Escape from Colditz

With a 650km drive from Ypres to our first stopover point in Germany of Goslar, we had to make an early start.  It wasn’t a difficult drive, being largely on motorway, but it wasn’t the most scenic.  The landscape did start to improve once off the motorway as we approached the Harz Mountains region.

We pulled into the campsite on the edge of the town early evening feeling a bit punch drunk after such a long drive.  We had a nice greeting from the camp reception who gave us useful information about getting into town including a tourist card that got us free bus travel and discount on entry tickets to attractions. The campsite was very German – i.e. immaculate with sparkling clean and modern facilities. There was even a bike cleaning machine.

Goslar wasn’t somewhere we’d heard of or had planned to visit, but my brother Robert had recommended it as a place in central Germany to visit – presumably as it must have many good breweries.  We also discovered the old town and historic mine here are both World UNESCO Heritage site listed attractions.  The town was founded in 922 and became one of the most important seats of power in the Holy Roman Empire.  The medieval town was spared bombing in the Second World War due to an American POW camp being located here.  Today there are over 1,500 original colourful half timbered houses on cobblestone streets in the old town.  There are also a number of unusual slate shingled houses. There was even a Woolworths that made me a little nostagic for pick 'n mix and cheap vinyl records.

We had caught the bus into town in the morning while the forecast was still for sunshine and had an amble around the cobbled streets. The buildings were certainly very ornate.

There were some strange sculptures on a hotel on the main square. Apparently the little guy pooping coins ( a 'ducat pooper') is meant to remind people to pay their debts.

We visited the Kaiserpfalz (Imperial Palace ) which is over 1,000 years old and dates back to the Roman Empire. There was an impressive Imperial Hall covered with painted images.

As the sunshine vanished around lunchtime we jumped on a bus that took us to the other UNESCO site of the Rammelsberg Mines. This was once one of Europe's most important non-ferrous metal (silver, copper and lead) mining locations and operated for over 1,000 years until 1988. We were keen to go on a guided tour, but after contacting them to see if we could book an English speaking tour, we were told they no longer offered them which we thought was unusual for a UNESCO World Heritage site. We had read it was still worth going to have a look around the various exhibitions, so we were very happy when they said we could join the mining train tour which was about to start - even though it was in German they said we would at least be able to experience the train ride into the mine shafts and see some of the equipment that was used to mine.

It was an interesting experience seeing where the miners kitted up then travelling by a rickety train into the shaft to look out how the rock was drilled and blasted, then loaded onto wagons.

After the tour we spent some time wandering around the other exhibitions on the site including ore processing, the power station and an interesting temporary exhibition on slave labour used on the site during the war.

We caught the bus back into town and decided a big hearty German meal was in order on a chilly wet evening - you can't get more German than schnitzel and curry-wurst washed down with a local beer.

The following day we wanted to get in striking distance of the Polish border and we spotted that Colditz Castle wasn't far off our route and would make a good break in the journey. It was a wet gloomy day but once off the motorways again we did pass through some attractive small towns. Colditz certainly looks impressive as you approach it. We both remember watching the BBC series in the 1970's and were looking forward to learning more about the many escape attempts there.

We did an excellent HistoPad self guided tour. This is effectively an iPad which we carried around that we could scan on information boards in each room, and it would allow you to see 3-D images of that room as it was at a particular point in time. There were choices for when the castle was a stately home, an insane asylum and the POW camp. The rooms in the castle have been left unrenovated so it really brought back to life how the rooms were used in the past. There were also projected images of peoples accounts on the walls, as well as historic film footage. The HistoPad also took us through the many and ingenious/madcap escape attempts made through the war from building tunnels, scaling up and down steep walls and even building a glider to launch from the roof. It was a superb tour and made us think how amazing the human mind can be under such harsh circumstances. Colin was particularly taken with the dummy the Dutch prisoners used on the parade to cover up that there was a missing prisoner that day.

When we left Colditz we had just a couple of hours drive to the town of Bautzen where we parked up the night in a car park in town. It was teeming it down as we arrived, so we delayed our walk around until the following morning. It is an attractive medieval town, in fact one of Germany's best preserved with 14 medieval towers. On a sunny day it would have been a place to linger and explore more, but unfortunately it was a chilly damp day, so once we'd picked up some provisions and had a coffee we set off Poland bound.