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Germany


I woke up in the night just in time to see this passenger ship pass us going the other way. I haven'... On my 2007 trip to America, plenty of passengers were on deck at about this time of night to see the... ... The Great Belt Bridge, one of the bridges which connect the main islands of Denmark, giving a ro... We are aiming for the vertical line of three bright lights. The bridge now behind the ship. Good morning. After spending the night between the Danish islands, we're back on open sea again. Sunlight reflecting off the deck. A little boat. All over the ship are signs pointing the way to the dog toilet so I felt I had to come and see what ... We're now in the inlet which ends at Kiel. One of the channel markers seen through the cloud of methanol combustion products. A warship glinting in the sunlight. The entrance to the Kiel Canal. There's a rowing boat in the foreground. Kiel. "Look, a ship!" I'm surprised the German Naval Yards aren't named in German. Sail boats. Morning exercises on the quayside. The Aida Prima has a face. An impressive window on the Aida Prima. Cleaners. The building with the arched roof is the Shipbuilding Museum. Near the same place. A postman. Just the view from some traffic lights. The milestones here use Prussian miles, which are 7532.5 metres, the same as Danish miles. This ston... A solar farm under construction. Ony one of these things was rotating. The station in Einfeld, where I'm waiting for... ... two trains to go through the level crossing. I'm spending most of today on the Kiel to Altona road. It has one of those big milestones every Prus... Neumünster. A cable coming out of the ground. The bike lane has smaller cobbles than the rest of the pedestrianised area and its edges are marked ... The two cyclists on the right are part of a group of three whom I encountered several times along th... I passed quite a few of these tanks today. The walls are solid but the roof is plastic. There are al... Some scenery. One of the half mile markers. I said that I encountered those three cyclists several times today. Th... Bad Bramstedt. Bad Bramstedt. A fountain wringing water out of some cloth. The fountain's surroundings. A funfair being set up. The ... A model of a big carton of milk in a field of what I presume is a dairy farm. The last milestone that I will see today, 7 miles or 52.73 km from the first. I'm near Hamburg airport. This level crossing is on a corner and it takes a long distance for the tracks to get across the roa... I'll be staying here tonight. Apparently, the hotel has its own restaurant so I might not need to go... The view from my window. There's a motorway hidden between the trees so it's not as tranquil as it l... It's not great because I only had a few minutes before it set behind the trees, and I had problems w... My bike has made a friend. Also, there's a blue bag on a windowsill on the right of the picture. Tha... Today starts with a path which has a bit of a problem with tree roots. A bare garden centre. Sheltering under a tree from one of the morning's rain showers. The last of the milestones, 1 Prussian mile from Altona and 11 1/4 from Kiel. The stone plaque says ... On almost any major road in this area, there is a cycle lane on at least one side of the road. I'm i... The yellow sign on the right is the sign marking the beginning of the city of Hamburg but it seems s... The same roadworks. I'm not intending to do much sightseeing in Hamburg this year because it's raining and I've been her... The clock and the windows are on separate buildings. This building is terminal for boats on the River Elbe, including ferries which operate to other part... Next to the boat terminal is this building. This is the way in. My two previous visits to Hamburg, in 2003 and 2011, were both on trips where I didn't want to use a... The bottom of the lift shaft. A slightly different view. This is what I've come down here for: The St. Pauli Elbe Tunnel, 426 metres long. The tunnel and lifts can accommodate cars and in recent years, about 1000 cars per day have come thr... A view with some bikes. The lift shafts at the South end. In keeping with its neighbourhood, this portal of the tunnel is not as good-looking as the North one... A view back across the river to Hamburg. I'm now into a roughly 5 by 10 kilometre region on the South side of the Elbe which is mostly dockya... Some lock gates and shipping containers. I remember ... What? In 2003, I got stuck in this docklands area because some of the bridges over the many waterways don'... I followed what looked like the only possible route, which brought me to near here. Then I checked t... A storage place for barges. This building starts on the left as brick but then it becomes concrete silos... ... and then a series of conveyor belts going to a ship. A power station. There are two parallel lifting bridges here but the grey one has maintenance work going on and its w... The chimneys of the power station. I've stumbled across another of these ... The cycle lane is the strip which isn't made of paving slabs, just to the right of the parked car. There's a lot of stuff on some of those balconies. Sycamore seeds looking ready to drop. Farm scenery. A scene with horses. Sometimes the inflatable roofs are pointy. Markers for an electric cable and a water pipe. It's nowhere near as hot as yesterday but there's a mirage on the road. There were about six people sitting around a plastic table and eating what looked like quite an elab... A wiggly route through some trees. A motorway. My hotel for tonight. It comes with free fruit, nuts and a fizzy water. The label says "grab them". Ah, this is the kind of picture that I've been hoping for. I see the moons have all moved round to o... This was the camera setup that I used for the Jupiter picture. A statue of a man loitering. I just came across this bridge which is being re-varnished, although I didn't notice the sign tellin... Some pretty flowers, although they're not as interesting as wild flowers because they're not necessa... Zeven. Zeven. A fire service museum in what must be an old fire station. I can just make out an old fire engine th... Another silly statue... ... and a more abstract sculpture across the road. Just a railway line. Farm buildings. Whatever that is, it has a lot of chimneys. A giant shoe. It's a sunny day, although the wind is against me. The forecast says that the wind will be against m... The deer on the sign has reflective eyes. The mural and the owl are the first two of a number of works of art along this bit of road. This one rotates. You can't see many of the artworks here but you can see the signs for them. The town is called Tarmstedt. Lilenthal. Lilenthal. There were