Road Trip!

Yesterday we left Frankfurt for Berlin. The countryside outside Frankfurt is stunning; big rolling hills covered in thick, pristine forests, little red-roofed hamlets dotting the highways, and many old churches and ruins at the top of small mountains surrounded by villages.. giant banks of wind turbines pepper the landscape every 10km or so. We probably averaged about 160kmph all the way here to Berlin on the autobahn, and even when we were going faster than that there would be a BMW, Mercedes or Audi that would zip up behind us and fly past. No speed traps- ever. My dad is nursing his knuckles today from their being white having tightly gripped the steering wheel the whole way. We both agreed that going really fast makes road trips better.

One notable town we passed through was Creuzberg- with an old abbey or church built up on a hill above the town and old, tightly placed houses winding up towards it. We passed over it on a high bridge that joined a valley next to the town, and it would've been a wicked pic but at 170kmph you don't get a huge window to grab the camera.. oh well, I'll be faster on the trigger next time. Nearby we passed what is easily the hugest man-made thing I have ever seen- a mountain sized pile of aggregate that must have been from a mine or something that appeared on the horizon about 3hrs out of Frankfurt. The shadows of clouds passed over it like the spots on a jersey cow.

Everyone here drives BMWs, Audis, VWs and Mercedes. They are all perfectly clean, and the roads on the autobahn are unbelievably smooth, which is crucial at these speeds. I kept getting the feeling I had woken up in a playmobil dreamworld- the trucks and vans all look so alien and are as colourful and clean as childrens' toys.

About halfway to Berlin the hills gave way to rolling plains, and many more wind farms. Seeing these gave me hope for the future in a naive sort of way, but the enormity of these machines is also almost frightening in a visceral sort of way. It is hard to describe.

Ok, I think that wraps up the road trip.. next post, Berlin!