Despite the first class Interrail pass, I'd ended up in a six berth couchette, as it was the only thing going. I arrived at the couchette, and two people were already in bed with the lights out, setting cabin rules. I squeezed myself, my pack and my boots into a small area and got my head down. All things considered, I slept well. They were a very courteous lot - the good side of rough backpacker life.

Early into Berlin. After a wash in a posh loo I went to the rail office to find out about trains. The timetable had lied, and it was not possible to get to Copenhagen overnight via Sweden. My best option was to go to Hamburg that day, then take the early morning train to Copenhagen. This would remove my day's sightseeing in Berlin. C'est la vie.

So, I joined the business commuters from Berlin to Hamburg in first class, and was in Hamburg by morning meeting time. Off to the tourist information office. Ho hum, there was lots going on, and few rooms. I was *very* glad that I had not travelled later, as suggested by the rail office in Berlin.

I needed somewhere with good access to the rail station, as my train was at 7 the next morning. I noted misgivings on the part of the TI guy when discussing the first suggested place, and asked it he believed it to be clean. He wouldn't even confirm that. He then suggested a nice little room, with good access by metro to the center of town. I agreed to this, and he gave me the details. I started out to get my room.

It was then that I read the details more closely. The hotel was just off a street called Reeperbahn, and I would need to get to the same named metro station to get there.

The Reeperbahn was asleep when I got there. A few supermarkets and tacky tourist shops were open, that was all. The hotel turned out to be in a side route which was twenty yards, and a million miles, away from the main road in a comfy middle class neighbourhood. I dropped my luggage off, and found that I could have breakfast the next morning after all.

On the netro I'd done a quick cramming exercise on the sights of Hamburg. First, I'd decided was a trip on a boat around the docks. I walked down to the awesome views on the riverside.

Sold a house, tried to buy a house (turned out to be falling down through botched DIY), and getting a car next week.

Currently in a rented studio flat, with most of my stuff in storage a hundred miles away. Ah well, it's better than what went before.

Much. :-)

Too many old friends died in the last few months. My uncle, and Ken, whose condition so worried me last September, and Patricia, who seemed as if she would go on for ever.

I won't be travelling much this year, my small amount of holiday is mostly already spoken for, but next year should be better.

I must get back to doing this more often...

Selling one place, renting one to live in, renting out another than I own. It'll be nice not to have three properties in my life again. (Well, at least two and a storage unit!) :-)

At least this one has now been declared mouse free, at least for now. And some time soon I'll have some furniture. And I'll have my weekends back. For a while.

I've got rid of quite a bit of stuff over Freecycle, although I will end up with the European paint lake in my bathroom. Well, it has a weirdly shaped piece of dead space behind the bath and under the immersion heater. And I'm sure the next place will need paint.

I've got back onto broadband, after a period when my broadband 'service' was about the speed of a 14400 modem. :-(

More later. At least I remembered my password.

I spent yesterday at Katowice zoo. This has mainly the standard animals, but lots of space in a large park area, so it is possible to see animals, particularly antelopes, etc., in something much nearer to natural surroundings.

After many cold days it was lovely to stroll around in the sun. I got some odd looks, they don't get many foreign tourists, but no trouble. Then back home, where I suddenly ran out of steam, and went to bed early.

The next two nights will be tough. One in a couchette to Berlin, and the next I know not how to Copenhagen (the international computer booking system was down at Katowice station).

Sorry, I had to break off suddenly yesterday.

From Nurnberg I travelled to Plauen, and from there to Bad Elster (http://www.bad-elster.de/), on the Czech border. This was a visit to an old friend, but I had never been to the area before.

The town itself is a historic spa town, with many fine buildings, but the financial depression in the area is all too visible. The situation is much worse in Adorf a short way off. Many buildings are empty, having been bought by investors who can now neither sell them, nor rent them out. Many of these are historic buildings that should be being cared for. Large numbers of the older people are unemployed or pensioners. The young have mostly left for jobs elsewhere.

The first day (Saturday) I looked around Bad Elster, first making an abortive attempt to rent a bicycle. They had no maps for loan, and anyway they closed at 12.00 (the time by then was past 10.30). And the price for that hour and a bit was 7 Euros. I decided to stay on foot.

