Tschüss-schön

On our last few days in Germany we really picked up the pace. Aside from the lack of drinking water and public toilets, Germany was absolutely our favourite country we visited and leaving it was certainly a sad experience. Hopefully we'll be back soon!

On Saturday we visited the final large city in Germany of our trip: Hanover. This city, linked to British history through the Georgian kings, was an absolute treat which was made only better by the music festival in town. Possibly due to the festival, or perhaps usually scheduled, on our cycle in we stumbled across an enormous market where we got all sorts of goodies from a GDR medal to tools for Moira.

Cycling further through town and after our picnic we stopped across the Waterloo monument. I wonder if the actual battle site will also have as much scaffolding?

Expecting to find a museum we happened into a whole exhibit of an aquarium. Since all the information was in German we were forced to stop learning and just enjoy the fish, not the worst fate!

One of the highlights of the museum was this super cool bronze age (or perhaps iron age, I couldn't read the signs) mould for a spear head.

Another chilled cycle through the town and a few stops later we headed out of Hanover to Osnabrück for the next night but before getting there we stopped off for the night at this open air museum of a medieval village. This included both genuine late medieval sections and modern reconstructions, super cool again.

The reason for our visit to Osnabrück was twofold and the first was the site of a battle in 9AD. This was the battle of Varus and our first Roman site since Ingolstadt! Needless to say we were both super excited to be back in the Roman Empire, sort of. This battle was an absolute massacre for the Romans including the loss of 3 legions, 1/8th of the whole Roman Empire's military strength, and any ambitions of adding Germania to the empire. The site therefore didn't include the usual buildings and endless pots of normal Roman sites but lots of military equipment including this incredibly well preserved Roman armour!

Heading into the town of Osnabrück itself, after a few hours in an incredible water park on the way, we had a lovely meal out and a rare night time wander around a historical town. This included the Rathaus which was the site of the signing of the Peace of Westphalia: ending the Thirty Years War. This conflict had a massive historical and physical impact on the Holy Roman Empire and we have been confronted with its destructive impacts all the way since we were in Bavaria.

Mondays are classically a day in Germany when most things are closed so we decided not to bother with Münster and make our way into the Netherlands. Since we're meeting up with a friend in the Netherlands we had a few chores to get done first so the 3 hour drive over included some shopping, washing, and emptying the waste. This didn't meant that we couldn't enjoy ourselves so we stopped off in a motorway services, a gorgeous site in much of Germany unlike the UK, and cooked up a full English with a board game. 

Finally out of Germany we parked up in an absolutely breath-taking park up in the Netherlands ready for some cool Dutch and Roman history in Utrecht tomorrow!