My journey from Poznan to Germany was punctuated with a
brief stop at a town called Wolsztyn. The reason was to see the last regular
passenger train pulled by steam. As this is a big deal for the Polish railways,
the timetable is arranged for the benefit of the Tourist, It departs at 5.00 O’clock
AM! Yeh you can see me getting up at that time! It was quite interesting to see
a real live Steam depot with a really turntable serving a Roundhouse with 8
tracks. This detour took a little less time that I expected so I arrived at my
night stop at around 2.45pm, I was processed and had 10 Euros extracted before
being told at 4 minutes to 3.00pm, I would have to wait 4 minutes before the
Frau Gate Keeper would allow me on to the campsite. I was directed to an area
of the huge campsite reserved for Campervans, I was the only one on it! All the
nearby toilet blocks were locked but I found one about 5 minutes walk away so I
moved the van nearer! This caused a little consternation of the ground staff,
because I was now in the Caravan part and I had a campervan. The next thing I
discovered was that I needed a token for the showers, so I walked back to the
reception about 1 kilometre to get a token, cost 50cents for 3 minutes, The
Zombi who worked in the reception spoke little or no English, in fact I think
he had problems with Language of any sort, but he proceeded to rant at me in Guttural
German that as I had not requested this when checking in I needed to go back to
the van and bring all the documentation, plus my passport before he would sell
me a token. I am not sure how I did it but I left without telling him what I
thought of him, but I did say that life was too short to worry about having a
shower!
Berlin I have been looking forward to Berlin for a few days
now so I was eager to find a nice campsite get settled and hit the town, The
first campsite I went to was a cross between a swamp and a sewerage farm, so I
went to the next which turned out to be about 30 miles from Berlin with not
public transport, so finally I arrived at City Camping No1, situated right at
the end of Teagle Airport’s main runway, I SAID RIGHT AT THE END OF THE RUNWAY!
The manager who checked me in did a wonderful job of trying not to speak
English at all but even I can ask for 3 nights, 1 person in German so that
upset him even more! This is turning into a rant I know but so far in 5 days in
Germany I have only once had a local smile as they took my money and she turned
out to be Polish! I like Berlin it is much smaller than I had thought and some
of the building both new and old are wonderful. Obviously the well known ones
were my main objective but some of the Soviet Block Housing in the Eastern part
are impressive as well. Checkpoint Charlie is something and nothing but the
Terror monument and the outdoor exhibition is very well executed (pardon the
pun). I was there at 7.00pm in the pouring rain along with about 1000 other and
you could have heard a pin drop! The East end Gallery where famous artist have
done painting is a mess most of the art has had Graffiti written on it and the
only one that “said” anything to me is in the pictures.I would have liked to go
into the Reichstag to see the Dome but it would have meant queuing for an hour
to register, (Photo ID needed) to get a timed ticket which was another 3 hours
wait. Sorry, no can do! Only in Germany could someone come up with the idea of
having a multi peddled bike on which beer is served, and only the British would
ride it, The driver told me that about 80% of his customers were English or Scottish
lads, I’m so proud! One other thing I
did managed to miss was to hire a Trabant, even the one pictured! Tomorrow I am
going to Potsdam, I SAID TOMORROW I AM GOING TO POTSDAM!
