I was just scrolling through the topics and I saw the word bummelling of which I was unfamiliar. Thus I goggled it. The British version is quite innocuous, but the American slang is a much different tale.

I am following along in my usual quiet self :)

well, thanks, IMDonehere. goggling, eh? i do hope that THAT'S not a euphemism for something.

Hopefully the full title of the thread will give people the right idea about what we were doing, rather than the one to which you refer. Anyway, those who are looking for a bit of the latter sort of action will quickly find themselves being very disappointed.

Been working very hard this week but I do hope to get back to this soon.

It is innocent curiosity that us brought to this point. And we are very fortunate that few share those extra details with us.

Hopefully the full title of the thread will give people the right idea about what we were doing>

At first I read hummeling through Germany which could make perfect sense for those who are tracking down thost uniquely German dolls (?).

But as usual a well-writ exciting report to peruse.

OK, all caught up. Good job, annhig!

ps-I also goggled [sic] but it was to find out kartoffelsalat is potato salad. Also the timbered houses. So, I just found 'bummelling'---oh dear, oh dear!

More soon, please!

annhig, just found this, ain't Hannover centre pretty?

E19 for breakfast! That's three fish suppers in Yorkshire

yes, bilbo, we really liked Hannover and I wouldn't mind going back there for a night or two, though not to the Luisenhof, i suspect. Those €19 breakfasts, which BTW would also buy 3 fish suppers in Cornwall, are clearly aimed at those with deeper pockets [or expense accounts] than us. Hannover must be a rich city - we saw things on sale there for prices that made our eyes water.

TD - glad you like the read so far.

now on to Wernigerode!

Wernigewhere? Wernigerode!

When we were planning this trip, I read a lot about the Harz and given the limited time we were giving ourselves there, wanted somewhere that would enable us to see as much as possible, but especially to take the narrow-gauge railway to the top of the Brocken, the highest mountain in northern Germany. Although Quedlingburg was greatly recommended, it's right on the edge of the Harz, and in particular, the train takes 5 hours to get from there to the top of the Brocken, whereas it's only 90 mins or so from Wernigerode. so that was the decision made for us.

our arrival in the town was not without incident - DH was driving for the first time since we'd picked up the car, and was finding it even harder than I had to work out the automatic brake - and when we got to a traffic island on the outskirts he just reverted to his default setting and started to turn left which would have had us driving round it in the wrong direction! Stop! I shouted and fortunately there was no other traffic so no harm done. It wasn't easy to find our way round the one-way system but eventually we got to our hotel - the Hotel am Angar - but then had to negotiate a very narrow entrance into the car park, only to find that it was full, with even the turning spaces occupied. However having got there, we decided we'd check in and deal with the luggage, and worry about the parking later.

next snag - no lift - and we're on the 2nd floor. but there is plenty of character in what was clearly an old coaching inn so nothing to grumble about there. DH had got me to e-mail before we left home to check that there would be no problem with the luggage but the hotel was clearly very full so we'd been relegated to the top floor. Lucky we'd got two reasonably small bags between us, not one big one. When we got up there, everything seemed fine - view of the Schloss, 2 decent sized beds, TV, water, etc. and a nice looking bathroom. it was quite a modern room, but none the worse for that, we thought.

http://www.hotel-am-anger.de/start.php

luckily there was a free space on a parking meter outside the hotel, so drawing the short straw, i got the job of trying to manoeuvre the car out of the car park and into the street; not an easy task with that automatic brake refusing to come on when i needed it, and stopping me moving when I didn't. but we did it in the end and we went off for a well-earned beer.

Back later [after the beer!]

well, that was a large beer. Actually DH got to drink the beer [mainly] while I nipped back to the car to put more money in the meter. luckily it was a Saturday afternoon and we were leaving on Monday morning, so come 6pm, the parking space would be free. Also luckily I had €1 in change with me which was by no means a given - I always seem to have too much change, or not enough!

After our break, we explored Wernigerode a bit more, and not finding it terribly exciting, we decided to walk down to the station to suss out the "Brockenbahn" for the next day. This was one of the things we got both right and wrong - wrong as walking there from the middle of town seemed to take an inordinately long time, and right as in we walked back a different way and found ourselves back at our hotel in half the time. Which was good news for the morrow.

That night we went back to the insignificant little place where we'd had our drinks earlier and had one of our best meals of the journey: while we'd been drinking I'd noticed that they had venison stew on the menu and it turned out to be extremely good, washed down with a bottle of a german red wine, Dornfelder, which contrary to my expectations I was coming to like quite a lot.

Then it was back to the hotel for a session with the car's instruction manual and the dictionary, to try to work out what we were doing wrong. Aha - after some serious translation work it turned out that there were three "prerequisites" which had to be fulfilled before the car would move at all - the driver's door shut, the driver's safety belt fixed, and the "kupplung" depressed. [it wasn't the only thing that was depressed after all this]. Gone are the days of just turning the ignition key!

Tomorrow - like the Grand old Duke of York we go to the top of the hill and march back down again.

Two Higs on the Bummel! So glad.

I've just found this before shutting down computer, need to come back later to savor. Thanks, Ann.

hi Stoke.

nice to have you "aboard".

Annhig, love your report. This is just the type of slow travel to less visited (by Americans anyway) places that I hope to do in a few years.

robincal - we heard a few english voices on our trip, but so far as I can remember, no american ones, except in Bamberg, where there was at least one american group on a tour. It seems to be very popular on this board so that shouldn't have been a surprise.

I'm enjoying your report very much, Annhig. We visited Wernigerode (and Quedlinburg) in early March and thought they were charming. We didn't get a chance to take the train to the Brocken, so we hope to make it back there. I'm looking forward to that part of your report.

While we were there, definitely no English (other than ours) was heard so we got in some much needed practice.

I missed this report when it began, so I am really glad it continued when I finally got home and settled in for catching up. Really enjoying it, as I do all of your reports, Ann. Thanks for sharing.

Nice job, annhig!

nice to see you all here and thanks for your kind remarks and encouragement.

Back soon. [i hope}.

Highly recommend the Brocken train trip in either winter or summer. The trip during a snowfall is magical. We have stayed in both Braunlage and Bad Harzburg and found our stays delightful.

Your were fortunate not to hear English spoken. We stayed in Wernigerode on a Great Rail Journeys tour, and they run several similar tours from Britain every year. Our hotel also had a bus load of Belgians as well.

Our tour included a train ride up the Brocken, as well as another ride on the local narrow gauge steam trains. We visited Quedlinburg, and had a lunch stop in Goslar. It's an attractive area, and amazing to think that until 25 years ago there was a fence down the middle with armed guards. The Brocken was a listening and observation post, and remained closed off when the iron curtain fell. It was pressure from local people which resulted in it being restored to the tourist destination it had been before the Second World War.

Thanks for the report and bringing back some happy memories.