Schwerin Schloss

Fat fingers deleted my journal and I don’t have a deleted folders to recover it so I start again.

We had an early night and decided to head back into Schwerin this morning to have a look around the castle and the extensive grounds. I love how in Germany castle grounds and gardens are free. Lots of people were cycling around the paths. There were lots of trees which would give welcome shade in summer. It was sunny and we needed no coats.

We wandered round the lakes, statues, rose garden and parkland then got to the castle itself just at the same time as the buses were disgorging the tours. We admired the castle from all angles and I did struggle to decide on a blip as it was so pretty with different levels of outside staircases, flowerbeds and an orangery.

We walked back to the van, picking up sone strawberries from a stall. We’d walked 4.5 miles. We paid our €10 for the overnight parking and headed off east at 12.15. The motorway north of Berlin was busy. (On day 1 we saw 2 UK vehicles but since then it’s been only German till we got further east and then there were more Polish lorries and a few Latvian). The scenery was mainly crops and then forest apart from a few fields of solar panels. There was an enormous Tesla distribution centre with scores of lorries parked by the loading bays.

We stopped for coffee and cake then later I found a Lidl and fuel just off the motorway in a village before reaching our P4N which is a huge empty car park at an office complex. We parked up at the far end of the car park, having got there after 6.30. We’ll have to be away before the workers need a space in the morning. I tried sitting out with my book but it’s shady so the midges got me. It’s so quiet with only the occasional wood pigeons called.

Today we only drove 193 miles but we are now at Frankfurt am der Oder on the Polish border.