It was another long drive day, but with a break in the middle. We left Berlin and headed for Bielefeld. We found most people were surprised that was where we were going – it is not a usual foreign tourist destination.
On our way we stopped in Magdeburg to look around and have lunch. Dwayne Brandt had told us about it, as he had studied there for a year in the eighties when it was East Germany. It is now a mostly modern town, with a few remnants of the old city, including the Rathaus and Dom. The market square in front of the Rathaus was filled with tents being set up for a fair of some sort.
On Dwayne’s advice, we found the ratskeller for lunch. It truly is the keller (basement) of the rathaus (city hall). It was an interesting room and, of course, good food.
We then drove to the other side of the city center to the Dom. As is our luck, most of the front was covered in scaffolding. They are doing major renovation (this was East Germany) and archeological diggings inside. It is a typical gothic cathedral building, built in the 15th century, on top of the original building, dating from the 11th century. That’s what they were looking at in the archeological digs inside the building. Of course there are two organs, one in the gallery and one in the transept. The gallery organ is quite new.
From Magdeburg we drove to Bielefeld for a four-night stay. Actually our hotel is out in the country in Steinhagen, an outlying area of Bielefeld. It is in the Teutoburg Forest, a large forest area of northwest Germany.
Dick Gehrke met us at the hotel, let us in, and we found our room. They had given him the key the day before since they would be gone when we arrived. There was no one here, as it was a local holiday, Corpus Christi. We’ve never come to a hotel with no one there before. We then followed Dick to his house for a fun and relaxing evening of dinner and reminiscing.
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