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Camper Van
At our first campsite We picked up the campervan on Monday afternoon. Very relaxed place - just had a few campers that they were hiring. Ours is a brand new Fiat Ducato with just over 1800km on the clock. We were able to set it up before we took off. A lot different to the pressure cooker system with the Maui vans. Our first stop was 100m away at the supermarket and we were able to get everything that we needed for about 50 Euros. Food seems a lot cheaper in Germany. It took a little getting used to being on the right side of the road, but much easier than the first time. Much easier too because the van wasn't as wide as the US campers. The hardest thing was changing gear with my right hand - a 6 gear gearbox. We stopped about 20km away in a camping ground near a lake. It should have been a quiet place but for the kids - about a dozen Irish kids who spent the majority of their time whining and crying. Next moring we were off on the autobahn heading for Bautzen - to look at the Sorb museum. I couldn't manage the speedlimit on
Camper Van - Interior
From the back door - getting unpacked the autobahn (unlimited) but was comfortable at 100-110km with some of the cars passing easily doing 160+.
Bautzen is a walled town - surrounded by some industry and large apartment blocks - but the overall impression is of the towers on the skyline. The castle tower, church tower, clock tower and water tower all make for an interesting skyline - I am sure there is a quilt somewhere there for Alison. The Sorb's are a slavic people who migrated west - some went south to become serbs and croats, and those who went directly west became the Sorbs. The signs in the area are all bilingual, and there are a number of traditions which have been maintained including the local dress. We didn't see anyone wearing it though. We wandered through the town - lots of ancient and multicoloured houses, pastel shades, and small alleyways, and cobbled streets. We had coffee and cake in a cafe in the square. The proprietor struck up a conversation about travel so we had an interesting communication with his very limited english, our very limited German, gesticulations, drawings etc. In the end he obviously enjoyed it because he gave us our coffee and cake
Bautzen Square
The photo is not distorted - The Apotheke did have a bend and twist in the upper stories for free.
When we got back to the camper we couldn't get the navigation system to work properly - it gave an error indicating that it couldn't find the GPS - even though it was working. So after fiddling and changing settings, and reinstalling and swearing a bit, and getting very frustrated we decided to stay - along with some other German camper vans - in the car park. In the morning we sent an e-mail to the computer company and tried to find the cause of the problem. In the end it has turned out that the problem was that we were in a carpark - and it didn't recognise this. But instead of saying were we on a road it indicated that the GPS wasn't working.
After that interlude off to Meissen - on the autobahn and then on little roads - a bit nerve racking at times because there is not a lot of room between the trees on the right and the oncoming car on the left, especially if the road is cobbled and uneven. Meissen is famous for its porcelain. We were treated to an excellent demonstration of porcelain manufacture, then had a wander around
the museum - 300 years of porcelain. The main pattern is a traditional onion pattern imported from China, but I think that the designers got a bit bored at times judging from some of their creations of bizzare scenes and figures in porcelain. We didn't buy any - the thimbles started at 50 Euro and everything went up from their. We did have a coffee in the cafe and got to sample the fine porcelain that way - it was very nice.
Off to a camping ground by a lake. We were walking down by the lake - near a swimming pool. In the distance Alison saw a man wandering down to the lake edge in a pink bathing suit. Then she realised that the pink was his skin and he was wearing nothing at all - I think he had just come from the sauna. Then another one wandered down. Alison was in fits of laughter by that stage.
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