Trip miles 630
-3 overnight
Our destination was Magdeburg, ‘City of Otto’ and former
capital of the Saxony-Anhalt region.
We parked alongside the fast-flowing and wide river Elbe
next to tourist boats berthed up for the winter. A stroll around the town
revealed a surprising mix of 10th and 12th century
churches and monasteries rubbing shoulders with gigantic concrete and steel
shopping centres, and the utterly bizarre pseudo-moorish building by the
architect Friedensreich Huntertwasser. Glossy pink, wobbly-looking and crowned
with golden cupolas and domes it is now home to empty retail units in its
labyrinthine passage ways. The biting wind and driving sleet did nothing to
soften the gloomy views along Brieter Weg, once one of Germany’s most
impressive Imperial boulevards. The two remaining patrician houses looked
proudly forlorn amongst the socialist-style apartment blocks built as the city
reconstructed itself after the war.
A piping hot bowl of Kartoffelnsuppe
cheered us both up and we meandered back along the riverside to Bertha before
settling in for a suspiciously quiet night under our single street lamp and
listening to the sound of the boats creaking gently in the water alongside us.
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| Maundy Thursday, 4.33pm |
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| Good Friday, 8.12am |
