. Luckily we enjoyed a rather laid back and quiet visit.  From Sirmione we traveled once again to fabulous Verona and Venice.  We were very surprised at how busy both these places were but we did notice that most of the crowd seemed to be more “local-ish” in nature. Having driven through Croatia two times in past trips and missing Pula both times, we decided we had to make it happen this time. The ancient Roman amphitheatre in Pula is truly magnificent. It is one of the largest Roman Arenas in the world and it’s the only one with all four sides still intact. From the centre of the Arena you can almost sense the gladiators around you as they fight-off the lions. This amphitheatre is over 2000 years old and is still used for significant concerts today. In it’s prime it could accommodate 23,000 bloodthirsty spectators and today… about 12,500 music lovers. Rovinj, a small coastal (cone hill shaped) village a short distance north of Pula is well worth a shout-out.  A very unique town with an interesting water frontage and incredible sunsets. 

But… now the time has come to make a very difficult and trip altering decision. Traveling western Turkey was our original plan and we held onto that dream as long as we could. As we drove south and the days passed by, we hoped that things would start settling down in the Ukraine. This has not been the case and this horrific situation just seems to be escalating and getting worse. So, the idea of heading eastward presents a certain amount of anxiety and uneasiness that Margot especially does not feel comfortable with. Therefore, this northern part of Croatia will be the furthest “South-East” in Europe that we will travel and we’ll now concentrate our efforts on many unexplored locations within Italy, France and Spain as we make our way westward towards Portugal.  We do feel a little disappointed about missing out on Turkey, but in no way do we feel bad about this decision… we can only feel bad and upset for the millions of innocent people in the Ukrainian that are suffering beyond imagination at the hands of a madman and, our thoughts and prayers are with them.

Despite the stomach-turning global events that are dominating the news these days, we managed to have a great flight over to Europe thanks to KLM Airlines. We spent the first night at an airport hotel trying to recover from the jet-lag that seems to be progressively getting worse with our maturity. Early the next morning we caught a train to Dulmen, Germany to connect with the fantastic crew at Dumo Reismobile. As usual, we were treated like royalty and even given a choice between two great motorhomes. We chose the Citroen based “Glucks Mobile” (Lucky-One Mobile). This “GlucksMobile” will make for a very comfortable home for the next three months. Thank you to Dominik, Sanna and Eddy. We then loaded up the motorhome with some supplies from a local super store and spent the first night at the Dumo Dealership. The next morning Michael Thyssen (Dumo’s owner) and his wife Anne sat with us over coffee and we talked about trip possibilities. Turkey or Portugal? Michael called in an employee that moved to Germany a few years ago from Turkey to give us a picture of how things are right now and this was very helpful. Still undecided, Michael phoned his rental department and had them add on required additional motorhome insurance for us to drive in Turkey, just in case we decide to make this our destination (Typically this would be an added expense for us at the border crossing). Portugal however is still very much on the table and a strong possibility, we actually have a few more days before we have to make that final decision. Stay tuned!

When we drove off we didn’t get very far at all. We stopped at the wonderful Gasthaus (Pub) and Campground called “Peters” just outside of Ludinghausen. We planned to see a magnificent nearby Palace called “Schloss Nordkirchen” that was built based on the design of Versailles outside of Paris. We took a tour of the impressive Palace but it was  presented in German. Of course we met a wonderful couple that translated the entire tour  for us. After the tour, we enjoyed getting to know them a bit better over a cold beer. Speaking of beer, we had the greatest time at Peters Gasthaus where we became very friendly with the Pub patron Hendrick, and a large number of his other guests too. The beer was good but the food was fantastic. We actually stayed at Peters for two nights and have plans to see Hendrick again on our return in June. Another castle nearby is worth a big mention. It’s one of the smallest castles we’ve ever seen but in my opinion it’s one of the best. There is something very unique about it and I have often thought about it ever since we first visited it in 2014.  Die Burg Vischering is a small historical gem that somehow transports me back through time to Medieval days.   

Hitting the road we put on some quick, and expensive, miles (Diesel @ $3.34/litre) and we made it to Kassel. A very interesting town with a ton of beautiful history.  And Kristen… you would be impressed with the dozen or so rowing clubs all within a one kilometre stretch along the river bank. Every time we see rowing, we think of you.

Now, with a concerning eye on the mess that Putin has created, it’s time for us to commit to a general direction of travel, keeping in mind that Turkey will still be in the running for a few more days yet.  Will keep you posted.