This year, summer vacation was only going to be three weeks. Flemming and I waited till the last moment and, as the weather was better south, we decided to fly south. I don’t like flying 4 countries in one day, unless it is necessary, like we did last sommer going to Austria. I prefer doing stopovers, with time to explore and experience something new, and Flemming supports this approach.
We took off from my flying club in Holbæk in the evening. Our destination was Lüneburg in the northern Germany. The weather was so nice and warm in Lüneburg, in variance with our cooler and wetter Denmark; we went out for an al fresco dinner on one of the town’s squares, and for a balmy night walk afterwards.
Next afternoon, after enjoying sunny summer day in Lüneburg, Flemming and I flew to Koblenz, a 2,000 years old German city on the banks of Rhine and Moselle.
We stayed in an apartment on a pedestrian street, which made it very easy to see the city.
A young boy spitting water was glorified to become the symbol of Koblenz:
There was a fountain in the old town with that boy spitting water at bypassers. Kids loved playing there. The story behind is quite surprising, and if you are curious, you can read it here.
We visited Ehrenbreitstein Fortress, the Deutsches Eck, among other places. The Koblenz History Column was so impressive! I will definetely also remember the deliscious hot chocolate we had in a very small cafe, called Cahua, who manufactured chocolate themselves:
Flemming and I continued to France. We flew by Château du Haut-Kœnigsbourg, I visited in 2018:
Our first destination in France was Colmar, a city in Alsace that doesn’t need any introduction:
It was nice to revisit that town; spending a couple of days there was so pleasant… From Colmar, we decided to go to Jovigny, a small town in Borgogne.
The old town of Jovigny was a kind of ghosty, almost completely abandoned, but so charming! We loved it so much, that we prolonged our stay!
Flemming and I gave up on our plans to come to the north west France, to the coast – the weather was unstable there and too windy. We decided to explore Borgogne instead of.
After landing in Dijon Darois, we got permission to park “on the grass” 🙂
Dijon proved to be an excellent choice! Simply put, that city had it all.
We loved shopping at the Market Halls, one of the best in France. They had such a great choice of fresh seafood, and we happily bought the best we could get – the prices were affordable.
The heat was extreme. Flemming and I would often eat our seafood at home, and later just go down the stairs to have a drink on the square or for a walk at night.
Looking for a new place to visit, I discovered Beaune on the map, and found out there was an open-air aviation museum in one of the nearby château. We had to go and see it!
Beaune was small, but lively town. We found out, Beaune was the wine capital of Borgogne! There were many really good restaurants, serving mouth-watering food and wines from their vineyards.
Lots of visitors were in Beaune, and most restaurants were sold out, every evening. The wine list in one of the restaurants we were dining at, was 72 pages…
Well, we came there to see the aeroplanes. Château de Savigny had the largest private collection of fighter jets in the world! It also had other collections, like racing cars, rockets and satellites, and so on.
Around 100 fighters were exhibited on the grounds of Château de Savigny:
Unfortunately, not much information was available about the aeroplanes, if any, but it was an interesting experience.
About two-thirds of our vacation time was used, and we had to think of flying north. Idar-Oberstein in Germany looked like a nice place, and we came there. The airport in Idar-Oberstein is famous for its great food. They make 350g steaks from morning till late night:
Beautiful views were from the airport, located on the top of a hill, and we considered dropping our hotel room and staying there in our tents. We’ll do it another time – that airport deserves a special visit.
Mont Royal was our next destination. It had no doubt the most stunning approach:
Flemming and I stayed in Traben-Trarbach, a town at its foot. We used one of the days to go on a river cruise to Bernkastel. The sailing tour was lovely:
Bernkastel was another Colmar. It was so picturesque, so charming, so increadibly beautiful, just as Colmar. Flemming couldn’t resist to be photographed by the Bears fountain:
Flemming and I had an enjoyable day there. We saw a house that was more than 600 years old, the original one from that time, a wine bar today. It was unbelievable! You can read more here.
Flight from Mont Royal to Ballenstedt, our next stopover, was tough. Turbulence and enormous traffic, I was tired and happy when it was over… In Ballenstedt, we had a cabin with a terrase and a beautiful view:
Many interesting places can be visited in that area. We prioritised and chose Quedlinburg and The Davil’s Wall.
The old town of Quedlinburg was much bigger than we thought – around 2,100 exceptionally well-preserved houses (the oldest one from 1310!), an Abbey and a Castle, what’s not to like!
Hiking the Davil’s Wall was dramatic:
All those huge rocks reminded us of the raukas of Gotland in Sweden, especially on the island of Fårö. Flemming and I spent an unforgettable day on Fårö in 2020, you can see the pictures here.
And then the last day of our trip has come. Flying from Ballenstedt home, I proposed to make a stop in Sierksdorf, and go to the beach to have a swim.
It was very nice to finish our sommer tour by the sea…
The whole trip looked approximately like follows:
The flights were around 2,700 km, and we landed in 11 airports, of them – 8 new. My OY-9797 performed fine as expected, and I logged 21 hours in 21 days 🙂 It wasn’t the same as last year, when we visited 8 countries and reached as far as south Croatia. But in summer 2023 we had much more time – 32 days! Here is the summary for the curious reader 🙂
What was the most memorable this summer? The quality of French food, we will miss greatly in Denmark. The welcoming hospitality of French people, everywhere. Joigny, the ghost town I loved so much. Spectacular landings and take-offs in German airports of Koblenz, Idar-Oberstein, Mont Royal.
In general, it was nice to be in every place we visited. We always stayed in the center of old towns which made life easier. We had the time to explore. Kind people made our travel enjoyable. We had great weather all the time – because we flew after it.
Did we miss our cold and rainy Denmark? No, of course not 🙂 But I was longing for Danish islands, the slow and simple life there. We also wished we could spend more time in the nature, going hiking, swimming. We can do it when we are back home.
And what the next summer is going to bring? We’ll see…