Monday, October 21, 2013

Oct. 20 -- Drive Half Way to Denmark: Hannover

Leipzig city street -- this style building is everywhere here
In the spirit of not spending TOO much time in the car each day, we drove about half way to our Denmark stop today, staying overnight in Hannover. We took our time leaving Dresden so we didn't arrive in Hannover too early and decided to veer from our official highway route and drive through nearby Leipzig. The reviews of it had been iffy, and in driving through the center of town, there really wasn't much to see. We followed a hop-on-hop-off sightseeing bus for a couple miles (it said "I <heart> Leipzig" on the back) but it was tough to get the sightseeing on the main roads.

An old style windmill in Leipzig -- no idea why/significance.

The trip was pretty much like our other autobahn trips -- fast, good roads, scenery that mostly looks like it could be Wisconsin. I can see why my ancestors picked Michigan and Wisconsin to settle in---looked just like home.

Church along our route to the park
Even with a rest area stop to eat our packed lunch and the side trip through Leipzig, we still arrived a couple hours before check-in time at the hotel. I had looked up what to do here and the best bet seemed to be the Herrenhausen Gardens, a series of three different style gardens on the northwest side of town. Unfortunately only one of them was free, so we skipped the formal English garden with the largest fountain in Europe (though we walked along side it and got a glimpse of the fountain) and the botanical gardens (which reminded me of a green-house sized version of the botanical gardens in Milwaukee) and walked along the lakes and paths in the Georgengarten, which was free. There were tons of folks there with their dogs, and swans and ducks on the lakes, and in general, just a nice break from all the city stuff.

Biggest fountain in Europe viewed thru the formal garden
Pretty bridge in the Georgenpark

Just like home, people out in the park with dogs on Sunday.


Birds in the park

About a mile from our Hannover... www.mels-diner.de
Back at the hotel, we asked about dining options in the area: the hotel buffet and a Mongolian restaurant 10 minutes walk away. I have been avoiding European versions of Chinese because I've read that Chinese-American bears no resemblance to Chinese-German and if you like the first, you won't like the second. I used Yelp to find other near-by dining choices and up popped Mel's Diner, less than a mile from here. I looked at their website and decided we had to go. Besides, we haven't had a hamburger and fries since we got here. The place is a total rip off of the real Mel's Diner, or what you thought it might be like if you only saw American Graffiti and had never been to the real place. The waitress was cheery, spoke great English, and found us a booth after announcing we'd have to sit at the counter. The place was totally packed, lots of families with little kids. No jukebox at the table, but a big one near the corner, not playing anything we recognized unfortunately.
Our lovely waitress, whose English was
way better than my German.


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