Hi everyone,

Hump day on my 80 days scooter challenge from Germany’s most northern to most southern point! I am in Behrungen right now, a town at the former inner German border. This is an interesting place since I have the chance to see the infamous former border strip with its watch towers and border posts for myself. Here are the half time facts: I have “scootered” 1374 kilometers out of the total 2573 kilometers in 40 days.. So I have managed to keep up my pace and hopefully will reach Germany’s most southern point after 80 days. 

At the beginning of my challenge I accomplished a distance of 30 to 40 kilometers a day. Now I can already manage to scooter 70-80 kilometers. I became so much more fit lately!

Anyway, my last stop in Thüringen was also very interesting. I visited the so-called Fairy Tale Cave. This cave actually has a serious historical past. Men worked hard to dig out this 65,000 square meter cave by hand in the 19th century in order to produce sand for wealthy land owners.

 

Standing inside the cave I had this weird feeling of how unbelievably hard their work must have been. Inside the cave I could watch an exhibition of figures and paintings of those hard working men from the old days.

But ironically the owner of the cave splits the tour in half. First he presents the serious and historical images inside the cave. Then you see figures and images from fairy stories like Hansel & Gretel. I think this mixture can confuse children who are visiting this place. What is fact and what is fiction?

Yours, Wigge

Hey everyone,

last week was exciting. I have covered 236 kilometers on my scooter and seen  two exciting German superlatives.

 

First I visited the smallest house in Germany. 2.95 metres x 4.2 metres in size. This house looks like a miniature version of a typical historical German house, but it is way smaller. I did the test: How long does it take to run through the entire house from the entrance door to the end of the room in the first floor? Incredible 3,4 seconds – although I once hit my head under the ceiling by running up the stairs.

I spent a few hours in the tiny house and got more results: I hit my head underneath the low ceiling of 1,70 metres seven more times! But I also figured out that the house was built more than 300 years ago, owned by a mail man and his family of nine and one tenant. Yes, eleven people. Just incredible how low living standards were in the past.

 

Three days later I reached the center of Germany in the state of Thüringen. This center is quiet funny since it has five other competitors. A total of five other towns say that they are based in the middle of our country, all calculated on other systems.

 

So I had to figure out, if this is the real center: I gave pedestrians a yoga mat, a white yoga dress and a yoga headband. Three people took them, sat down in front of the memorial center stone of Germany and searched with different meditation techniques after their own center.

 

And they all found their personal center! This is the proof that I was at the right center of Germany! J

Yours, Wigge