Mini Roadtrip 2020 - Staying Local and Going Loco

calvinhobbes

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Mini Roadtrip 2020 - Staying Local

I thought (and was gently reminded :mrgreen:) that I should at least get this thread started, so I shall.

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from left to right: @Adrian, @leviathan, @narf, @shad_68 and @DanRoM and in the background: the Rhine-Weser Tower (link in German) which marks the drainage divide between the Rhine and Weser rivers
 
from the original thread:

At our starting point, the PS.Speicher, we went inside to stand around and look at cars. There were:

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replicas of very old cars

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huge old cars

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tiny old cars with funny steering

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weird old cars with ridiculous names

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old cars running on wood gas

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and slightly less old... car-like things

Also, we did not mention the war,
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but somebody had to!

They had lots of motorbikes as well.

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This one had an air-cooled rotary engine inside the front wheel. That means it doesn't get cooled unless the wheel is turning.

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So the manufacturer advised to drive in circles if you were held up by something, such as a railroad crossing. An ingenious solution to a problem that should never have existed in the first place. :james:

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Despite appearances, this one wasn't powered by a jet engine.

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But it did have a funny name.

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which only got better once I looked at the placard

Finally, we decided it was time to leave the past and get back to the present. Luckily, they had a car for that, too.

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The above was day zero, so it was day one that saw us using a Victorian relic :jc: to get up a mountain. Some of the towns and villages in that part of Germany have rather unfortunate names, such as Sorge (worry) and Elend (misery). Most appropriately, this was the sight that greeted us near Misery:

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That's some stupid little quadricycle, limited to 45km/h, crawling up a hill at a speed too low to measure. The weather was much like this until the early afternoon, but finally improved after one final rainstorm at one of the mountain railway stations. We had to kill some time anyway, so went a bit further up the hill to the next station at Schierke where there was coffee and ice cream. And then, two trains met:

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Ours was the one in front, the last one of the day. But we had no plans to spend much time on the mountain anyway, so no problem.

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Choo choo!

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lots of dead spruces due to drought and beetles

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The engine is shunted to the other end of the train at the top.

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group photos with...

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...and without masks

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going back down

Bye bye!

Both the train and our little convoy went to Wernigerode, the starting point of the railway line and our overnight stop.
 
I didn't know you guys rode a choo choo train up a mountain, that's pretty awesome.
 
Incidentally a couple of acquaintances of mine rode up the Brocken two weeks prior - on their cargo bikes without electric assistance. One of them said their satnav which auto pauses when you're stopping did the auto pause thing when they were going up hill since they rode that slow at times... :hammer:
Downhill on the other hand they didn't have to pedal for half an hour and reached speeds of up to 80 kph. :thumbsup:
 
The morning of day two continued with the railway theme, at least in the hotel that @DanRoM and I were staying in.

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inside

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outside

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and even above our heads

And then, we were off to The Bridge. No, not that one. But this one! It's right next to a rather high dam, so the views are perhaps a bit unusual.

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Nice! And long! And wheelchair compatible!

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Not everyone was able to enjoy the views quite as much.

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But they were good!

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This should be interesting when the dam is actually overflowing.

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Hmm... possibly lunch?

But we decided to skip fishing and leave the hot meal for the evening. So off we went, crossing railways lines all the time. So the following was basically inevitable:

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same operator as the mountain ralway, different line

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The view from the parking lot in Jena wasn't too bad either. After filling up Teslas and tummies, it was time for bed.
 
Roadtrip looking good so far. I didn't knew you started at the PS-Speicher. I was there about two years ago and quite liked it. Did you manage the tricky handling physics of that "simulator?" :D
 
Alright... let's see how much I manage to filter my pictures. :D The full album is also available, but without any descriptions.

Roadtrip began for @shad_68 and me at a fuel station where our routes to the starting point converged, that means about 2 km from my home and 1.5 from his. :D We didn't waste any time taking pictures, but set off immediately after confirming our radios were tuned to the same channel.

Some two and a half hours later, we met the others at the P.S. Speicher in Einbeck, a museum for old cars, but mainly old motorcycles. The name comes from the fact that the building used to be a granary.

