April 21, 2022
Day 9: Arneburg to Wittenberge
Just as we do in any hotel room, campsite, or wild camp for that matter, we took care to leave our elegant and immaculate apartment in Arneburg just as we found it. That included polishing the glasses and silverware, and putting spoons back in the drawer upside down, the way our hosts seemed to prefer it. Although we have been gone from home only a fortnight, it was enjoyable to do these home-like chores. (Not that or home is near as neat or well built as this one was.)
| Heart | 4 | Comment | 0 | Link |
We rolled out once more to the near traffic free street in front of the house, and slowly pedaled the block or two to the centre of town, where we knew there was a bakery. We did not really need the bakery, since we made sandwiches already from what had been brought for breakfast. But once always needs a snack for "coffee time", eh.
While I was stashed outside the bakery with the bikes, I fielded UQs from an old man that arrived to the bakery on his old bike. He did not seem to mind that I understood only 3% of what he was saying, and therefore we managed to communicate: where are we from, where are we going, our bicycles are quite new, eh, we haven't had any mechanical trouble with them, the man has been in America, and has family there, but he is now too old to travel there again. Thanks goodness Dodie came back out quite quickly!
Arneburg was a little surprising for the quality of the place we had stayed in, and now for the downtown. It was not large, but it sure was pretty.
Our Arneburg host, Carsten, had shown us a shortcut out of town, that cut off perhaps 10 km of the radweg route. About 7 km out on the shortcut route we came upon a different kind of "point of interest" in the form of a massive industrial park. There were a few giant companies in residence, and as near as we can make out they are paper producers. Despite a lot of smokestacks, there was no off odour or other apparent air pollution. That's remarkable, because despite abatement equipment, there is still the occasional smell of sulphur from the mill in our region at home. The Premier of BC in the 50's an 60's used to call this the "smell of money".
Our next major town, Havelburg, is on an island in the Havel river, which joins the Elbe nearby. We stopped in to central Havelburg because our GPS claimed it had a bakery. But the indicated spot only featured a closed bookstore. No matter, the Tourist Information had a toilet, and Dodie received German lesson as she was instructed on where exactly in the building this was, and exactly how to flush. This was not all that simple, because there was a red button and a white button. Red was for emergency, and you did not want to find out what happens if you inadvertently try to flush with that one!
Out of Havelburg we basically rode the dike for the rest of the day. Along the way there were a few rest stops, usually featuring informative signage. I liked one that pictured some of the region's prominent wildlife, giving the names in German. We especially like the Biber (#19) because as Canadians we have a special affinity for beavers.
Our destination for the day was in Wittenberge, not to be confused (as we have done) with Wittenberg, further up the Elbe. This latter Wittenberg was big in the Martin Luther story, but we knew zero about Wittenberge.
In Wittenberge we had arranged yet another apartment rental, but this one through Booking. Despite the helpful services of Booking, we still had to have a dialog with the owner, to understand where we would get the key, where to store the bikes, and where specifically the apartment actually was.
As it happened all went well, though the lady on the first floor of the building might not agree, as I tried to bust in to her apartment (twice) thinking it was ours.
Unlike the one in Arneburg, this apartment was not so large or conveniently laid out, or with such good building materials. Instead it is in an old building, and quite filled with cute stuff that just gets in your way. Even so, it is clean and has everything one could need.
The owner pointed out that the hotel around the corner offers a breakfast buffet, not limited to guests. We checked it out, and the price is 15 euros. Instead we bought a bunch of sandwiches from one of the nearby bakeries, that we can use at breakfast and lunch. Whereas in North America a "sandwich" is a lunch food, given that it incorporates bread, cheese, meat it actually equals a German breakfast.
The other thing we spotted around the corner was a Doner shop. Doner is very big in Germany, and is always good. We got a large pile of meat, plus fries and salad for 10 euros, and thereby avoided eating ramen noodles from home tonight.
Wittenberge turned out to be not an ugly town, but while certainly far more interesting than anything we have at home, it would not be top rated in Germany. One thing we appreciated was that it has a bit of commercial activity, allowing us for example to score that Doner. However many buildings betray either a turn of last century brick factory ambiance, or a Soviet type 90's styling.
In the list of Reasons for Living as found on this trip, one might expect these to be our reasons. But tonight as a special treat, we picture a reason adored by many (just not us) - the bottles of Pilsener beer that came with our apartment!
Today's ride: 62 km (39 miles)
Total: 369 km (229 miles)
| Rate this entry's writing | Heart | 11 |
| Comment on this entry | Comment | 0 |