Day 550: Muskauer Park

Site time! Had breakfast of pastries from the convenience store attached to the truck stop then headed off. Today's site is a large landscaped garden area that's in both Germany and Poland - it straddles the river which these days serves as the border between countries. The garden is from the 18th century and had a big impact on subsequent gardens - lots of important principles like creating stages out of various size trees, sightlines to and from various places, little follies and the like.

We spent a few hours wandering around, then had some lunch in the cafe which was quite busy. We weren't expecting that since it's literally the middle of nowhere (back at our truck stop had a real frontier town vibe to it), but apparently it's well known in Germany since plenty of tour buses turned up. But it's a big park so it never felt crowded.

We got all our filming done and then headed home. Just on the Polish side of the border there are hundreds of crappy trinket stalls and places selling cigarettes and liquor, obviously at much higher prices than over the border. It had a real third-world feel about it which was unusual, and we mused that this was probably the highest income-disparity border in Europe. Generally countries have a fairly similar level of wealth to their neighbours, but the different between Germany and Poland is pretty stark I think. Though Poland is much more developed than you might expect!Read more