Author: david

Writing this from the last leg of the journey back home.  I took the local train from Paderborn to Bielefeld this morning.   I realised I must have travelled this before, because I flew to Paderborn for a PhD collaboration with a researcher in Bielefeld.  Luckily Bielefeld (still) exists. Then it was a slightly delayed ICE READ MORE

I had a wander around town after the computer museum;  the center is quite small, but was pretty. It’s German Reunification Day today, so a lot of places are closed. I then took the bus out to Schloss Neuhaus, to the NW of the Paderborn.  It was very pretty, and there was (the end of) READ MORE

After a quick post Parkrun shower, I headed off to the Heinz Nixdorf Forum museum, which is the largest computing museum in the world. It’s situated in the former HQ of Nixdorf Computers. It’s quite expansive in its scope; it starts off with the development of counting systems, before moving onto printing presses, adding machines, READ MORE

I’d planned on doing the Parkrun in Paderborn, but wasn’t sure if I’d be up in time after yesterday’s travel issues.  I awoke in plenty of time, and got the bus out to Padersee (which is a small lake on the river Pader (which is the shortest river in Germany apparently)) It was a quite READ MORE

I had the morning in Dessau, to look at the remaining Bauhaus sites. I’d planned to hire a bike for this, but the weather was pretty wet first thing.  Instead I walked to the Meisterhause (Masters’ houses).  These had been extensively rebuilt/refurbished. The first, which served as an exhibtion space had had most of its READ MORE

It was a fairly early start this morning, as I was booked on the 0730 train to Berlin.  The hostel wasn’t that near the main station; I’d planned on getting a tram, but then realised there was a suburban train station quite close, so thought I might as well take full advantage of the Interrail READ MORE

I took a train to Poznan this morning. The journey was about 3 hours through undramatic scenery; mostly rolling farmland. As well as being a convenient place to stop on my gradual way home, I was keen to see the enigma museum. This had timed entry slots (I’m not sure why; it wasn’t busy), and READ MORE

After the morning’s history,  I decided to head to the seaside.  The guide book had mentioned the costal resort of Sopot along the coast to the NW of Gdansk.  There looked to be beaches on the map a little closer, so I took the tram to Brzezno The beach was lovely, part of a wide READ MORE

The Solidarity museum had been recommended to me so I headed there this morning.  The museum covers the rise of the Solidarity movement in the early 80s, which started from striking dockers and was instrumental in the fall of communism in Poland. Before that I headed to the adjacent shipyard, that had been the start READ MORE

I’d booked a boat trip along the Elblag Canal, as it’s got a unique feature I was keen to see. The start of the journey could’ve been on the Norfolk Broads, with the flat landscape, and the channel opening up into wide, shallow lakes: It was very peaceful, though rather chilly on top of the READ MORE