In which Sid and Doris ride into Eastern Germany, and Sid waves at aged guys on aged, smokey tractors, until he realises these are not the ironic toys of collectors.
Having found ‘Sid and Doris max’ we are pleased that today is shorter with less climb. Solomon Binding pledges have been taken to manage a better mix of seeing interesting things, eating some of them and cycling. It’s a means to an end. And today’s end was the Wartburg car museum, in the pre 1989 works, at Eisenach.
Vital statistics then
- Distance: 91 kilometres, mainly following the Herkules way, when we could find it. Some of it a main road with added adrenaline.
- Climb: 750 metres, though poorly distributed in Sid’s view.
- Weather: NAR but not what you would call … stuffy.
No tram was inconvenienced on our escape from Kassel and after only 15 minutes we were into the country. We were a bit surprised to be running alongside unfenced rails for the inter town tram cum light rail system. But as they have trams mixed with bikes, cars and humans in town, really why be surprised?
It is a good job we made this trip today and not earlier this week. At one point our path ran under a rail bridge alongside a stream which had clearly been a couple of feet deep over our cobbled path. We push on, not literally at this stage, to a dark wood. You can see where the Brothers Grimm got the idea for a well where witches drowned faeries in their own tears.* The surface had been wracked by recent rain but when you see the bench and bin you know that the next village is not far to seek.
Now it is coffee time. While looking for an open bakery we find a Mercedes specialist with some returnees from the US, but this little use to Sid and Doris just now (or probably ever).
The villages here are suffering by-passitis. The traffic has gone, the young are going to the cities. The remaining populations go to the old dudes’ centre for zimmer racing and a sentimental game of spot the Stasi stool pigeons. Lofts full of them, apparently about 1% of the population – so a village of 500 has five. They were the ones who could get on the waiting list for a Wartburg. 998cc of throbbing two stroke triple. So what you may say, but second prize was the bus and being dobbed in for listening to the BBC World Service on short wave. As if short wave weren’t penance enough.
After lunch our second priority (after finding the bally route) was to spot the line of the old East West border. It was in place for 45 years and has been gone for about 30. We thought we saw the remains of a patrol road and then we knew we were in the right place when we saw one of the border towers.Coming into town we can see old collective farm buildings and the typical five storey Soviet apartments. Five floors being about as much as people will put up with in the absence of a lift.
Today’s nature note book is a bit thin. But really close to we saw a small buzzard lift off from the verge with a rodent in its claws.
The car count of course is dealt with in Eisenach and the Wartburg factory.
One panel explains that though Mercedes had invented the car Germans were quite happy with the horse so car building was not profitable. The works that houses the museum became a BMW factory making Austin 7s under licence, then their own cars building up to the lovely 328. In the early 1940s there was more demand for a BMW motorbike and sidecar with both rear wheel driven and a handy machine gun in the sidecar.
Another popular BMW line was a double banked radial aero-engine though the exhibit suffers from having fallen out of the sky over England.
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* PS, Sid does not know any Grimm’s Tales so made this one up, until he can research a proper one