Monday, 17 July 2017

Sunday 16th July 2017 - Hodenhagen, Germany

If yesterday’s weather was glorious, today’s was the opposite (inglorious??). Light rain started at 07:30 and got heavier over breakfast.
We came to Sorro because we wanted to visit Trelleborg, the best preserved of Harald Bluetooth’s ring forts where a large Viking market is being held at the moment. We drove there through the persistent rain and it was still raining when we arrived. Entrance to the site and the museum is normally free but during the Viking market the charge is approx. £14 a head. We thought hard about it but couldn’t justify paying £28 to get absolutely soaked. We had seen three other ring forts and two Viking markets and so, reluctantly, we decided to move on. There was nothing special happening in the market today but later in the week they stage battles with hundreds of Vikings taking part. The weather forecast for later in the week is dry and sunny, so they should have a good time.
On the way to Denmark we had a horrible journey on the motorways in temperatures up in the 30’s. The forecast is that the temperatures are going to reach 30 over the next few days. Our earlier than expected departure meant that we could do what we normally do on our sojourns, potter along smaller roads and find an aire in a nice location.
We crossed that very expensive bridge between Zealand and Fyn and once more failed to see any of the views due to the rain. We used motorways down into Germany but, having been caught in motorway jams in Hamburg on the way and seen even worse jams in the opposite direction, we drove east of the city and then south around Luneburg. We were heading for an aire in Hodenhagen and for the last part of the journey the satnav took us onto the E45 motorway. This was a mistake. Initially all was fine but then we hit a huge jam. Half an hour later we got to a junction and managed to exit to a parallel road. We soon arrive at Hodenhagen to find a fair in residence on the aire. Fortunately, there were some suitable parking places close by where a couple of other motorhomes had already parked and we joined them. The music from the dodgems was very loud and we could feel the bass but, being a Sunday and that the entertainment was obviously mainly aimed at young children, we guessed that it would finish quite early. Sure enough, everything went quiet before 20:00 and, shortly afterwards, large lorries were leaving the site. What we hadn’t thought about was the dismantling of the dodgems in the early hours!

Photo: The aire in Hogenhagen.

No comments: