Dusseldorf, Germany

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June 11, 2008

Dusseldorf, Germany

Nice city !!! We travelled a few hours today through some more great countryside and arrived in Dusseldorf in time to spend the afternoon and evening exploring this great city.

Dusseldorf is a lot different from Berlin. Very clean, a lot of the “old character” that we enjoy and a very beautiful location on the Rhine River. Dusseldorf is a favorite place to visit due to it's location on the Rhine and many river cruises come here as well as day trips from coastal ports. In hindsight we wish we had another day here but we are committed to go to Brussels tomorrow. There is some interesting castle hunting here as well. Yup !!! More castles. We'll be Back !!

The terrain changes significantly as you travel through Germany and we found the scenery today to be more like what we liked so much in Bavaria with the rolling hills and farms. It is different from what we expected, but then we couldn't decide what we had expected !!

We are both very impressed with the driving trip through Europe so far. For any one who like to drive, has some driving skills, sufficient time and is not intimidated by some very good and fast freeways we would recommend this as good way to see these facinating countries. Much easier with GPS and we wouldn't try this without one. For us coming from Canada we are still getting used to the distances when you look at a map. Everything is much more “compact” here.

For anyone who is interested, the cost to drive our Peugeot Diesel is about 5.5 liters / 100KM. ( average city and country ) ( A little less than our motorhome !!! ). For our American friends that's about 42.8 miles / US Gallon, and for our “OLD” Canadian friends that about 51.4 Miles / Canadian Gallon ). Good thing !! It's now costing about 80.00 Euro ( $128.00 ) to fill up this small car.

One very obvious thing in our Germany travels is the amount of wind powered generation that is being used here. We have seen thousands of big wind generators since arriving in Germany. For us they do not “spoil the view” as is the complaint from so many. ( the same people who don't want coal fired, nuclear powered, hydro dam powered, fuel oil fired electrical plants ). Maybe we should all go back in time and work and live like the Quakers and the Amish.

Some of these areas are very highly industrialized and the big German names ( All kinds of beer, Mercedes, BMW, Volkswagen ) are evident on the biggest buildings and most prominent advertising. As expected things are very well organized here and travel, communications and accommodation are great.

Germany has been fun and we'll be back someday.

Off tomorrow to Brussels, one of our favorite places, for a 2 day stay. ( and lots of chocolate )

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