{"id":168,"date":"2018-05-28T23:28:07","date_gmt":"2018-05-28T23:28:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fred-hart.de\/itzehoe2018\/?p=168"},"modified":"2018-05-29T06:29:34","modified_gmt":"2018-05-29T06:29:34","slug":"going-east","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.fred-hart.de\/itzehoe2018\/2018\/05\/28\/going-east\/","title":{"rendered":"Going East"},"content":{"rendered":"

Day 7: Itzehoe to Erfurt – via Wernigerode<\/h3>\n

I knew when I got up that today would be a long day of driving. Erfurt is in the middle of Germany. Itzehoe in the North.<\/p>\n

After breakfast I packed my things and at 10 o’ clock I was ready to start – the first aim was to get clear of Hamburg nice and early.<\/p>\n

After packing the car I waved goodbye to my hosts Barbara and Albrecht and headed for the Autobahn, stopping just before joining to fill up with petrol (\u20ac71.50 per tank out here – just over \u00a360).<\/p>\n

Then it was on to the Autobahn. Traffic was light with plenty of opportunity to take advantage of there being no speed limit – I made it to Hamburg in no time. Had to slow down for Hamburg, of course, a speed limit of 80 km\/h limit applies here. With traffic light I did in 45 minutes this morning the same distance I did in 2 hours on Friday afternoon.<\/p>\n

From Hamburg, the first section of the journey was easy enough – follow the A7 (the main North-South Autobahn) as far as Hannover, then get on the A2 and go as far as Braunschweig (Brunswick). A couple of slow sections through the roadworks, but otherwise a fairly clear run.<\/p>\n

I made it to a motorway service station just outside Braunschweig in 2hrs 45mins and decided to stop for lunch. There was a hut inside the service station selling the traditional German Currywurst with chips – so that was my lunch. Quick, cheap and easy… and then it was back on the road.<\/p>\n

\"\"During my journey to Erfurt, I detoured through the Sachsen-Anhalt (Saxony-Anhalt) region and stopped at the town of Wernigerode<\/a> to visit the air museum (Luftfahrtmuseum)<\/a>. Taking up a space of 4 hangars, the museum displays an interesting collection of early planes and helicopters.<\/p>\n

From Wernigerode the journey on to Erfurt would take another 2 hours. The first half of this was without Autobahn, following the local roads, with some very interesting countryside and some picturesque towns and villages. Tomorrow I will be going in to the country to properly explore, I will go up to the highest point in the Th\u00fcringen region.<\/p>\n

Before long I reached the Autobahn network again. The Autobahns of the old East Germany are great to drive on: No traffic, with plenty of opportunity to go fast.<\/p>\n

Over the final 50\/60km stretch in to Erfurt I was able to be doing in the region of 160km\/h all the way, apart from one tunnel (80km\/h limit) and one 2km section of roadworks (60km\/h limit). Otherwise, apart from the odd vehicle the road was deserted.<\/p>\n

By 6 I was in the centre of Erfurt, the State Capital of Th\u00fcringen and had found a parking space in the multi-storey underground carpark at the Domplatz, just a short walk from my hotel.<\/p>\n

\"\"After checking-in and unpacking the car I went for a walk around the city and found the Zitadelle Petersberg<\/i><\/a>, the town fortress which was restored after German reunification and is now open to the public as one of the city’s historic sights.<\/p>\n

Then it was dinner time and I went to eat at the Greek restuarant attached to my hotel – the Restaurant Kreta<\/a>. It seems the Germans don’t eat out on Mondays though, it was empty apart from me and one other table.<\/p>\n

Tomorrow, some more sightseeing in and around Erfurt, then I’m heading back to the Rheinland to spend my final night in Germany in Cochem (Mosel Valley).<\/p>\n

Gute Nacht,<\/p>\n

FH.<\/p>\n

Today’s Mileage:<\/strong> 307.5
\nAccumulative Mileage:<\/strong> 1229.6<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Autobahns of the old East Germany are great to drive on: No traffic, with plenty of opportunity to go fast.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":169,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[53,37,51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-erfurt","category-itzehoe","category-wernigerode"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/www.fred-hart.de\/itzehoe2018\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/05\/DSCN3827.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fred-hart.de\/itzehoe2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fred-hart.de\/itzehoe2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fred-hart.de\/itzehoe2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fred-hart.de\/itzehoe2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fred-hart.de\/itzehoe2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.fred-hart.de\/itzehoe2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":177,"href":"http:\/\/www.fred-hart.de\/itzehoe2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168\/revisions\/177"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fred-hart.de\/itzehoe2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fred-hart.de\/itzehoe2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fred-hart.de\/itzehoe2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fred-hart.de\/itzehoe2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}