Patariki Visits Celle

Saturday August 14th

Today was an easy drive a few kilometres to a place called Celle. The traffic was light on the road being Saturday. It was so pleasant driving along without so many trucks and only a few cars. We arrived in the little town of Celle. It was lovely and well worth staying for a while. A lot of the parking had height restrictions but we finally found a really suitable little park where you were able to stay for 2 hours. So they left me under the leafy trees and took Patariki for a walk.

Our first stop was the Lutheran church Satdtkirche Sankt Marine. It was originally consecrated in 1308. It has art work dating from 1495. Most striking were the paintings along the gallery showing scenes from the new testament that could be read as a pictorial bible, Often these stories are in stain class windows, but in this church they were a continuous frieze, like pages of a comic book . The whole church is richly decorated with stone carvings. While they were there, three guided tour groups arrived.
They then went and visited the Ducal Palace which is now a museum. It was built in 1292 and has links with George 1 of Great Britain as he was descended from the royal family that resided there. There were beautiful wooden parquet floors in the royal apartments and you had to put slippers over your shoes. These were impossible to walk in so you had to skate around the rooms. It would have kept the floors polished.

The 2hour parking had run out so they found their way back to Hemi and made lunch before paying for another 2 hours and setting out on the town walk. There are over 500 lovingly restored half timbered listed houses in the compact town centre. They are nearly all pretty little shops and the whole town has a lovely atmosphere. The shops were gorgeous with beautiful things in them. Mary bought two pairs of shoes! I had my photos taken by the talking lamps which was a modern art installation.

They then went into the Information Centre to ask about camp sites and were given directions to Silbersee. It is on a lake that you are able to swim on at your own risk. It is a nice place where you can park where you like under the trees.