Now that's an entrance. No, we didn't use the driving simulator (Porsche 911 at Silverstone), mainly because it was occupied. :D @leviathan had a go in another simulator, of course (see above). :D
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The outside "parking" was very promising, but these were totally different than what was inside.
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The exhibition was organized so you had to begin at the top floor and then move downwards following the timeline. So the lift was a "time machine" playing a video to get you into the mood. The length of the video was probably why this was the slowest lift ever. On the other hand, luxuriously spacious. And with chairs.
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What is the definition of one horsepower? Glad we cleared that up.
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A Benz Motorwagen, the first car. I'm pretty sure this is a replica, but I admit I don't know how many were made.
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Now that's going around in style. There were many, many more and very strange early motorcycles - see for example the one with the rotating engine in the front wheel that @calvinhobbes already posted.
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Someone did have a lot of work putting up some WW2 scenery...
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Some 1950's scooter with a ridiculous amount of bodywork.
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Scooter with trailer, why not. The many different motorcycle/scooter concepts up to the 1950s were really interesting.
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Amphibious car! The worst of both worlds!
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Is this art or can it be thrown away?
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Hnnnnnng. :)
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One of several Münch bikes.
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That looks totally safe and not at all prone to fall over.
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Painting titled "Two Fiats". Sure, if you say so... :rofl:
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Apart from the regular and rather bike-heavy exhibition, they also had a special exhibition consisting of a few classic Opels.
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And another one dedicated to small cars. Which is saying something, given that most vehicles in their regular collection were not what I'd call large.
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Peel P50!
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Special for @public
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Nice pun. "Café St. Spirit" and the address is "Ghost Street".
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We found Einbeck to be a really nice old town. Well, small and therefore boring, but at least nice. The half-timbered houses were not exactly straight though. All part of the charme. :)
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This concluded day 1. We dispersed to our accomodations, and the next day went on to start the roadtrip properly.
Fast-forward to the first lunch stop. Teslas were thirsty. Or hungry? Hm...
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While the petrol-powered cars simply waited.
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While we tried to find a restaurant that let us in. Kebap joint said "only takeout" so we went upstairs to have some Chinese instand.
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Afterwards, we continued our totally straight route through the Harz that was for sure the shortest way to get through the points of interest. :angel: Weather was more or less rainy, with some legitimate rainstorm from time to time. Luckily, this would improve vastly throughout the rest of the trip.
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At the top of the Brocken mountain.
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@Adrian shows where to go.
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That's an adapter. The railway up the Brocken is narrow gauge, so they have to use these to get cars with standard gauge up there.
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At the station down in town (well, "town"), the shop has very specific opening times... :D
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We again went to different accomodations and then met up in the city centre of Wernigerode to get dinner. The people of that town will not be impeded by a barrier and a sign saying "pedestrians forbidden because of falling roof tiles"! :D
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Our hotel was also nicely railway-themed.
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More to come in subsequent posts. Stay tuned...
 
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That museum looks fantastic and I love the hotel with the model trains, completely mad but brilliant. The slow lift in the museum is similar to the one we had at the Andernach Geyser museum, it simulates going down in a mine shaft but really you are ascending very slowly to the top floor.
 
I think it’s slow because it’s a goods lift (for all the cars and bikes) that doubles as a passenger conveyance.
 
On to day 2. Started off by @Adrian insisting on a clean car. :D
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While he was cleaning his car (some of us actually helped), another man in a wheelchair drove his car to the next booth and proceeded to do the same. What are the odds...

Anyway. Let's leave Wernigerode and head to the Rappbode dam, where they have built a long suspension bridge for pedestrians as a tourist attraction. The walk from the parking lot and the queues were also dam long. Or even longer.
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Yes, we actually walked on it. That meant we were on the "air side" of one dam while already above the next one in line, Wendefurth Reservoir.
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Well, enough walking and thoroughly enjoying being high above solid ground, let's continue driving. Further down the road we saw one of the historic trains again:
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The rest of the day was spent with driving, no more points of interest. We spent the night in a nondescript business-style hotel in the city of Jena with outragous breakfast rates, so we opted for bakery and eating on the supermarket parking lot. :D
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Funny story: While we as a group were standing right next to my car having breakfast, some old man came closer and closer (very slowly) and looked at my car (very intensely), but without talking to us. We were slightly weirded out.
Finally, he was close enough to not only read the licence plate, but the seal which has the name of the issuing town on it. Turns out (after reading, he finally talked to the six guys clearly belonging to that car), he was a retired postal worker and just wanted to know where this foreign car was coming from. We were somewhat relieved that he left before he realized that all of us could not possibly fit in my small car, so there must be more and more importantly, before he saw the four other cars, all from different districts (not to even speak of the Norwegian plate). :rofl:

We continued our trip towards the Thuringian Forest, with the first stop being at the Museum for Hydrodynamic Power (website only in German), which also had a quite good café/restaurant so we were not the only guests.
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Anyone need a 20 kW lamp?
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Their model of the area showing all the reservoirs and dams was quite impressive. :thumbsup:
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After driving the Thuringian forest from east to west including some adventures due to roadworks and detours, the day ended in Eisenach. @narf had to switch hotels because the one he initially booked was surprisingly closed, but that way he ended up just around the corner from where the rest of us had booked. Which was directly across the nazi party's local office. :(
On the search for food and drinks we strolled towards the near central square of the town, which was quite depressingly dead. Luckily, a Greek restaurant in the vicinity was open for business so we didn't starve or die of thirst.
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This concludes day 3. Back to @calvinhobbes or whoever else took pictures, too. :D
 
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