Via Romea Germanica Day 12: Bröckel - Rietze

Nimm dir zeit, um zu traumen. Das ist der weg zu den Sternen. 

Take the time to dream. That is the Way to the stars.

- sign by the door of the house where I picked up the keys to my accommodation this afternoon 

I slept marvellously in my little trailer - definitely the smallest pilgrim hostel I have ever stayed in! Luckily, I didn't even have to traipse across the garden and into the maze of Torsten's house to use the toilet during the night. When I arrived, Torsten showed me where everything was and then went out to dinner with his girlfriend. And could I find the shower room after he had gone? All the doors looked the same, and the ones I tried led into his workshops and storage rooms - he restores antiques for a living. His house is so big he also uses it as an event venue, hosting meetings, parties and concerts, as well as an annual Christmas market!

I wasn't that bothered about having a shower anyway, and it was cold in the big old house - much warmer outside in the garden. So I took my dinner to a table in the garden and ate there, then retired to my cosy shepherd's cabin.

Torsten's girlfriend Barbara came over in the morning and we all had breakfast together, discussing the differences between European and North American long-distance hiking trails - her son wants to walk the Pacific Crest Trail, and she is not very happy about it! I also discovered that Torsten and Barbara were at the party Ayelen and I crashed in Celle on Saturday night 🤭

Candlelight breakfast!

Tortsen showing off his Via Romea t-shirt

After the ritual photo-taking, signing of the pilgrim guest book and stamping of the pilgrim credential, it was time to leave the haven of Antikhof Drei Eichen and hit the road. My first stop was the local grocery store, to stock up on food for the next 24 hours: my contact in Rietze, Heinrich, had warned me that there were no shops or restaurants there. 

I then proceeded out of town and into the open fields, among gigantic wind turbines. 

I passed a Christmas tree farm, and a sign reporting the distance to Rome. I'm not sure whether to trust it, because the distance it reported from Stade - 166 kilometres - was a lot less than I have walked! I reached a total of 250 kilometres today, according to my GPS tracks. 👣 

I passed some curious cows, and many, many fields of asparagus, covered with sheets of non-woven textiles to protect them against the cold. Not necessary today - the weather has suddenly warmed up! After walking without my jacket on for the first time yesterday, today I even walked in short sleeves!

Lilac is in bloom all over Germany: I first saw it in Munich on my day visiting between trains on my way to Stade. It comes in a variety of colours, not only the classic lilac but white and a variety of shades of purple. 

I stopped for a picnic on a bench in the village green in Eltze. I passed by Gasthaus Pröve, where I had originally sought accommodation. Once again I am glad nothing was available (due to renovation work), as the owner gave me the number of Heinrich in Rietze, a few kilometres further along the way, who arranged for me to stay at the Dorfgemeinschafthaus, the local community centre and village hall, in the building that used to be the schoolhouse. Heinrich was not there when I arrived, but his wife Dagmar gave me the keys; the mayor of the village himself came to meet me at the hall, bringing coffee, tea and sugar and asking if I needed anything else. I reassured him that I had already bought enough food for dinner, but he still came back later to offer me a lift to the supermarket! 😄

The Dorfgemeinschafthaus

I even have my own playground!

And a giant inflatable mattress (the super-comfy kind) in the meeting room

For pilgrims, the village provides a large inflatable mattress in the corner of the meeting room/party room. One of three meeting and party rooms - a lot, for a village of 280 people! I discovered this on my tour of the village with Heinrich, who is responsible for looking after pilgrims in the village and came by the community centre to see me and stamp my pilgrim credential. We sat talking on a bench in the playground in the sunshine, then he took me on a tour of the village and introduced me to several of his friends. He showed me a stork's nest on the top of his house. And he even invited me to drop by and have a beer at a birthday party where he will be going later! 

With Heinrich in Rietze 

Bröckel - Rietze 18 km

Via Romea Germanica Day 10: Rest day in Celle, and Day 11: Celle - Bröckel

Europe does not grow out of papers, but out of people who open themselves up to meet people from other countries and cultures, with other languages and ways of life.

- Uwe Schott, quoted on the Via Romea Germanica website  (2011)

The Via Romea Germanica is also called the  Weg der Begugnungen - the way of encounters. In Celle I stopped for a rest day and, however beautiful the city itself, it was the encounters that were the highlight of my visit!

