It’s been a good day.  We had an early start, and were out on the street by 10am, suitcases packed and ready to face the hike to the station.  Cobbled streets are quaint, but they are not your friend when rolling a suitcase.  However after all our practice with the train system, we were experts, and transitioned easily from the S-Bahn to the regional system.  Happily there were no delays on our line today, and we pulled out of Hamburg en route to Rostock on time, settling in for a smooth two hour ride on the ICE fast train.

We didn’t plan to linger in Rostock – we were only here to collect our rental car.  The very nice helpful man at Sixt looked at his computer and said “you’ve ordered a small automatic … hmmm … think I’ll upgrade you to a larger one, and throw in a satnav – no extra cost”.  We weren’t about to say no!  So we now have the keys to a shiny new BMW 4 Series Gran Coupe.  With satnav, heads-up display (HUD), sunroof, heated seats (not needing those right now), and a raft of safety features – all bells and whistles.  So many buttons to press!  To buy one back home would cost us around $85K, but here it’s just an average midsized car.

Ian has never driven in Europe, and it’s been 19 years since he last drove on the “other” side of the road.  He seems to be adjusting reasonably well and loves the HUD.  One review called the car “savagely rapid”, though we haven’t tested the acceleration fully yet. Ian hasn’t worked out how to activate “sport mode”.  Thank goodness.  Besides, while it would no doubt be impressive to pull up in at streetO (come on, you would all be impressed, admit it), it has no off-road credentials to speak of.

We decided to stock up at a supermarket before leaving town, not knowing how Stralsund would be for gluten free food.  After missing a couple of turns and ignoring the satnav’s polite but repetitive pleas to “U-turn when possible”, we found ourselves somewhere in outer urban Rostock.  Luckily we found a supermarket with a good supply of Schar brand GF food so we loaded up.

I’m not quite sure how we would ever have found our way out of Rostock without the satnav (thanks nice man at Sixt!) but eventually we were on the B105 heading east. This road was single lane and quite busy, but it led directly to Langendorf, where we are staying for the next 6 nights.  We turned off the main road and into a small village.  Uta was outside the house to greet us.

She took us upstairs and showed us around.  This place is one of the best we’ve stayed in anywhere, and definitely a step up from Hamburg!  Between the car and the house we feel like we have gone straight from backpacker to luxury tourist class.  The bathroom in particular is quite impressive with a shower, spa bath, matching his and hers basins, heated towel rails, and room to dance.  The kitchen is small but has everything we need including a full range of cutlery, a knife block, a strainer (hooray!) and things to use in the microwave (double hooray!)  We have our own washing machine and dryer (triple hooray!)  The only downside is a lack of any internet – we’ll have to find free wi-fi in Stralsund to upload the blog and do other online things.  On the plus side, the nearest portal or pokemon is 8 kms away.  So it’s back to reading books for us for the next few days – a nice change of pace.

We have exchanged our city street kitchen view for a rural landscape.  As I wash the dishes I look out over a green field with a few distant red roofed houses.  There is a large black and white cat who hunts in the field.  An evening downpour, much the same as last night’s, has cooled the temperatures.  The cat doesn’t seem to mind and neither do we.