Hannover to Helmstedt, Germany

We ate breakfast this morning in Hannover at a cafe near our hotel and I hit the road around 9:20. The ride out of Hannover was surprisingly quick, and it was back along canals for a significant portion of the route this morning. Given the gravel it is difficult to move particularly fast on these roads but they are scenic and mostly relaxing for sure.

Just past the intersection of the Mittellandkanal and the Stichkanal I ended up in a funny situation in which was I trapped between the canal to my left and a fence to my right. In this case, it was not a relaxing place to be! Eventually I needed to backtrack and then push my bike and crash through a dense hedge to escape. But, escape I did, and a few minutes after that I was in Braunschweig where I ate lunch. 

My afternoon ride was a really lovely 35 kilometres from Braunschweig to Helmstedt passing through the Naturpark Elm-Lappwald, and I reached the hotel at 16:16. 

Diana had already arrived by train somewhat earlier so we were already checked in at the Parkhotel Helmstedt. 

Helmstedt is a small town and not necessarily well known, but for several decades it was the most significant border crossing point between East and West Germany, "Checkpoint Alpha." It may also be the most picturesque German town we have stayed in so far. I am happy for the late evening sunsets because it gives us plenty of post-ride time to walk around and explore.

The building in the centre of the photo below is Helmstedt's town hall, and it has a restaurant in the basement.

It proved a pretty cool place to dine!

White asparagus is in season and has been advertised all along our route, so it was time to try some. In this case, you order asparagus and then chose a protein to go with it. I do not know if I have ordered a vegetable as the "feature" item of a plate before with meat on the side! The asparagus came with a generous serving of hollandaise sauce and it was wonderful. Also, I never see asparagus that thick in Canada.

I was very amused to find out that there is a bowling alley attached to the restaurant. We had a chuckle thinking about the municipal public servants enjoying games of bowling in the town hall basement.