Our Day up north wasn’t wasted, with a lovely 70km cycle along the Baltic coastline, with forests, dikes and dunes on a lovely autumn day.

Bremerhaven has been a bit more interesting that our German mechanics let on. We spent the better part of the day going through the Klimahaus – a really interesting concept! The exhibits show cultures, landscapes, flora and fauna from 8°E Longitude. Filled with more than enough to keep us busy for another 5 hours or so – we are the slowest museum couple out there – the highlights include a tropical fish area (Samoa), Antarctica (freezing walk), tropical rain forests (really hot & humid) and Sahara (really hot & dry) – and to sum up, the idea that mid-latitudes can have a bit of all of these at various times of the year. Add to all that a great harbour area for old sailing vessels – and the last remaining U-boat of its type, and it’s been a fairly good day.

We are camped right next to a major dike fronting onto one arm of the harbour. Given a quite dramatic tidal range that revealed huge mud flats glistening in the setting sun – absolutely beautiful.

We spent the earlier part of the day looking at routes to take us down south. The planned version is: Emden tomorrow – Giethoorn Monday – Naarden Tuesday – Amsterdam Wed/Thur/Fri – Broek in Waterland Saturday – Marken Sunday – Zaanse Schans Monday – Leiden Tuesday – The Hague Wed/Thur – Delft Friday – Kinderdijk Saturday. That gives us around 600km over 2 weeks, which will help us manage our growing diesel deficit!

So, Van is sorted out with a new front fender, Fiat updates, and acknowledgement that the Fiat oil indicator (5 bars showing full or not) is really crap and best ignored. We’ve filled the freezer with meat for the next two weeks, topped up our wine and whiskey cellar, and are prepared for a relatively early start – given that sunrise is now closer to 7:30, take this with a pinch of salt!

It’s been a higgeldy-piggeldy kind of two days, with more of the same coming up…

The Hanseatic Museum on Saturday should only be spoken of in superlatives, but I lack the skills, so … It took us almost 5 hours to do the main tour, at the end of which we decided to forsake further wanderings through adjacent historical sites. The museum is filled with the most stunning ehibits, and the information given on each area was very informative. Your ticket, with a QR code, triggered explanations and mobile exhibits, in your language of choice, and with enhanced information depending on what you chose in the setup. I chose Bergen and ‘Law & Order’, so, at appropriate points, the interactive screens added info for me – how cool is that, Norway? We had to take a break halfway through and calculated if we didn’t speed up our walking / reading / comprehension / ooh/ahhs we would be there long after dark!

Kaispeicher, Hamburg

Hamburg, heading to the tourist harbours

Sunday saw us heading to Hamburg, intent on getting the van sorted out. We slept in a narrow, tree-lined road in a residential suburb, with passing kids staring in and making comments – perhaps not the usual sights on the way to school? That meant we had much of Sunday to walk around the main tourist harbour area, Speicherstadt, and take in the waterfront in weather more summer than autumn.

Having a beer outside in the sun Niki had a bit of a tearful moment. Her mum, Ursula, was born in Hamburg and lived through the bombings, and the last time Niki and mum were together had recounted those experiences. An interesting point I think I remember from somewhere … a greater tonnage of bombs dropped on Hamburg in the Firestorm than dropped on England in the entire war?

This was brought home with a visit to St Nikolai, left in remembrance to the horrors of war.

Monday brought hours of driving through Hamburg’s busy suburbs as we went from a) Fiat dealer to fix the fender dinged in Sweden months ago – come back next Monday  b) Burstner dealer to have a water integrity check done – no, we didn’t know we had to pay for this ourselves, it’s got a 5-year warranty  c) Pioneer to sort out our satnav – No, we didn’t know the data card was from 2015, but thank you for checking with Pioneer and sorting the card out, not charging us €65! Ho Hum.

So, what to do with a week while we wait for our new fender? Hmmm, how about back to Lübeck? So here we are having Grille Hax, rotkohl, kartoffel salat und weisswein … I’m fully engaging the culture! Tomorrow will see us heading north Rostock along the Ostsee to Stralsund before looping back to a national park in Müritz, north of Berlin. With a bit of luck we’ll get back on the bikes and cycle through what looks like a 1000 lakes. IF the weather holds … beach und bier for the next few days!

Last thing: Big ‘Thank You’ to Niki for navigating today. Strange city, pedestrians/bikes/buses/carscarscars, a navi that went on the blink (almost said, ‘went on the fritz’!!), and all of it on small suburban roads: Kept her cool, overrode the GPS (with 50/50 success, if truth be told) and got us to each point with minimal fuss. Really cool!

So, true to form, we’ve been absolutely useless at heading off as planned. Reasons for this are quite simple: Absolutely stunning weather, fantastic parking spot, and the medieval capital of the Hanseatic League, Lubeck.

When we arrived on Thursday morning the intent was to spend a day or so going through the old city. Turns out that there is just way too much to see, and that’s just part of it. It’s great being back in Germany – we have quadrupled our beer intake, had coffee and cake whenever we’ve wanted, and opened our evening fare with a standard German dinner.

Today we went on a pretty full-on walking tour of the old city, with Niki going full Deutscher, proceeding at pace and stopping at each of the points marked on the very good tourist map. I hadn’t taken a watch, so was unable to control the flow of walk – rest – walk – beer – repeat, and it was only when nearing collapse that we were able to settle down to a bite to eat and a large beer. The latter was required because I couldn’t reach the water bottle in my bag, and also because the steadily increasing temperatures required adequate rehydration – forecast for tomorrow is 26°C. When thinking that we left Norway at a midday high of 6°C, well, we are enjoying this.

The city has proven to be an absolute gem, and even with Niki cracking the whip we didn’t get round to seeing the Hanseatic museum, and that is apparently a 4 hour expedition. So we’ve shelved plans to move for another day or so, and will look to get to Hamburg on Sunday. We’ve booked the van in for repairs to the fender on Monday in Hamburg, which is only 60km away, so no need to rush anywhere.

Highlights of the walk today – Wow, so much! The St. Marien Kirche was simply astonishing. Begun in 1200 it underwent various additions. Entering the church is impressive enough, with soaring aisles that really characterise the gothic church construction – but then you take a few steps further, and the main vault soars almost 40 meters above ground, with twin spires of 125metres – the highest brick vault in the world, and Germany’s third largest church. I had no idea brick could sustain those stresses, and it’s clear to see why the church itself was used as a model for 70 churches in the Baltic region. Bombed in 1942, reconstruction began in 1947, in the process uncovering some of the original frescoes painted over during the Reformation. The church bells remain where they crashed to the ground in 1942.

History all around you here, from magic marzipan shops to the salt cellars of the Hanseatic Leagues (salt fish for the English), church spires and merchant homes, Willy Brandt to hidden gardens. I’m looking forward to another day here, particularly as coffee and cake right outside the van gives us another opportunity to see an eye-wateringly kaleidoscope sunset, fish eagles, migrating birds (collective noun for a group of swans?)… etc etc!

And … Happy Birthday Devon! (Yes, Dad knows he’s a day late!)