On the Road Again!

The World in Pictures - Day 6 I have been challenged by Neill Devall to post a picture, every day, for the next 10 days. The picture can be of anything you like but each picture must have been taken in a different country. You can tell us about the photo or not, as you wish but must at least specify the country. I'm not going to challenge anyone, but if friends want to take part so well and good! Germany

This Flickr album contains about 103 of the pix taken on the trip. http://www.flickr.com/photos/pauldevall/sets/72157625772506567/ Favourite beer Cerna Hora......

This one turned out to be a very long day. After breakfast and then cleaning our room in the Castle we eventually set off about 0915. Using the Garmin we navigated to the border in good time and bought our motorway vignette. After just a few miles the road ends and there is a big gap to the final section to Prague. The traffic was heavy with trucks in both directions nose to tail. We stopped for petrol soon after Teplice and found the price was even higher than at home. A litre of unleaded was 35.50kč or £1.54! And we complain! The Garmin took us into Prague and then out on the D11 towards Hradec Kralové. Here a former student of mine,  Rostislav Kříž,   lives and I wanted to call in and see him. We stopped for lunch at a Motorest that shared its site with a Hummer dealers!! Rosta lives in a nice house with a massive garden in the outskirts. We had a chat about the old times and then we had to leave. The ordinary road 37 to the D1 took nearly two hours, passing through ...

After our first night in the Colditz YH we went across the outer courtyard to the inner gate. This leads into the older part of the castle and it is where the PoWs were billeted. We joined the 1030 tour. The guide spoke good English and led us through the history of the castle from the 16th century to present day. All the tourists were English speakers including two blokes about our age on bikes. Good job I had ditched my GS Club shirt for a plain one. Embarrassing being in the car, but it couldn't be helped with Claire's soon to be replaced hip. We took quite a few pics and some have made it to Facebook and I have uploaded a lot to  Flickr .  We then had a walk to the town to get supplies for dinner. Eating out goes through money like a hot knife through butter. Bochum was nice but just short of €40 was too much. We stocked up at Lidl and headed back. We saw the bikers and spookily they were on a GS and a 1250GT Bandit... Once the shopping was stashed in the room we got the c...

  Colditz Castle , originally uploaded by InvictaMoto . This is the view from the back of the castle. As prisoners were marched from the station they would have approached across the river bridge on the far corner. More pictures:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/pauldevall/sets/72157627313023949/

As many of the buildings at Dora have been destroyed and the inmates parade ground turned into a communist arena by the former GDR government, the impact of the inhumanities that took place until it was discovered by the US Army in 1945 is hard to conjure in the mind. Dora Flickr From Dora we continued east towards Leipzig and finally to Colditz. Nothing could prepare the visitor for the sheer size of the castle on a rocky promontory overlooking the town. Despite sometimes torrential rain with near zero visibility, our arrival was in the evening sunshine.  The TomTom took us to the main gatehouse that is by the entrance to the German courtyard.  Checking in was easy and we then moved the car, humphing all the bags back up the hill from the Castle's own car park was  a little harder! Finally arrived a Colditz Castle.  This is the view from the window  in the corridor outside our room. Dinner was a 40cm pizza car of the Istanbul Pizza House in the town. Be warned....

The choices for crossing Germany were the "A4" route or the "A3" route. The former being the run across East Germany and entering Czech from the north, or the latter, the route across Germany from Koln to Nurnberg and across the border in the west. When I saw that you could stay in Colditz Castle, and that part of the infamous PoW site was now a German Youth Hostel I was quickly on the email, booking two nights.   In their paperwork I saw that there are tours of the remainder of the castle as well.  After an exchange of emails I have booked us on the "standard" tour and then we can have the afternoon to maybe have run out locally to Leipzig or Dresden. Info: "Extended Tour:  10.30 am  and  02.00 pm which is showing you all places possible to go to, lasts about 2 hours and costs 15,00€ per person. Standard Tour:  10.30 am  ,  01.00 pm  and  03.00 pm  which is showing you the main places, lasts about 1 hour and costs 7,00€ pe...