Vahrenheide

On the move again! Packed up and left fairly early, heading for the station. This was one of the tricky days in our itinerary, since we needed to get to our new destination (Hannover), via a different World Heritage site, and manage all of our luggage as well. Easy enough when you have a car, but when you don't...

The train to Hannover was only short, about 90 minutes to the south, and we arrived around lunchtime. Dropped our luggage in a locker at the station, then hopped on a different train heading to the town of Hildesheim, about an hour to the south-east of Hannover. So we finally arrived at our day's WHS around 1:30pm!

This site is two churches: St Michael's, and the Cathedral of St Mary. They're notable for their incredible artworks which survived the war and "strategic" bombing, including a beautiful painted ceiling inside St Michael's, and a bunch of bronze works from the 11th century in the Cathedral - a baptismal font, a 5 metre tall column, and a pair of enormous 5x2 metre, two tonne doors decorated with scenes from Genesis and the life of Jesus.

Very impressive, but of course we had the issue that Schnitzel wasn't allowed inside either church, so we filmed a bit of both from the outside then went in one by one. And of course it was raining intermittently, as it's done basically for the past two weeks. Oh well, at least there was a bit of shelter nearby!

Filming finished, we walked back to the hauptbanhof and caught the next train back to Hannover. Picked up our luggage and then caught the subway three stops to our apartment. This one, we're staying in a private room in someone's house, though they aren't here for six months of the year. Maybe that's how they skirt around the law!

It looked like a fairly well travelled couple as they had lots of photos on the walls, but also a baby's room so I guess their travelling times have largely finished! Some nice photos of Australia which was good to see! The place is very large - two bedrooms, a long hallway, brand new bathroom and kitchen, and a big living area as well.

For dinner we headed out to a nearby restaurant specialising in - what else - German food. We both had a sambal Schnitzel which was just a normal schnitzel but with a sort of spicy hollandaise sauce. Very tasty! Had a funny moment with the waiter as well, stumbling through our half-learned/remembered German, when he heard talking in English and said "oh we can do it in English if ye want, I'm from Oireland" in a rather broad Irish accent! Simplified things somewhat - though Germans generally have pretty good English, even the older ones, particularly here in the west.

Home to bed, ready for more exploring!Read more