Visiting our friend Karin in Fitchenwalde

May 16, 2019

Lettie continues to be very well behaved and stays at the door. We love the look on her face, and particularly the lop sided ears.

We are not accustomed to having the luxury of a fully outfitted apartment as we enjoyed last night at Villa Moeller in Treuendriezter. The owners have had this grand old home for 5 years and are lovingly restoring it to its former glory. Ceilings of at least 14 feet, architectural details reflecting a time of great craftsmanship, all for a very reasonable price. We particularly appreciated that our host had the heat on which made us feel so welcome. So many places are cold when we arrive and it is so hard to get comfortable. The charms of Lettie, the resident German Shepherd, and our host made us feel welcome.

Comfortable digs for the night. As one of the reviews said, it is a shame we are only staying one night.

We had stopped here yesterday as the weather was not good. It was windy and cold, which is nothing new, but we decided that suffering is overrated.

Our host recommended some places nearby to eat, but a short walk to the nearby Netto grocery store and we were very happy to stay inside in our temporary home, enjoying a rare treat of satellite radio in our suite with a jazz station playing some great music. Being on the road is great, but we do miss our music and playing the piano.

Woke up this morning to very heavy rain and 8 celcius - but that is ok as we only have about 30 km to go to Fitchenwalde. This will be our second visit to see Karin, the sister of our friend Kurt in Canada. Our last time here was in 2014 when we toured the Elbe River and we are excited to spend some time with her again. Where does the time go?

We are in Beelitz and it is officially the Spargel capital (white asparagus) of Germany, so we warmed up with Spargel soup. So yummy.

It is hard to describe the flavour, but it is sweeter and more tender than green asparagus. Streets, Apothekes, etc are named after this special vegetable

Cake and coffee to cheer us up - after all it is raining and very cold (high of 8 degrees) -so we must have cake!

Spargel everywhere, even on street decorations.

The weather looks good for the next few days-in fact, it is supposed to be over 20 degrees. We will be staying in a friend’s cabin nearby as Karin’s cabin is in need of a new chimney. We really like the community of a Fitchenwalde as it is like living in the forest and countryside, yet in a small town. So many trees and beautiful nature here.

We couldn’t believe that this small town had such gridlock of mostly huge transport trucks. Karin explained to us that the Autobahn is nearby and if there is construction or an accident everybody detours through Beelitz...and with Potsdam and Berlin so close, that draws a lot of traffic

We arrived at Karin’s cold and wet through, yet so excited to see her again. Tomorrow, we will follow up with lots more about Karin and our visit here.

Today's ride: 35 km (22 miles)
Total: 1,169 km (726 miles)

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