I arrived in Celle one day ahead of my original schedule, and my new arrival date was not convenient for Hilke, the Servas host I had contacted in the city. So I found a new host through Couchsurfing. Ayelen is from Argentina and just began her new life in Germany a few months ago, after obtaining a Polish passport; her German ancestors are from the area around Celle,  but emigrated to Argentina from Poland, so that's the European passport she is eligible for. That or Italian, from the other side of her family; but she reported that the waiting list is so long for Italian citizenship applications in Argentina, it would have taken at least three years to process her application!

Ayelen sold all her possessions, sent her two teenaged children to live with her parents for the time being, and left behind Argentina's disastrous economy to find work in Germany. She cooks in a café, cleans a couple of days a week, and rents an apartment with an extra room which her children will occupy once she completes the paperwork required to bring them over. In the meantime,  she has made the room available to couchsurfers! 

I slept really well, and had a leisurely breakfast, knowing that I didn't have to pack up and start walking again. Then Ayelen and I walked into the town centre, bustling with a Saturday morning produce market.

Spargel - it's asparagus season!

When Ayelen went off to work on her bike, I paid two euros to climb several hundred steps to the top of the church tower. The views were magnificent on this sunny morning!

Back at the base of the tower, I met local Servas member Hilke and we took a walk around town. Hilke pointed out some sights I hadn't yet noticed and took me off the beaten track to see the Französischer Garten or French garden and the "new" city hall - the old one in the old town centre is now the tourist information office.

The Alte Rathaus by the church

The Neue Rathaus

A house painted with amusing decorations

The oldest house in the town is currently under scaffolding... so I took a picture of the one next door 😀

Hilke in the Französischer Garten 

There's a sad story of forbidden love behind this building... too long to tell here

Café in the Französischer Garten

Spaghetti Eis!

After spending a very enjoyable afternoon together, Hilke and I parted ways as she went off on her bike to see how the plants were doing in her allotment garden. I stayed in the park relaxing, until I realised the next day would be Sunday and all the shops would be closed... so I rushed off to buy some groceries. Then I returned to the gardens to meet Ayelen for a beer. Neither of us being German speakers, we ended up blundering our way into a private party in the Biergarten, enjoying a free Celler beer! 😅

When someone started getting the party organised for a group photo, we realised our unintentional gatecrashing was at risk of being discovered, so we headed home, where Ayelen made pizza - apparently she wasn't fed up of cooking, even after doing it all day at work! 

In the morning I said goodbye and headed back onto the trail. Again I crossed the old city centre, deserted on a Sunday morning. 

I followed the river Aller out of the town and turned down a beautiful lane lined with ancient horse chestnut trees - which was unfortunately not the right way to go! 😄

I turned back and followed a paved cycling track to Altencelle, which, as the name suggests,  is the original site of the town of Kiellu or Celle, moved to its current site in 1292. I took a break on a bench outside the Gertudenkirche, the church of St. Gertrude, rebuilt in the 14th century on the site of a church constructed before the year 1000.

The church was, unfortunately, closed... but just past it I saw a storks' nest, high up atop a pole - the first I had seen in Germany! I saw hundreds of them on the Camino de Santiago in Spain, where the sound of clattering stork beaks was a constant accompaniment to our steps.

I continued on to the farming village of Osterloh, and crossed the river Aller.

I stopped to eat my lunch in a Grillplatz, a barbecue area, which was, surprisingly,  not being used on this sunny Sunday. Then I walked across Bockelskamp, an unassuming village of red brick detached houses, and came along a cycling lane to the convent of Kloster Wienhausen.

Only 3 million more steps to Rome!

Kloster Wienhausen 

The convent has a pilgrim stamp, kept in a wooden box outside the door so it is accessible even when the church is closed. Leaving the church, and the old mill beside it, I followed a trail of people eating ice cream cones to find Eiscafé Florenz and sit down with a purportedly Italian ice cream. I must admit it was pretty authentic! (Didn't take a picture, though.)

The old mill at Wienhausen

The trail continued through the town of Wienhausen, where there are a couple of restaurants, a Biergarten and a bakery, in addition to the ice cream shop. Then the trail plunged into the forest along a dirt road where plenty of cyclists were out on a Sunday afternoon, including whole families with small children in infant seats and trailers of various types.

Passing through a couple more small settlements and then along a wide road, at last I came to Bröckel, where I am spending the night in the pilgrim accomodation provided by Torsten, who restores antiques in his workshop in an enormous ancient post, where riders used to stop and change horses... along the road to Rome!

Celle - Bröckel 23 km