Category Archives: Tour of Europe 2011

We left Halle at 9.15 a.m. and picked up a young Czech couple standing at motorway services near Hanover.  Although their sign indicated they wanted a lift to the ferry port of Lübeck, it turned out they were also going … Continue reading →

“It never rains in Halle an Der Saale” scans almost as well as “it never rains in southern California“, but what would one rhyme Saale with?  Impala? Trouble is there are no African antelope in this part of the former … Continue reading →

After repairing Claudia’s broken shower in Ulm, we set off for Bayreuth, as Vroni had arranged for her piano to be inspected and tuned by the manufacturers.  We were greeted at the Steingraeber factory by the boss, Udo Schmidt-Steingraeber, and by … Continue reading →

On 21 July we drove to Ulm, where the central square is dominated by the highest church steeple in the world.  The weather was threatening but we set up the piano and Vroni managed to play for a few minutes … Continue reading →

The change to the Munich train in Stuttgart could have been stressful as we arrived late, but the sensible personnel of the German rail company announced five times, in German, French and English, as we approached Stuttgart, that the conecting train … Continue reading →

H whisked me to nearby Montreuil, where she lives (and where I used to in 1997 and 1998), and we were soon catching up over demis (half litres – I had a Jenlain) on the terrasse of a pleasant decontracté Montreuil … Continue reading →