bursts of heavy bike traffic around here, mainly children on their way to or from school.... This appears to be an elephant museum called "Elefantastic". The old railway line which is now a cycle route between Bremen and Lilenthal. The spire on the left is the Bremen Drop Tower. The inside is a vacuum and scientific experiments ca... The route into Bremen. This road is painted pink and has many signs saying that it's a bicycle road, and just a few other l... Going under a railway. Entering Bremen city centre. What surprised me was the yellow signs... ... which say that deadly weapons are forbidden at night but not the rest of the time. Bremen. Unusual parking. There are some quite good-looking bikes here. This one has blue tyres. This looks like it must be the main Post Office, near the station. The water is the old city's moat. She's got a doggy passenger. Bremen. It seems that the pig charmer has also attracted some people in the 16 years since I was last here.... The pigs. Bremen. Bremen. Bremen. The City hall. Apparently, its cellar contains the oldest barrel of wine in Germany, dating from 165... Looking towards a shopping street. Bremen. Another view of the City Hall. A camera crew. Sparkasse is an association of savings banks. It normally uses a boring modern logo but that wouldn'... The Cown Hall, St. Peter's Cathedral and the Bremen City Parliament building. An attempt at a panoramic view. I'm afraid the next few picture will be lower quality because I've put my camera into a silly mode. Bremen. A model of the city. The building on the left is the Chamber of Commerce. The Brother Grimm had a fairytale called ... I think that here in 2003 was the first place that I encountered Roland, an 8th century military lea... An alleyway. The columns all have water running down them. A plaque nearby explains that they represent something... Tonight's hotel is an Ibis but it is a bit quirky. I can tell that from this sign above the front do... My room. My room. The view from my window. The two pieces of metal are earth contacts and are meant to be like the one at the top. They should ... Bremen sunset For a few days, this little metal spike has been hanging out of one of the handlebars. It's one end ... I've done 1035 miles so far on this trip, which is very short compared to some previous years but is... A Renault Twinzy. A colourful bike. The headquarters of Radio Bremen, Germany's smallest public service radio and television broadcaster... The river in Bremen is the Weser, ... A boat on the Weser. I'll be crossing the river on the bottom deck of the bridge, which is for bikes and pedestrians. There's some morse code along both walls under this bridge. All I can make out from here is "..... Insects on a wall. This road is being dug up but the cycle path is still open. It doesn't look like any trains have been through here in a while. My route along the side of a renovated former wool factory. Delmenhorst. Another of those bare communications towers. I've found the base of it. A stone marking the boundary of the district of Delmenhorst. I'm being diverted. The diversion was because a bridge over the motorway was closed. The bike diversion was quite short ... There's what looks like a tennis umpire's chair positioned to watch a field of corn. For the third time today, I've encoutered a place where a road is closed but provision has been made... A view along the river. Oldenburg. A large stone urn. If you're interested, the modern Sparkasse logo is the red square on the left of this picture and th... The museum of art and culture. Spires. The market stall in the foreground is mainly selling chili peppers. Oldenburg. A chandelier in the upstairs room of the building in the previous picture. Oldenburg. The elephant has knocked out part of the stonework. Oldenburg. A view into a shopping arcade. Garden ornaments. I encoutered this a few times today. It looks like where a tree root has pushed up the tarmac on a c... Tonight, I will be staying in Bad Zwischenahn, a spa town which obviously gets a lot of tourists but... This place is a guesthouse. Actually, I think I might be staying somewhere which looks a bit like th... In the background is the lake Zwischenahner Meer. Bad Zwischenahn. Bad Zwischenahn. Bad Zwischenahn. Today, the last bit of the route to my hotel really is just a bike road. Zwischenahner Meer. That looks like a floating bathing platform. Just across the road from my hotel is a church with this strange statue. My room. Rowers on the lake. The ferry must do a circular route around the lake. It only passes near here going from right to lef... Zwischenahner Meer. Birds following the ferry. My hotel in Sittensen two nights ago had a shoe horn. This place has a shoe horn and an umbrella. Th... Be warned by phone? Is that an automated system which rings every room at once or does somebody have... It's like ... The ferry approaching its dock in Bad Zwischenahn to moor up for the night. A sailor on the lake. One more view. I think calling the contents of my room a fiasco is going a bit far. This is a bit confusing. There is no corridor going straight on, just a pair of angled mirrors. The hotel's lakefront side. I don't know who any of these people are. There is light coming from Bad Zwischenahn and from two other places small on the far side of the la... The electrical safety inspection sticker on the kettle resembles the safety inspection decals which ... In front of the town hall in Bad Zwischenahn. The UPS bike has a box on the front and another on a trailer. Bad Zwischenahn trees. The cycle lane here is closed. When I took this picture, I was impressed at how thoughtful the autho... Part of the diversion. This road has had its damage repaired at least twice and the trees are still winning. Donkeys, hay and a lot of solar panels. A view along the river Soeste in Barssel. Lifting bridges at the junction of two canals in Elisabethfehn. I've just come across the bridge on ... The second language might be Frisian. I came down a residential suburban road, thinking that there might be a way through. There isn't but... The road into Westrhauderfehn. For about 6 km, I will be riding along the side of a little canal with numerous wooden lifting bridg... And old boat and a museum. Floating in the canal. A shrine near the entrance to what look like the grounds of a large house. Quiet roads. I crossed the River Ems using a bridge on top of a sluice. This is the river on the downstream side.... That's the road that I would like to use. I was looking at the map wondering what the best way round... A wind farm near the border, positioned to catch all the wind which has blown across the Netherlands... Wind turbines. I've reached the end of Germany. The corn on the left is in the Netherlands.