Home comforts

Today I'm writing from the comfort of the home of my friend Arnold, in Amersfoort, Netherlands.  Yesterday we drove down from Groningen along the side of the Ijsselmere and arrived in Amersfoort in time to walk the dogs and enjoy a family meal and a few beers with Arnold, Ineke and family.  Pictures to be posted at some point, especially of the dogs - a pair of splendid Tervuren Belgian Shepherds.

I want to briefly return the tale to Kopenhagen and share a couple of pictures of the crazy church with outside stairs!  It's the Church of Our Saviour / Vor Frelsers Kirke and the top third or so of the steps are around a spiral on the outside.  We were first in the queue to go up it and I enjoyed an interesting solitary experience climbing round the outside at 40/50 metres high in a howling gale.  Quite refreshing.  I didn't take any decent pictures to prove I actually got to the top where the stairs become about a foot wide and it's a bit of a tight squeeze that you have to back down to be able to turn round... you have to take my word.  You get quite a fantastic view over the spires of Copenhagen even from the viewing gallery without going to the top, but it's such a unique idea that I had to post the piccies.  Fran made it to the base of the spiral and was happy enough to hold on tight and then go back down.

I haven't got many pictures to share of the drive down through Denmark and the top of Germany since not a lot happens except fields, wind and straight roads!  Here is the bridge that goes from Korsor to Nyborgin Denmark and costs 220DKK to cross.  We were camped at the eastern end of it the other night.  We then avoided the Hamburg /Bremen motorway chaos by heading around the north via a ferry across the Elbe and tunnel under another bit of water.

We had a lovely couple of hours in Groningen at my cousin Natalies flat on Thursday evening catching up over coffee. 

Yesterday we stopped for lunch in a small fishing town on the Ijsselmere called Urk where the heron was sort of sunbathing on one of the pontoons.

And now we're spending a couple of days with my old boss (from EDS/HP) Arnold in Amersfoort chilling out, putting the world to rights, quaffing a few beers and sleeping in a real bed before driving the short distance down to Calais for return to the home island on Tuesday.