Calais to Berlin and back

[theboss]

Am likely to be doing this in June for a long business weekend... I'll be wanting a fairly direct route but it'll also be my wife's first trip to Germany and it would be great if there were a remotely scenic option or an interesting 'off the beaten track' town or city worth exploring for an overnight stopover. The obvious route is via Antwerp, Duisberg, Hannover but having never driven past Antwerp or Cologne until now I'm interested to know of any decent alternatives or 'must see' places en route. I might head back via the Nordschleife so that suggestion is already accounted for

Edited by theboss on Saturday 28th March 21:11

[dcb]

theboss said:

Am likely to be doing this in June for a long business weekend... I'll be wanting a fairly direct route but it'll also be my wife's first trip to Germany and it would be great if there were a remotely scenic option or an interesting 'off the beaten track' town or city worth exploring for an overnight stopover.

Pretty flat all the way from Cologne to Berlin, so not really very much to
see scenic in North Germany. Maybe the Harz mountains.

For cities, remember dozens of towns and cities in North Germany
got the full Bomber Harris treatment many years ago.

For many towns, the oldest part of the city isn't as old as Paul McCartney ;-<

theboss said:

The obvious route is via Antwerp, Duisberg, Hannover but having never driven past Antwerp or Cologne until now I'm interested to know of any decent alternatives or 'must see' places en route. I might head back via the Nordschleife so that suggestion is already accounted for

I've been to Dortmund and found very very little IMHO worth seeing there.
Twinned with Leeds and I think Leeds is prettier.

Duisberg twinned with Portsmouth and here again, I think Portsmouth has far more
worth seeing.

Maybe Gottingen, a smaller university town, might be worth a look.
The Altstadt in Dusseldorf can be quite nice if you like wall to wall bars.
I hear good things about Bremen and Hamburg, but they are much further north.

In the Netherlands, Maastricht, Valkenburg and Aachen I liked.

[theboss]

Thankyou dcb

Plans may change as instead of taking the wife I now intend to take my lad and turning the whole trip into a bit more of a Nordschleife pilgrimage with some 'bahn storming and a little bit of business thrown in.