I was one of the youngest people around, most were older people taking the waters. As time went on the day slowly warmed up, and I saw the spa buildings in the autumn sunshine with the multicoloured leaves. I took lots of pictures.

After some lunch and a quick look at the local museum, I met with the old friend at a cafe with music, and lots of cakes that I couldn't eat. Very traditional. Then off to the opening of a new bridge and the laying of the foundation stone for a new hotel, a big event for the town. All of the important, and unimportant, locals were there, plus the west German investor - who could be spotted way off by his suit, the way he wore his tie, his hair and his general manner. But both the bridge and the hotel will certainly help the town.

The following day I got up early and walked briefly into the Czech Republic. The Vietnamese-run kiosks that I had been told about were just over the border, but were shut at 7.00 a.m.

Later on I was taken on a trip to the musical instrument museum at Markneukirchen (http://www.markneukirchen.de/). The town is still an important centre for hand made instruments, but the DDR mass market factory has long since gone. The museum is well worth seeing.

After lunch at a viewpoint cafe, seeing the new ski jump, and a recently restored open air theatre, we went back to fetch my luggage and off to the station for my circuitous overnight route to Katowice.

I had originally thought I would travel via Dresden and Gorlitz. But it proved to be much faster by Leipzig and Berlin. I know that cities don't look their best from a train, and that everything looks spooky at dusk, but the state of the parts of Leipzig that I saw from the train was numbing.

The new Berlin hauptbahnhof was very slick, apart from the poster stating quite definitely that my train did not go to Krakow or Katowice on Sunday evening. The train got me here a bit late, but otherwise OK.

It's been a strange few days. Not least because I could not get to the internet. There was supposed to be an internet cafe in Bad Elster, but I never did find it.

More later...

OK. ON Wednesday I moved on to Nurnberg, more or less on a whim (the train was ready and waiting).

I went to the tourist office and got a room. Small, washbasin only, called 15a - the landlady was terribly apologetic. However, only 25 Euros a night, and very near the centre. After having contacted friends, I went to see the Germanisches museum. Marvellous collection. Not only a good collection of musical instruments and old masters, but a superb folk art collection in the attic.

Yesterday, having contacted another old friend G, I went to the Documentation Centre on the outskirts. In other words the Third Reich history museum, which uses part of the monstrous collection of buildings and parade grounds. The museum plotting the rise and fall of the movement was interesting, as was the walk around the remaining buildings (this is paralleled by an environmental walk - if you can, read both sets of boards). The weather was beautiful, and my sprained toe behaved quite well.

This morning, in a few minutes, I go to Plauen.

I canät get into my email.

All is well, I am off to Plauen this morning. Then probably on to Poland from there.

Must post this before my card runs out.

Just a quickie.

I found a very cheap room in the old town. Saw H & R for supper, they are keeping better than for the last couple of years.

Off to a 'new' museum here.

All OK. CU later. Ö-)

My attempt to get back into Germany was not as successful as it should have been.

I got to Brussles, then to Liege, but I had misread the rail map and timetable, and ended up in Eupen (an isolated German enclave).

I had been trying to avoid the Thalys trains, because of the huge surcharge on Interrail users.

After the return trip I found that one of the problems had been that I was reading the weekend timetable. I then found a train to Aachen in about 40 minutes, had a coffee and waited for it.

The train was InterRegional, i.e. local. It gently puffed its way through pretty valleys (some of which I had seen twice already), eventuallz reaching Aachen. There I changed to Koln. This was another train that took life easy, and I arrived an hour later.

By this time I had found from the guidebook that the Tourist Information office was open until 9, so I went there and booked a room. This cost 28 Euros! The hotel was clean, but very 70s. I then went out for a meal of Kassler and mash.

The meal, or the day, seemed to have disagreed with my system, and I had a bit of a rough time back at the hotel. But I got some washing done, and this morning I took the train to Nurnberg.

I am now off hotel hunting, then museum viewing.

:-)

Monday is the day that all Belgian museums go into hibernation. It is also always a day when it rains (at least in my experience).

