Saturday, May 23
This morning we walked
to a local cafe for breakfast on the way to the parking garage.
Scrumptious bakery and home made cocoa with whipped cream... Pam's
favorite.
We never did get a straight
answer from the hotel clerks as to the price for parking. They just
said it was less expensive than "the other garage nearer by" - in fact,
pretty cheap. Well, we found out the truth when we put our ticket into
the checkout machine's meter after 3 nights of parking. The meter (it
must be related in some way to our SatNav witch) wouldn't take our
credit cards so we had to stuff it with cash. The big rub is, again,
USAA's new Euro style chip and pin card did not work. Norm needs to call
their international hotline to find out what's what. The machine only
"spoke" the local lingo, but seemed to be saying a chip and pin card was
needed, but didn't like it either when one was used.
We found our way back to the hotel and loaded the car since the
malevolent metal street posts were in the "down" position from 6am to
11am to allow delivery vans unfettered access. Then, after 11am, access
with a pass only.
We left Haarlem under
overcast, misty weather which only cleared as we entered Germany.
Traffic seemed heavy for a Saturday and the autobahn was awash with
construction barriers every few miles, thus limiting and narrowing
lanes. Those stretches also had posted speeds. So cars that were merrily
tootling along with no speed limit suddenly had to come off their speed
high. Even with no controls over how fast he could go, Norm topped out
at a safe and sane 140 kph (87 mph). Other cars were passing in a blur -
we could only assume 200 kph (125 mph), or thereabouts. Then that
darned construction would appear and we were all equals. Nyah, Nyah. But
whoops! construction zone over and it was off to the races again. This
happened over and over.
We were originally going
to drive straight to Berlin, but instead headed southeast to Cologne to
visit its namesake Cathedral. We'd like to say that we wanted to see
the reliquary holding the bones of the Three Magi, which were interred
there in in 1164 CE and made the Cologne Pilgrimage one of the largest
of the Middle Ages. We did want to see it, not the bones. Pilgrims did
go for the bones (and these just may be the Real McCoy, but does it
matter?). However, nowadays it's the 800 year old reliquary itself that
is the draw. The Cathedral itself is not the shy type - it's a massive
thing, overpowering. Again, as with some others, a black coat of
external grime makes this a perfect residence for the bad guy in "Lord
of the Rings".
Lunch time...beer...across the street from the cathedral:
So, 425
miles after we started this morning we are staying overnight in
Halberstadt, located in the Hartz Mountains in Central Germany. The
parking is free across from the hotel and every street, we hear, is
accessible to vehicles 24 hours a day. Small favors.
Front entrance:
View from our bedroom window:
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