Poznań - Magdeburg (day 21)

Today we left Poznań and with it Poland behind us and drove to Germany, where we will spend our last night before we're going home. But before that, we first visited Poznań!

With breakfast in our stomachs and luggage loaded into the car, we drove to the old town of Poznań, where we parked the car just outside the old town and walked into the old town. Once we arrived at the central square, the imposing and beautiful old town hall, with its clock tower, suddenly appeared. We stood (and sat) there, gawking at it. The former town hall is now a museum of national history. The special thing about the clock tower is that when the clock strikes 12:00 H every day, two rams emerge and then ram their antlers/horns against each other twelve times. At this point, it was not even 12:00 yet, so we walked a little further into the city and went to a café for a coffee. After the coffee break, we passed by Poznań Castle, which is now a museum of applied arts (and was also closed). Then we walked on to the city basilica. It looked beautifully decorated on the inside, with winding pillars and lots of splendor and beauty. After seeing the basilica, we walked to a small courtyard of (presumably) the current city hall, where an artist had built a whole structure of plaster blocks on the benches. There were toilets in this same courtyard and after a toilet stop we walked to a souvenir shop, where I bought another souvenir (in the shape of the two rams I mentioned earlier). Then we walked on to another small square, where we sat on a bench in the shade and ate a sandwich, looking out at a work of art of an artificial waterfall (which stands in a large water tank) that slid down a sloping wall of about one meter high and six meters wide. Behind this wall there was another long beam where water poured down on both sides of the wall like a kind of small rain shower. Every few minutes the waterfall stops flowing and the 'rain' that fell from the beam poured less hard, a few minutes later it suddenly started 'raining' harder again and the waterfall started running again. After a while it was 11:50 H, and we walked to the central square where the old town hall is located. In the meantime, a large crowd had formed here, all wanting to see the performance of the two rams. When it was finally 12:00 H the clock started to strike twelve times, after which the hatch opened and the two rams slowly emerged, after an interval the two rams turned towards each other and rammed each other twelve times, after which they slowly went back inside and the hatches closed again. After having seen this, we walked back to the car, because the time of the parking meter was almost up. Once we arrived at the car, we drove straight through (except for a stop at a gas station to refuel and a toilet stop) to Magdeburg in Germany. This is already our last stop before we return home to the Netherlands (tomorrow). Once we arrived at the hotel (room with kitchenette) we brought our stuff inside and drove to the center of Magdeburg by car. Here we parked the car and walked into the center, where we had dinner at a pizzeria. After dinner we walked into a roofed shopping center, where we bought bottles of water at a supermarket. Finally, we walked back to the car and drove back to the hotel. While typing this story I discovered that there was a hornet in the room, I didn't know how to get it out (hornets are more aggressive than wasps), so I got my mother involved, and together we didn't really know how to get it out, the hornet got stuck in the rails of the curtain where we couldn't reach it. Finally, we called the hotel service number, but it turned out he didn't speak English very well. Eventually he arranged another (larger) room for me, so that was great! Anyway, tomorrow is the last stage where we will make a stopover at my brother's house and I can see my little niece again (and of course my sister-in-law too!)

Day 20

Travel overview

Day 22