At Steinhorst, Lower Saxony.

Well, a chance to sleep in a full sized bed, use a shower that doesn´t come out in a dribble, and not have to light a gas that goes "pop" every time you go near it. Also, as this establishment has several Michelin stars, I can confirm the laundry facilties are excellent.

We had an excursion to Goslar, about an hour away to the South, in the Harz Mountains. A very pretty small town, where they were having their autumn fair and a flea market.  Wonky old buildings, cobbled streets, and a church with a charming 1581 pulpit by Hans Seek, which to our untrained eye, seemed to feature transvestite Vikings, leaning forward like the figureheads on a small ship. Live bands made for a lively atmosphere, and at 3pm the Glockenspiel Clock strutted its stuff:  3 or 4 traditional crafts were represented in a parade of figures moving across the platform, to the musical accompaniment of the chiming bells.

Not ones to hang about, off we went again to Wernigerode - another pretty small town.  We saw stream engines which are still used in the Harz Mountain railway. We crossed the old border between East and West Germany several times, and looked at the different styles of architecture in that area.  Before (and shortly after) reunification, the houses in the east used to all be painted a very dull shade of grey/beige, but now plenty of new building is going on, and most of the old colour has been brightened up.

Passing though Hornburg, another quaint little cobbled, wonky village, we went for dinner at a Brazilian restaurant. This has an "All you can eat" menu, where there is a generous buffet salad and vegetable bar , and waiters bring meat (lamb, beef, pork, gammon, chicken, turkey,  mostly with lots of seasoning)  at very short intervals, and you choose what you want to have.

This extravaganza was followed by a kind of maintenance day - boring, but essential. A chance to catch up on some paperwork and sort out some things in the motorhome.

The next day, another trip out, this time, a 21st century version of "5 take their bikes in a motorhome".  Drove about an hour to Luneburg (North of Steinhorst).  There´s a lovely old cloister there, Kloster Lune, where you can look round the Abbey itself, the textile museum, a weaving workshop and shop, the herb garden, and the chapel.  There is a cafe with a fabulously painted ceiling and huge cosy fireplace.

After that, off on the bikes to the Schiffshebewerk in Scharnebeck. This is a truly massive and impressive piece of engineering.  Built in 1974, at the cost of 152 million Deutsch Marks, it links the River Elbe and the Mittelland Kanal. Prior to that the shipping would have to use the Weser, and when the East German border was closed, getting a pass for the big ships to use other canals was quite problemmatic. At the time of construction it was the largest ship lift in the world.  The maximum lift is 38 metres, it lifts 5,800t in 3 minutes, and has a maximum power of 870 hp. We saw a barge chock full of shipping containers, and two smaller vessels go through into the trough, and could not believe just how quickly it was raised up.

Next, lunch at a swimming lake. Hot day, very tempting, no costumes. English solution: go in for a paddle, complete with our straw hats. Our cycling Oddysey brought us, at some length, (after a diversion in a field - who had the map? ) to Bardowick Dom. The suffix "-wick" means that it was a Viking settlement at one time.  This seems like a large church for a relatively small village, and they now have a lovely new organ.  The brick gothic is in evidence in this area, and very attractive.