May 25, 2011

Another warm and sunny day greets us as we set off towards Roermond, a large Dutch city not far from the border with Germany.  Unfortunately, finding our way around Roermond turns out to be a bit of a nightmare – for the first time in Holland the sign-posting is not good.  We eventually emerge but we´ve wasted a lot of time puzzling over the map and going in circles.

We decide to go off our planned route, since the German border is close b,y so that we can spend a little time in Germany – a country neither of us has visited before. 

As always, I have many pre-conceived ideas about how I think Germany will be; I imagine a very orderly and well-managed place, everything clean and tidy with manicured gardens and buildings – a bit like Austria or Switzerland.  And, as always, those ideas turn out to be far from the truth – at least for the part of the country that we have found ourselves in.  As soon as we cross the border from Holland the cycle paths turn into a hotchpotch of messy paths with pot-holes and patched tarmac – on and off pavements, stopping and starting all the time – very like those in the UK.  The towns and villages are nowhere near as neat and tidy as those in Holland and there are signs of vandalism around – broken glass and graffiti – again something we didn´t see in Holland.  We feel a little disappointed but then again we shouldn´t judge the whole country by one small part.  We eventually reach a pretty village and things seem to have looked up a bit – this is better – then we spot a Dutch flag hanging from a café and realise we have crossed across the border into Holland again. How foolish of us not to have known that two giant bronze tortoises on a bridge signify the border! 

We decide to camp nearby and cross back again into Germany tomorrow and see if we can improve our view of the place.