With our doggie handover in Hannover complete, we made the short drive to Bremen, the home town of Linda’s mother. The city has become very familiar to us with Linda visiting many times since she was fourteen and me visiting several times in the last seventeen years as well. We love Bremen, Linda has fond memories of walking around with her mother and Grandmother, who lived to the grand old age of one hundred and five! The first thing we always do in town is head for the Bratwurst kiosk- “Two bratties with mustard on the side”, I beckoned. Once Linda translated, two cooked bratwurst sausages were presented to us!
There are so many beautiful buildings in the city and we seem to discover more on every visit. No visit would be complete without lunch at the ‘Ratskeller’, but as Linda’s aunt Heidi wasn’t with us on this occasion we opted for a casual ‘Nordsea’, my favourite cured fish canteen – ‘Germany’s McDonalds’ I like to call it.
Linda’s cousin ‘Lutz’ kindly hosted us for our stay in Rotenburg (on the outskirts of Bremen) which allowed us to visit aunt Heidi, and fortunately Lutz’s daughter was in town as well so we enjoyed a pleasant afternoon in the tea rooms of a stately building in the woods with views of grazing cattle and the city beyond.
While there, we needed to discuss what was to happen to ‘Oma’s’ house in Hastedt. Oma was Lutz and Linda’s grandmother I mentioned earlier. Her ‘gingerbread house’ (as we called it), that was the family holiday home and residence during the war sat on approximately five acres of lush wooded land and was in a state of disrepair despite Lutz’s efforts in maintaining it over the years. Strict local government rules restrict what can be constructed and modified on the land which sadly, renders the property virtually worthless. If we were to invest in renovating it, local rules would not allow it to be used as a primary residence nor could it be rented out on a short term basis, so we are still at a bit of a stalemate as to what to do with it.
We only stayed a few days. Just enough time to enjoy some typical German breakfasts. Lutz would disappear early in the morning to collect some fresh bread and varied delicacies to have it spread out on the table ready by the time we came downstairs to the aroma of freshly brewed coffee. We could have stayed for weeks but we needed to get to the Czech Republic and Austria before arriving at our next house sit in Italy.
Nothing is very far in Europe but we don’t like driving for too many hours each day so we planned an overnight stop in Dresden on our way to Czech. Linda booked us into one of the nicest hotels we had stayed in for a long time – at a bargain price on booking.com. The room was so large and comfortable we decided not to go out opting to have a steam and a sauna in the hotels spa then enjoying a pizza delivered to our room for a quiet night in.
Our planned destination was a small town called ‘Ceska Trebova’, the home town of Linda’s father. Linda has little knowledge of her father’s background and we were hoping to gather some more on this visit. We had planned to drive directly from Dresden but our route had us driving past Prague. As we had spent a few days in Prague four years earlier we didn’t need to stop but as we approached the ‘Prague exit’, we made the impulsive decision to stop for lunch, as you do!!! Linda navigated us to a shopping centre which provided parking for us close to the centre of town and we enjoyed some local fare by the famous clocks, which sadly were boarded up for restoration! Lucky we had already seen them previously.
Our impulsive detour had us driving out of Prague at peak hour. It quickly became obvious that the Czech’s don’t have the same ‘driving etiquette’ as the Germans. There were cars zigzagging around us on the motorway out of town, like there was a prize to get home the earliest! Once we got past the city limits it calmed down and we found our booked accommodation in a tiny town about thirty minutes away from Ceska Trebova. It had a bar full of rowdy beer fueled Czechs and Russians and it didn’t take us long to realise that our room was directly above. A burly barman approached us asking what we assumed was ‘do you have a room booked?’ We were deep into the Czech Republic now and the use of the English language was zero. Even Linda’s limited German was not helping us but with a bit of mime and pointing we were directed to our room which was surprisingly comfortable. Fortunately the noise subsided at a reasonable hour which afforded us a good night sleep in preparation for our mission the next day.
We arrived at Trebova reasonably early but we weren’t really sure where to start. It was only believed Linda’s father (Rudi) was born in Ceska Trebova. Records were scarce and Rudi never had a birth certificate, we were only going by the late Rudi’s childhood memories. Rudi was vague about his past as it was obviously a painful one. He was interned in a war ‘work camp’ at some stage in Czechoslovakia and rarely spoke about it as he was obviously exposed to some heinous scenes, so we never pushed him. Eventually he made his way to Austria after the war, where his mother was born, and worked there until he migrated to Australia in the mid Fifties.
So, with next to no information, no local language skills, but a positive attitude we entered the city hall with google translate in hand. We were directed to the ‘Tourist Information Office’. We thought they sent us there because they just wanted to get rid of us but there was actually an office there specifically catering to the history of the region. The woman charged with looking after us was very obliging and asked Linda to leave her contact details with the limited information we had and they would contact us if they found anything! We weren’t very hopeful but at least we were a step closer than if we were sitting on our couch in Melbourne! Or were we?
With nothing left to do in Trebova we found a cafe in the city square, ate cake and charged our glasses to Rudi, who we hoped, had tread the cobblestones of the very square we were sitting in.
Our next destination was the Abruzzo Mountains in Italy to look after five dogs and four cats. The most direct way there was via Vienna. A good place to stay for a couple of nights and enjoy all the elegance the city has to offer – but, you will have to wait till the new year to read about it.
May you all have a Merry Christmas and a prosperous new year. We have a busy 2019 planned.