Day 2; Hanover, and North to Egestorf ( 1 May 2009)

Still trying to catch up the travel date with the date of posting.

After the good night’s sleep at the end of our 1st day, we had a good breakfast at the hotel (indeed, very good!). Then, we had to load all our stuff back into the car – this was our only one night's stay for this entire trip, the next shortest is 3 days, most are 4 days, and on is 5 days. One night is not optimal; too much unloading and loading overhead.

We drove a short distance (and about 30 minutes) around Hanover to the north of the city, to the Grosser Garten, the Big Garden. This is the “garden” of a summer home of the royal House of Hanover, from whence comes the British royal family, starting with George I. Garden is a misnomer; it is a formal garden measuring over 900 m long, ad over 550 m wide, with fountains, high beech hedges (measuring 35 km in total) and boxwood low hedges measuring over 50 km. The views are carefully planned, so that as one walks, suddenly one sees a fountain, or three, down a sightline limited by hedges, and then one suddenly emerges into an area where one can see in all directions. We were there at the height of the German spring, so everything was green, if it wasn’t in bloom. All of this was started in the early 18th c, so one wonders at the wealth of a family that was able to afford the labour that such an undertaking would require, both to build and maintain.

Also part of this complex, but separate from it is the Berggarten, an equally large botanical garden, with every species that will grow in the temperate middle German climate, and greenhouses full of tropicals, desert plants, and orchids. Much of the outside was in full bloom; lilacs, rhododendrons, tulips, etc. One could probably spend days here to exhaust everything there is to see.

But, we had to leave and continue north to our next stop, the little village of Egestorf in the Lueneburger Heide (Lueneburg Heath). By highway, the drive would have been about an hour, but we decided to go through the Heide by slower roads, to enjoy the scenery, and then we stopped for supper at a small village pub, sat outside in the garden, drank wine and beer, and had a very good meal.

At around 6;15 p.m. we arrived at the Hotel Acht Linden, checked in, and then wandered about the town. The Lueneburger Heide still has houses and barns with characteristic thatched roofs, and this village has a lot of them. It also has a Lutheran church in the thatched style, that was built in 1545, with an unusual detached bell tower; very charming to look at, less charming when the bells wake you up at 3 a.m.

After the walk-about we sat on the front veranda of the hotel in the nice evening weather and enjoyed a glass of very nice white wine. Then to bed; or at least, June to bed – I stayed up getting started on these blogs, and didn’t get to bed until after midnight – but I seem to acclimatize to the change in time zone faster than June.