Thursday 15 August. Magdeburg to Niegripp.

We left our hotel near the railway station at about 9:10am and headed for the bridge over the Elbe near the Otto von Guericke museum. We passed the old market square on the way and took a photograph of the gold statue of King Otto and a photo of Roland.

We nearly went wrong after crossing the first bridge, forgetting we were on an island, but soon corrected ourselves. We had another diversion near a hotel which had obviously not fully recovered from the June floods and then we were on our way.

It was a reasonable temperature for walking to start with but it heated up as the day wore on and it became quite sunny. After crossing the bridges over the Elbe we were on cycle track almost all the way to Hohenwarthe. We were on a massive flood plane surrounded by farmland. The height of the floods in June was still clear from the debris in the trees. From Magdeburg to Hohenwarthe, on the route we took today, our heads would have been below water most of the way.

We went into an infomation centre in Hohenwarthe, which was a very good move as we learned about the large aqueduct which crosses over the Elbe west of town carrying the Elbe-Havel Kanal. We had a well needed drink in a small local cafe and then went down to photograph the Elbe and the Kanal flowing over it. The Kanal was at least twice as wide as a British canal. The German barges, one of which passed us also seemed twice as wide as a British narrow boat. We followed the Kanal most of the way to Niegripp. We'd been given very good directions by the lady in the information centre in Hohenwarthe.

Bearing in mind how much German organisations love betreten verboten signs it was uplifting to see there were no signs beside the Elbe-Havel Kanal warning us about deep water and telling us not to fall in. The health and safety authorities in the UK would have had a field day putting up barriers and signs. The different reactions of organisations and peoples  in different European countries is interesting.

The final photograph shows a group of bells just sitting on the ground outside a building in Magdeburg. In England they would have been stolen for scrap within 24 hours!

I made a mistake in my calculations today and we finished up walking more than 26km. It took us just under 7 hours including all our stops. The next three days should only be about 18-20km (I think).