Germany "East side Style"

Well it’s been a while since I’ve posted anything. We have been in hibernation enduring the long English winter. Seroisly though it has actually been quite pleasant and by the sounds of it less rain than Brisbane has been having.

We spent new years in London and had my Cousin Matthias over to visit from Germany.
We had some good times catching up and it wouldn’t be long until we caught up again as we had booked some cheap flights to Germany for the end of January. It was Australia day weekend so since we weren’t in Australia we thought it would be nice to be with our relatives in Germany.
We flew in on Thursday afternoon and were planning on spending 5 days staying with The Wuensch family in Sandersdorf which is a small village in the former East Germany a few hours from Berlin.
Matthias met us at the airport and took us to Liepzig to have a look around for the afternoon. We had a great meal at this little student cafe that is underground. That night we returned home to catch up with Doris and Peter (Peter is my Dad's cousin) and Doris had a lovely meal prepared for us with sausage and sauerkraut and a German beer to wash it down.

The following day Matthias showed us around some of the neighbouring towns and took us to a chocolate factory where we purchased close to 10 boxes of chocolate. At night Renee made us a Pavlova for Australia day which we all enjoyed.

Saturday was a real highlight for us as we took a day trip to the Harz Mountains to climb Mt Brocken. Mt Brocken is the highest mountain in northern Germany at 1142 meters and has a lot of history surrounding it. My German family has also had a long association with the Harz Mountains as my Grandmothers sister and most of that side of the family has lived there for many years.

We started the day by climbing the 9 or so kms to the top of the mountain. The top was freezing and really windy and covered in plenty of snow and ice. The top was used by the Russians in East German times and was closed off until 1990 .It now has a museum and cafe at the top and an old steam train now runs up and down. We had a sausage and a beer at the cafe and then jumped on the train for the trip down. The scenery was spectacular and it was rewarding after having hiked for hours up the icy paths.

In the afternoon we visited my Grandmothers sister who is 84 and loved having us visit. The relatives laid out an extravagant spread of cakes and strudel.
It was good catching up with them again as it has been 11 years since I was last there.

The next Day we went to Berlin with Matthias and his Girlfriend Dana. The weather was not great but we still had fun walking around and checking out the sights. I really enjoyed seeking the Reichstag (German parliament) as the Architect firm I work for re-designed it a few years back and I always her a lot about it. Berlin has so much history and I always enjoy the city.

We headed back on Monday having eaten copious amounts of wonderful German food and our bags were laden with chocholate and other gifts from our incredibly generous hosts.

We go to Belgium for Easter next so expect to here more stories of chocolate and beer.
Cheers

Pics Here