Having gone on a short bike ride, I could control the bike a bit better this time, I set off on foot through Mechlen towards the station. I had decided to go to the zoo in Antwerp. Unfortunately I was already wet by the time I arrived, so I decided to go to Brussels instead. At this point the rain was a fine drizzle.

When I got to Brussels it was dry, after a short period of confusion I got to the main square, and the tourist office. The tourist office had a special leaflet "Things to do on Monday". I decided to have some lunch and go to the Jewish museum. Seeing a queue outside a sandwich bar, I joined it. When I got my ham baguette and asparagus soup I realised that my hunch had been correct. This was a good office worker's place that few tourists also found.

Things went down from there. Resuming my walk, it started to rain, and the rain got harder and harder. I sheltered under an awning outside a Godiva chocolate shop and my mobile phone rang. This was the estate agent saying that the buyer who was trying to get a mortgage seemed to be serious and it was worth talking to him, but leaving the property on the market in the meantime. The rain by this time was near enough torrential, and I had only a windproof jacket on. There was a taxi rank opposite, and it began to look very attractive.

I decided to cut my losses, I had no chance of getting to the Jewish museum without a complete soaking. I phoned my friends in Mechlen to say this. I then thought it would be only polite to buy some chocolate from the shop, so I went it. Having made my order, I was told it was 1.08 Euros, I gave the shop assistant 2.10 Euros, so as to minimise the number of coins in my change. She gave me 2 cents in change. When I queried this, she said I had only given her one Euro. I eventually left, furious.

I got a taxi back to Brussels Central and took a train to Mechlen. By this time the rain had stopped for a while, and there was a train just coming for Lier - a small town with a good write up in the guidebooks. So I took the train, but by the time I got to Lier it was tipping down with rain again, so I edited my itinerary and stayed on the train to Turnhout, a place on the Dutch border.

Turnhout was dry, so I didn't simply turn around, but went for a walk. The main square was crammed with cars, but otherwise attractive. It seemed worth looking around on some future occasion, and apparently has a good playing card museum (on any day except Monday). Drifting back, I realised that the best cafe I had seen was the one at the station. So I went in and got an apple juice. Superficially, it was the old station cafe, but there were antique suitcases decorating parts of the room, and the food and atmosphere was good. A good end to a rather lousy day. On the way back it became apparent that this would be a good idea for rural bike rides.

Back in Mechlen, after supper we went for a walk, and have been hearing the cathedral's carillon concert in the background during the evening.

Tomorrow I head back towards Germany and Poland... :-)

Mechlen seemed to be making a much greater effort for the Belgian Monuments day (the local version of Heritage Open Days), so it made more sense to stay around home than to go to a big city which had done little (this is often the pattern in Britain as well, Stockport puts on a much better show than Oxford).

Having chopped the now thawed kidney, and placed it with the steak to cook for the day, we went to the bus station to take a trip around the historic housing projects of Mechlen and Willebroek. The guide was a local enthusiast who was trying to get the local authority to take notice of the sort of stuff that gets preservation orders slapped on it in the UK now.

First stop was a 1920s garden town on the edge of Mechlen, modelled on Letchworth, etc. Then onto a much earlier (1860s) example attached to the papermill at Willebroek. First the memorial to the mill owner, then the remains of the original town square. The locals looked at us in astonishment.

A few hundred yards away, there were two remaining post-First World War wooden prefab emergency housing. Much of Willebroek had been badly damaged, and US aid included these emergency houses. Both of the examples we saw were now under threat, and our guide was trying to find a new home for one of them at an open air museum (for certain it was so small that it is intolerable as a house now). So far the Belgian authorities are uninterested, and don't see that there is anything worth preserving. It felt like visiting Iron Bridge back in the 1970s.

To round off, we were taken to a 1960s concrete council estate, with a rather nice park around it... still... But the earlier stuff had been well worth seeing.

After a sandwich lunch back at the house, onto another of the houses. This one was really strange. The only 1930s house in a street of carefully restored and recreated historic buildings. As I commented, "the smallest and scruffiest house on the street". Yes, it had been left for years, yes it had the original wallpaper. Then the local carnival procession started outside, and from the windows of this rather seedy house we saw marching band after marching band, flag throwers, archers, drummers, horse drawn carriages, and a handful of giants to finish off. Surreal.

