Travelled : 181 kilometres from Dornumersiel to Bergen Belsen, Lower Saxony.
Visited : The Bergen-Belsen Memorial
Stayed : A marked motorhome parking spot in Zetel, free no services. N53.41855 E07.96953
Municipal Stellplatz Bergen, โฌ3.50, the usual services including electricity. N52.81272 E09.96456
Whilst we enjoyed a long bike ride around Dornumersiel and it’s sea wall, the weather has closed in again and with it the rain. So we do what travellers do, wave goodbye to our German neighbours and drive south along the Judebusen a huge bay or inlet that cuts deep into Lower Saxony. Whilst we know the Judebusen is there, we cannot see it only the sea wall that surrounds it.
Funny to think what if we had sea walls everywhere in Australia, you would need to live on the top floor of a 4 story building to see the water ?
We have a loose plan for Hamburg, but it’s too far today in the rain. So we settle for Zetel. It’s just a small town but it has a very pleasant stellplatz in the middle of the village . When we arrive we also find it has 8 caravans formed in a circle in the middle of the stellplatz. This is unusual from our limited experience and we soon ascertain they are a group of Gypsies (all towing their caravans with Mercedes) heading for Paris for a Gypsie music festival or possibly a fashion show?
Anyway we don’t know much about Gypsies and we normally take people on face value. So we set up over one side next to another motorhome. Well after a couple of hours of screaming kids and two guys with angle grinders appearing to be building a boat trailer in the middle of the Stellplatz we gave up and moved up to the swimming centre for a nice quiet evening.
We wake to an epiphany. In Amterdam we visited Anne Frank’s home on the canal and read about her fateful transport to Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp. If we drive south we can visit the Bergen-Belsen Memorial and then go on to Hamburg a day later. As we don’t have a plane to catch or need to worry about being late for dinner, it’s Bergen or bust.
29303 Bergen, Germany
We arrive in Bergen and find a very nice Stellplatz is a small reserve near the middle of the village, so we set up, get the bikes of the Hymer and head off for the Rathuas and the tourist information office.
Anyway Bergen-Belsen is an emotional experience, we walked the site and memorials the first afternoon and thought that’s enough for one day. Returning the next morning to visit the Museum and Documentation Centre for a different experience. Bergen-Belsen is a popular place with visitors, mostly German from our experience. The German’s aren’t trying to church it up, the SS are shown as the epitome of evil, however the treatment of the Russian POWs by the Wehmracht didn’t rate too highly.
Michael and Pam
One thought on “Bergen-Belsen, Germany 2016 ๐ฉ๐ช”
Love your blogs guys. You’re certainly getting around the place but not having much luck with the weather by the sounds of it. Not sure I could go to Bergen-Belsen memorial, such an emotional place knowing what occurred there but an experience all the same. Travel safe. Cheers Denice