It was unusually warm in France as we headed north to Germany. Like England, they are not equipped to handle the freakish heatwave that had covered most of Europe this year and most of the hotels were not air conditioned, including the one we stayed at on the outskirts of Paris. Refrigerators are not normally standard in hotel rooms either so you could imagine how pleased I was with myself to have our 12/220 volt cooler box. At least we had cold drinks to get us thru the night – too bad we couldn’t fit inside it!
We had no time to stay and enjoy Paris, as we had to be in Hannover for our next house sit in a few days. We did however, manage an overnight stay in Bouillon just over the border into Belgium.
A chance find, not far off our road to Germany and what a stunning, old world town it was. Such a beautiful place in a town we had never heard of before. We stayed in a boutique hotel that was very reasonably priced with a cake shop below displaying some mouth watering cakes and chocolates. The money we saved on accommodation was invested in some very tasty treats for our days drive the next morning.
Our route, coincidentally, took us right through ‘Spa Francorchamps’, the legendary circuit and venue of the Belgium Formula One Grand Prix set in the picturesque mountains of Liège. The race was actually scheduled for the weekend after we were there (rotten luck) so it was a hive of activity as they were setting up. Bad timing for a couple of reasons, apart from the obvious, any other time of the year, I would have been able to drive around the circuit to fully appreciate the steepness of ‘Eau Rouge’, one of the most thrilling corners in Formula One.
By now, I’m sure most of you would be dozing off, like Linda was as she waited patiently in the car while I climbed a hill to catch a glimpse of the track and all of the activity in the pit area as workers were frantically applying the finishing touches. After soaking in the atmosphere for awhile I headed back to the car, where Linda was polishing off the last of our Bouillon delights, and continued on our way to Germany.
When we were hosting international students in Melbourne, we had a German student board with us. Her parents travelled to Melbourne for a visit while she was there so we invited them over for dinner and had got on really well. I remembered them saying that they lived close to the Belgium border, so we made contact with her and despite the short notice, invited us to stay the night and showed us around their town of Bedburg. We had a really nice evening with them and a scrumptious typical German breakfast the next morning.
Our afternoon’s drive got us to Hannover a little too late to drop into our new house sit so we checked into a nearby Novotel and enjoyed a relaxing sauna and spa.
Our new hosts were a young couple, she was French and he was from Sweden. Their one bedroom apartment was on the fourth floor, no lift or air conditioning but fortunately it was a little cooler in Hannover. We were minding their dachshund and Jack Russell for two weeks while they went to visit family in Sweden. The dachshund had recently had back surgery as she had damaged it jumping off the couch. That meant that we had to constantly watch her and she had to be carried up and down the stairs- Did I mention that it was a fourth floor apartment with no lift?! And of course, being an apartment meant regular walks to the nearby ‘forest’ so they could relieve themselves! We were going to earn this one!
Fortunately, we found an inviting biergarten in the forest (or park) so that gave us ample encouragement for the afternoon walks.
The morning walks (which I performed solo) offered a selection of bakeries and cafes to sit and sip coffee with freshly baked sweet pastries. It was the late evening walks that were a bit of a task but we sometimes used that as an opportunity for one of us to duck into the supermarket for supplies while the other stayed with the hounds to sniff and piss on poles (the dogs that is!).
One of the things we love about Germany, is that you can take dogs just about anywhere. Shopping centres, restaurants, banks, clothing stores. The only place they draw the line at was supermarkets. As we were within walking distance to the centre of Hannover we often took the dogs with us and they were no problem at all (as long as we avoided steps). Sunday markets, shops, restaurants…, we took them everywhere. It still felt wrong walking thru a shopping mall with the dogs in tow. Every shop we went into I’d ask if it was alright to bring the dog and the answer would always be “of course, we love dogs”.
Living so close to the city centre proved difficult in finding a parking spot and as we had chanced one so close to the apartment block, we were loathed to use the car, luckily we didn’t need to because everything was close by. That was until one day we decided to go for a trip to Hameln, about an hours drive away. We packed the dogs in the car and I reluctantly drove away from our prime parking spot. Hameln is best known for the ‘Pied Piper’, a children’s fairytale which apparently, is based on a true story going back to the thirteenth century! I had only vague memories of the fairytale as I was never an attentive student but I got to re-live the story as there was a live performance in the town square which we noticed being set up as we were sitting having cake and coffee. I paid about as much attention to the story this time as I would have at primary school so if you want more detail, you’ll have to ‘Wikipedia’ it!
It was an enjoyable afternoon in Hameln, Linda went shoe shopping with the dogs and I was lured into a bar by a clever sign, that said ‘cold brew’ – repeated four times!
Once our hosts arrived home from Sweden, we cooked them dinner, packed our car and headed to Bremen, to visit Linda’s relatives.
That was our time in Hannover, it was a great opportunity to be city dwellers in a German city for two weeks. We head towards The Czech Republic after Bremen and then back to Italy via Austria, so be sure to keep an eye out for the coming entries.