A cup of tea and a biscuit later, we viewed the local archaeological outfit excavating the floors of a bathroom suppliers. What they had actually got hold of was a whole street of houses, the oldest of which dated back to the 14th century. As often happens, what had originally been villas deteriorated into slum housing by the nineteenth century, and from the outside they had appeared to be nothing more than that. Doing the whole road at once enabled the archaeologists to get an impression of the history of the whole area, and not just one isolated spot.

Their display of finds included everything - coins, broken china, mumified rats and mice, etc.

Once back here I turned the cooked steak and kidney into a pie, with the aid of a pack of frozen shortcrust pastry (a bit crisper than the English variety). After that I was too full, and too tired, to borrow the bike and run over a few historically dressed locals on the town square.

Tomorrow I find out about the house sale at home, and think about moving back into central Europe if there is no need to return to Blighty.

See you. :-)

This morning we took the Saturday morning trip around local tapestry manufacturers and conservers, de Wit (http://www.dewit.be).

This is a guided tour of a collection of tapestries dating from the late middle ages until the present day with descriptions of how old tapestries are repaired, and a demonstration of how they are woven. It was the Mechlen sight that the Michelin guide was most keen on. The workshop building is a religious refuge from 1480, so the building alone is worth seeing.

The guide, who spoke Flemish, French and English was rather sniffy about the naive nature of a fascinating old example full of unicorns, hunted animals and foliage. Formal eighteenth century ones were more to his taste. However, he gave a clear account of how tapestries are made and restored.

To get the most out of the trip try going to a couple of old cotton mills first (or watching Harris Tweed makers). The weaving technique is quite complicated.

After a light lunch we went around the town flea market. These are held once a year, different towns and cities using different days. It was Mechlen's turn this day.

I had seen a better selection of stuff a couple of years back near Liege, but we nonethless came back with a collection of Japanese inscripted china and a heap of ancient Flemish pulp novels, including a translation of Robert Heinlein's Farmer in the Sky (the first Heinlein SF novel to be translated into Flemish). I made sure not to buy anything - my pack weighs enough already.

An attempt to cycle around the town square left me shaking with fear, exhaustion, and the collywobbles. The bike seemed to weigh about ten times as much as mine at home, I wasn't used to cycling over cobbles, the handlebars were in the 'wrong' place and responded oddly, and my right knee (the replaced one) was struggling to keep up. Better luck next time (tomorrow probably). I was told that this was a nice light Belgian bike, and I should have tried a plutonium Dutch version before complaning about the weight.

An attempt at cooking steak and kidney pie has so far left us with some carefully diced steak, and an extortionately expensive calf kidney that turned out to be frozen when I took a knife to it. It is currently thawing in the (switched off) microwave so as to protect it from the ever hungry cats. Work on the pie resumes tomorrow morning. All pretence that S&K pie is an economic traditional British dish seems to have gone... Let them eat kidney...

Tomorrow is the Belgian Heritage Open Day, and this year's theme is 'Houses', so we are off to take a look at the houses that are on display. This is well beyond guidebook territory.

CU. :-)

Took a fairly empty train to Bruges this morning. I had remembered it from long ago as a very pretty town with canals on which I had had a boat trip. I hoped to repeat the boat trip. We took the bus to the town centre as I did not know how my back would hold out on the cobbles for the day.

Bruges was much less scruffy than either Mechlen or Antwerp, but rather crawling with tourists. First off, we had a walk around town, with a light (well, light for me) lunch in a pastry shop. The tourist streets were rather crowded, so we walked into a quieter area where there were old working men's cottages rather like those in British industrial towns (two up, two down). I have rarely seen this type on the continent.

We looked in a bookshop for a better Belgium guidebook. The somewhat elderly (2004) Lonely Planet guide is quite good at telling you what restaurants and hotels you should use while you are in a town, but pretty hopeless at saying why you should go there in the first place. After a bit of discussion we settled on the Michelin, as it best covered sights in Belgium, and why you might want to go to them (the Rough Guide was also rather better than the Lonely Planet). There was also a superb guide to Flemish towns in Flemish, but it weighed a ton, so we hoped to catch up with it in Mechlen.

