Motorhome Into Germany

We are travelling by motor home through northern Europe with the intention of getting to Oslo in Norway before the bad winter weather sets in. So far we have been up through France and Belgium into Holland (The Netherlands). We are trying to use public parking - things like Aires and Stellplatz wherever possible - not just because we are mean, but you get to stay in some interesting places, and we often don't need all the facilities that 'proper' camping sites provide.

Moving on from the Netherlands we ended up in Baumstedt in Germany, just above Hamburg. Driving there from our last stop was not much fun. It rained a lot and the German motorways were not as wonderful as I had hoped they would be. Most are two lane, and because of the lack of speed restriction it makes overtaking really quite hard. You look in your rear view mirrors and everything is fine. Start to move out when suddenly an Audi or something screams up behind you at goodness only knows what speed! Add to this a lot of quite torrential rain, and the going gets tough.

We arrived at Baumstedt in the early evening, in the rain, with about an hour until dusk. We stayed on a Stellplatz in the centre of the town:

Marktstraße 44

25355 Barmstedt, Germany

53.786936, 9.764111

It was just a car park really, and the designated area for motor homes was under trees. As it was a bit wet and windy we had a few clunks from branches falling on us.
 

One was a bit on the big side - you can see it in the foreground in this picture after I had got the ladder out and taken it off of the roof. We had a brief explore - but spent more time next morning having a look around. The town itself was interesting and had lots of small shops. We also found a Lidl just down the street - which was useful. The local beer was equivalent to 35 pence for a 500ml bottle - I only bought a few, should have bought more! Excellent fresh bakery in store there as well. I enjoyed it - made K wish once again that she could eat wheat. The Stellplatz was close to a small cafe and takeaway, which had a nice clean public toilet just around the corner in the same building.

It seems that we missed the excellent park and Schloss which was right next to where we parked. Shame really, but it was only an overnight stop. If we venture that way again.....

As evening fell we noticed that a German van had crept in front of us to gain access to what seemed to be an electrical outlet, which he duly attached himself to. I investigated - and it would seem to need a key to unlock it. I don't know what this is, but I suspect it is something that, perhaps, a club akin to one of the UK's offerings allows members to have access to. Anyway - we ran on batteries that evening. We stayed one night and then headed for Denmark.