We had a nice surprise to start our day, with the arrival of Anna, the daughter of Uwe and Ulrike, and who is at university in Bamberg; she had taken the train at 7am to join us for the day - it was lovely to see her again. Mario & Katrin laid on a sumptuous breakfast for all 11 of us, including a collection of rainbow-hued eggs, the like of which I have never seen before.


 After breakfast we all set off to visit Bautzen, a medieval town halfway to Dresden (our destination for the next few days) with us towing the caravan in a "German sandwich" between the Lehmann and Eltz family cars! They assured us we could park it at the park&ride and so it proved, although we were not without a bit of apprehension…but we were reassured by the sight of several motorhomes already parked there.

  

 Bautzen is a very interesting town, built on a hill above the River Spree with some wonderful buildings. We wandered around admiring the water tower, castle, monastery and houses, many dating from the 1600s, and stopped for an ice cream in one of them which is now a hotel. This would be the last time we were all together, as we were off to stay in Dresden with the Eltz family. It was sad to say goodbye to the Lehmanns, but they left with promises to visit us in England and off we went to Dresden.


 

 We decided to split ourselves up so that Hubby had Ulrike as a guide in our car, and I travelled with Uwe, Anna & Christoph, who did a very good job of driving - young Germans can have a licence at 17 but must spend the year after passing their test driving with a nominated person to gain experience. It was going to be a logistical challenge to put the caravan on their drive as they live on a tram route and trams pass every 10 minutes…..suffice it to say we did it in the nick of time!




The Eltz family has a lovely home set in beautiful gardens (due to Ulrike's green fingers) and we parked the caravan next to a profusion of roses. Ulrike also planned, dug and now looks after the garden at her church and took us for a visit. Inside is a beautiful quilted cross, (also planned by Uli, a very creative lady), Anna had very kindly given up her room for us as she was returning to Bamberg, and after settling in, we all went to the local Italian for a very nice meal. We did lots of chatting about everything under the sun, then we retired home and Anna went back to university.