The best place to hide from a burning sunshine? Under the wing, of course! It was a hot morning; Peter and I wanted to take off early, before the temperatures would go higher, as the runway wasn’t very long for the type of aircraft we flew.
We did the briefing under the wing before heading for Heringsdorf in Germany, our next destination. The whole group agreed to meet there, and to see the Hangar 10 museum in the airport before going to the hotels.
We first watched others to take off – to see how much of the runway they would use for the ground roll (photo: John Eriksson / Johan Wallstén):
They used approx. 60-70% which was fine. If they could – so could Peter and I, and our friends. We had also studied the places beside the runway where we could potentially end up, in case we didn’t make it. And we took off as well.
Over Elbe river, north-east of the Letnany airport, a place called Brandýs nad Labem-Stará Boleslav. It is a historical Czech town and the oldest pilgrimage site in Central Bohemia, known from the 9th century.
The fame of this place came from a major historical event: the murder of Prince Wenceslas by his brother Boleslav at the gate of St. Cosmas and Damian Church on September 28 in 935 A.D. After his death, Wenceslas was proclaimed a saint by the church and became the patron saint of the Czech nation. Remember the statue of Wenceslas in Prague, I mentioned in my previous post?
We continued our way north, to Heringsdorf in Germany.
Beautiful green hills of Czechia:
A look at a huge mining site of something. We often see large mines from air, but I’ve never seen anything of that size:
A closed down airport on our way, and the runway is covered with solar panels… It is always sad to see an airport, unused for its intended purpose:
The one on the photo below looked much better: Neuhardenberg solar park built around the runway, on the site of the former military airport. Neuhardenberg is the largest solar photo-voltaic project in Germany, and is currently one of the largest solar power plants in the world. At least the aerodrome is in use…
The pilot and his aeroplane… Peter at the fuel station in Heringsdorf:
The Hangar 10 museum in Heringsdorf features some ravishing flying machines:
We all stayed in different places in and around Heringsdorf. I ended up in Seebad Alhbeck, the easternmost of the Kaiserbäder seaside resorts of the Usedom island, south-east of Heringsdorf. At first, I wanted to rent a car and to drive around the island. But when I saw how beautiful Seebad Ahlbeck was, I thought it would be more interesting to explore this small city, and on foot. Dünenstraße, a charming promenade by the sea:
Endless white sand beaches, and not that many tourists at this time of the year:
Graceful houses of Seebad Ahlbeck:
The pilot and his aeroplane… I saw the sculpture on the photo below in one of the private gardens where a pilot is sitting next to his aircraft; I would love to know the story behind…
On my long walk along the beach I discovered a sand castle, a sphinx and a pyramid. I couldn’t recognise the castle (there are many of them, after all), but the two other sculptures were clearly inspired by The Great Sphinx and The Great Pyramid of Giza:
And this modern pyramid was the Rialto restaurant in Seebrücke Bansin where we all were going to have dinner:
Cheers with Robert:
We got a big table inside. The restaurant wasn’t ventilated, and it was very warm. The staff couldn’t open a door next to our table, because they didn’t have a key. Expect at least 30 minutes waiting time; but once the order was taken, they served all of us quickly (except for forgetting Inge – he got his meal when most of us were finished).
Erik, Peter, Sven, and Weine met up late, and were lucky to get a table on the terrace (photo: John Eriksson / Johan Wallstén):
After dinner, we had drinks on the terrace and remembered the good things from our days together.
Sunset photo with Celie:
And the marvellous sunset (photo: John Eriksson / Johan Wallstén):
The group photo before going back to our hotels. We are pointing at the direction of our flights the following day. From left to right: Erik, Celie, Weine, Inge, Håkan, Sven, Peter, me, Henric, Jan, Jan again, Christian, Anders, Carl Philip, Stefan, John, Robert, and Jon (photo: Johan Wallstén):
Well, not all of us wanted to go to bed yet. Safari bar had live music, and people were dancing… So why not join them?