Then, as the weather was by now looking quite good, we went to one of the quays for a boat trip. After a short wait we got into the boat. Halfway around my camera's batteries gave up the ghost. I didn't have the spares with me. The trip was as good as I remembered. It is a really good and relaxing way to see Bruges from a different angle.

We'd discussed going to see one of two museums, and ended up at the Frank Brangwyn museum at the Arents House. This gave a much clearer view of an artist quite a bit of whose work I've seen, but it always seems different from the last thing I saw. For certain, he seems to be an artist like William Orpen, who was deeply affected by his experience as a war artist during the first world war. The later engravings are very bleak indeed. It's a small museum, but well worth seeing if you have an interest in art.

By this time it was near enough five, and so we walked back to the station to get a train to Mechlen. The trains were now crowded, and in the second train the ticket inspector seemed much amused at my slumming it in second class.

Tomorrow I hope to get to a tapestry factory guided tour, and there is a large flea market here. But it's getting late now...

We ate at a restaurant just out of the main tourist area. Very good soup, main course not quite as good, but overall a nice place to have been.

Slummed in second class on the way back. ;-)

Brr... it's cold. Autumn has come early. I've got just about enough clothes, but wearing my spares yesterday while the others were washed was a little chilly. I hope to get a bit of Indian summer before the month is out.

Off to see Bruges today. I'm hanging around 'close to home' for a while as the house seems to be near being sold, and I'd rather be on this side of the continent if I have to pop back home to sign the contract. Also, my bruises are slowly clearing.

CU :-)

Much of the rest of Wednesday was spent resting and chatting.

Yesterday after an easy morning we went for a drift around Antwerp, starting off in the tourist part of the old area, but later on around an old docks area that was being heavily redeveloped. We dropped into the cathedral for a few minutes to avoid rain, but there was a charge to see more than the shop, and we decided to move on rather than pay.

I later gathered from the Lonely Planet guide book that it is well worth seeing, it was just that we could see only a tiny bit from where we were.

The old dock area was a long thin park with buildings either side, some very old, some modern, most being done up. It was not until we reached the far end of the park that the penny dropped, one side of the park was called Flesmish shore and the other side Walloon shore. The park had once been a basin.

The houses were all the old merchants' houses, in only one place had the old warehouses behind been preserved, but it was well worth seeing, and completely tourist-free.

More in a while... :-)

After writing that last bit I returned to the hotel to find that there were no food shops around there. I'd had a filled roll, so that had to do as supper. I was so worn out that I went to bed early with BBC News 24 for company. Nothing drastic seems to have happened in the last few days.

On the train this morning to Brussels I seemed to be the one scruff among a lot of bureaucrats. After they'd handed out free chocolates and towels, I realised that I must have missed the earlier free drinks (I had assumed that the guy with the trolley was charging for the bottles). I must remember that next time.

At Brussels Nord I changed for Mechlen, and here. Lunch and one huge sorbet sundae later, I feel much better if still somewhat stiff. It's a relief to be writing this at an English keyboard on an English system.

I'm not sure as yet what the next few days hold, apart from a possible dash back to England to sell the house. I'll see. :-)

Now to have a sneak at my default settings. Some attempts to comment on this are apparently being denied. :-(

 

I got to the Roman museum, and it was pretty good, but even better was the extra bit under the town hall, the Praetorium. This cost all of an extra Euro. Not only had you got the complete foundations, but there was a nice clean bit of Roman sewer to wander along, with greatest danger being claustrophobia, or so the warnings said.

Weird recent deja vu, there was a piece of reconstructed sewer in the Warsaw Uprising museum yesterday, they were used as the communications system during the uprising (as film buffs will know).

I'm told there's a great chocolate museum, but I've missed it now...

It has been raining on and off, but I have managed to miss it (the last way being coming back in here for another session). I managed to get my email cleared as this place seems much more secure than yesterday's.

I'm off to Mechlen via Brussels tomorrow in the morning. The reservation for one train was much cheaper than the other (3 instead of 22 Euros). I'll find my way around this system. The little hotel for tonight seems OK, although a bit out of things.

See you!