"Turn around when possible!" "Make a u-turn!" Samantha's tone of voice seemed to be getting more and more exasperated.
Samantha is named after Humphrey Lyttelton's less voluble assistant on I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue on Radio 4. Humph's Samantha says very little. Possibly because she is imaginary. Our Samantha doesn't really exist either. She's our satellite navigation system and she doesn't like it when we deviate from her chosen route.
Samantha's idea was that we would go from Xanten to Soest via the great urban sprawl that is Duisburg, Essen, Bochum and Dortmund whereas we preferred a more rural A-road, passing through a pleasantly wooded and agricultural landscape. What if it took a little longer? We were on holiday. Samantha was not pleased and refused to shut up. "Turn around when possible," she insisted, through gritted microchips.
Xanten has the distinction of being the only place in Germany to begin with the letter "x". It's a pretty town not far from Kleve (Cleves) with cobbled streets, a working windmill, a towered gateway and a historic church. It was settled by the Romans in about 100 AD and there is an archaeological park just outside the town where you can participate in a Roman-style banquet. The church is dedicated to Saint Viktor whose grave was believed to have been amongst those of early Christian martyrs who met their deaths there in the 4th century and who gave their name to the town Ad Sanctos Martyres - now contracted to Xanten. There are lots of cafés and inns around the square. After lunch of the local Westphalian speciality of broad beans and bacon pieces in a white wine sauce, we set off across the Rhine to Soest.
Samantha came into her own when it came to navigating the winding streets of old Soest, delivering us neatly to a car park at the back door of Im Wilden Mann, a traditional German inn. Negotiating the sloping floor of the bedroom, we discovered that we had a nice view of the town square and set off immediately to explore. Quite by accident, we discovered the starting point of a signposted town trail nearby and two and a half hours later, when we ended up at point number thirty-two, a few metres from where we'd started, we felt we had "done" Soest's green-tinged stone buildings sufficiently well to enjoy dinner in the inn's large restaurant.
Next day was Easter Saturday and what a contrast to the quiet day that had preceded it. Arriving in Osnabrück, we did a nightmare tour of the town looking for somewhere to park. All the shops were open and busy, but eventually we found somewhere and headed for the old town. There were a surprising number of beggars, entertainers and punks in the streets. German punks tend to look a little intimidating on account of being about two metres tall, including their Mohicans, and they seemed like some historic, Nordic army of invasion with their studs and studded-collared dogs. In complete contrast was the rather camp, hand-on-hip statue of Frederick Barbarossa outside the historic town hall. Osnabrück's main claim to fame is that the Peace of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years War in 1648, was declared from the steps of that town hall. The interior has a more contemporary peace dedication and an exhibition showing the town's near total destruction during the Second World War.
We thought we'd give Samantha a treat , so we headed for Hamburg via her preferred motorway route. At 140 kph, or 87 mph, I was one of the slowest on the road. Two-lane German motorways aren't for the faint-hearted. On the rare occasions when I came up behind a slower vehicle, I needed a gap behind me of about half a mile in order to get past without a Mercedes in the boot. I only got flashed twice. At one point where the road became three lanes, a British car in front did the typical British thing and immediately pulled into the centre lane doing exactly 70 mph oblivious to the sudden braking and parting of the ways behind as cars veered to either side to avoid him.
Hamburg is difficult to characterize and not an obvious destination for most British tourists. It's probably worth a stop-off if you're in the area, but not a special trip. Nevertheless, we enjoyed a full thirteen hour day of sightseeing, but you have to seek out its treasures and take advice from a good guide book or, even better, a German friend, in order fully to appreciate it.
We began Easter Sunday morning at the Fish Market. This early morning Sunday market begins at about 6am and is over by 10 and sells everything from live chickens to leather goods. The early finish was the condition extracted by the church when it first gave permission for the market to be held, thus enabling shoppers to go on to Sunday service afterwards. It was interesting to watch the traders filling up baskets of fruit or boxes of house-plants. The eel stall was one of the most entertaining. By 9 o'clock we were in the market hall, drinking hot chocolate and eating doughnuts to the accompaniment of a local rock group. The Germans were mostly drinking beer by then and everybody seemed to be having a good time.
From here, we went to the old tunnel under the Elbe, car-free on a Sunday, and walked under the river to the other side and back again. Both cars and people get down to the tunnel via lifts. Then it was time for Kaffee und Kuchen before taking a boat ride on the Aalster lake and its canals, past the back gardens of some of the wealthy residents of Hamburg. After lunch, we walked through some of the remaining older streets in town. There aren't many: not only because of the War but also because the city was formerly constructed largely of wood, with very narrow streets and therefore prone to burning down from time to time. There is however an interesting warehouse district and an Expressionist office district.
We still wanted to discover more, but whilst the spirit was willing, the flesh was getting weaker, so we jumped on one of the city sight-seeing buses and still managed to see a bit more. Our guide was a well-spoken, informative Portuguese immigrant. There must be quite a few of them because the restaurant area recommended by our hotel desk clerk consisted almost entirely of Portuguese restaurants. As we'd eaten there the previous evening and were trying to conserve resources, I'm afraid to say that we finished the day, courtesy of Burger King, with a hamburger in Hamburg!
Next morning, after a rather good breakfast, we allowed Samantha to have her own way and take us to the motorway. Not for long, however. The traffic was horrendous at the end of the holiday weekend and the motorway that we'd hurtled up two days earlier at 90 mph was reduced to a slow crawl. By early afternoon, we were pleased to get off it and head into Münster for a rest and a wander round.
Münster rivals Osnabrück in its claims to be associated with the Peace of Westphalia and goes one better. Their Town Hall boasts the actual room where the treaty was signed. It's worth a look if you're passing through, as is the astronomical clock in the cathedral. There was an intriguing date plaque fastened to the wall of a house nearby. Just a date a couple of years into the future. Is it the day the owners' mortgage gets paid up? What is its significance? We shall probably never know.
But we enjoyed Easter in northern Germany with Samantha, despite her nagging. I wonder where she'd like to go next?
First published in VISA issue 74 (Aug 2007)
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