Germany - Day 16

Home today. We left Rieps at about 8.30am, and drove to Berlin Schönefeld Airport. It took about three and a half hours, and was quite uneventful.

We got a bit lost at the last hurdle, but still managed to return the hired car on time.

The Easyjet plane was on schedule, and we arrived back in Glasgow at about 3.40pm. It took a while to go through immigration and get the minibus to the Normandy Hotel to pick up our own car, but we got there eventually.

We were in rush hour traffic on the way home, and stopped at Asda for some provisions. Finally we arrive home about 6pm.

Germany - Day 15

We drove to Ratzeburg again, and this time hired a rowing boat on the Ratzeburg See for 3 hours. It was quite fun but not very fast and we didn't really get very far.

We sailed through the channel between the island and the mainland, past some lilies and a fountain.

We then drove to the village of Breesen, and went for a shortish walk. There was some marshland where birds can be seen, but it was quite dried out and we didn't see much.We came upon a bit of water and two grey cranes took off as soon as we got there.

We drove on and parked at the Garrensee, a popular swimming lake. Scott went for a swim! The water was lovely.

We went home, and for dinner on our last night we had ratatouille and pasta. We did some packing later.

Germany - Day 14

We drove south to the village of Mölln for a walk. After parking the car we walked along a canal, then into a wildlife park with free entry.

There we saw wild boars, racoons and some birds.

There was also a deer next to a pond which wasn't in an enclosure. It was very unafraid of us though, and hung around for ages.

We walked further on and saw some more deer.

We then carried on our walk round the many lakes near the town.

We drove back to near our own village, and kept a lookout for Nandus. This is the German name for the Great Rhea, which run wild in the area after some pairs escaped from an exotic meat farm some years ago.

Andreas our host says there are about 300 of them.

We stopped when we saw some in the fields and photographed them.

We then went on to the village of Schattin, where we had beer and cakes outside in the garden of a cafe.

We went home and later had omelette for dinner.

Germany - Day 13

We drove to Ratzeburg and parked just out of town. We walked down to the lakeside where a pottery market was taking place.

There were musicians playing too.

We then walked round the town followed a walk route, taking in all the main sights like the town hall, churches etc.

We had our lunch at the side of the lake.

One of the churches was pure white inside, very different from the others.

We then drove to Rothenhusen near the top of the Ratzeburg See, and went for a walk to the cafe at the ferry terminal, where we had a beer.

After buying provisions we drove home and had knackwurst, sauerkraut and kartoffelsalat for dinner. Later Andreas invited us for a beer at the bonfire with his friends.

Germany - Day 12

Today we took a trip to Hamburg. It's about an hour and ten minutes away by car. We parked in the main station car park.

We had a walking route round the main sights in the city, starting at the Rathaus (town hall).

It took us down through the old port warehouse district.

We went past the Elbphilharmonie concert hall.

We decided to get the ferry across the River Elbe to Finkenwerder. On the way we stopped at the dockside where we could climb up the outside of a building for the views.

At Finkenwerder all we did was buy some Currywurst for lunch.

We then got the ferry back and walked to the St Michaelis church, where we paid to climb the hundreds of steps to the viewing platform.

We went into the church and its crypt as well.

After this we walked up through the long beautiful park which borders the west of the city centre. It has lots of lakes and fountains.

We drove home, and had the rest of the bolognese with garlic bread for dinner.