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| Pretty river landscape in Meschede, Germany |
My
family and I spent this summer vacation in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. We
stayed in an area called Sauerland at a campground right on the lake Hennesee.
Being from Michigan, and living in a lakeless area of Germany, I was really
excited to be on the water for a whole week.
Turns
out, the advertising was a little misleading. A main road separated the
campground from the lake. And there was a bigger, more important difference.
The
lake was man-made, created from a dammed up river. It turns out they were
cleaning this portion of the lake, removing truckloads of muck and silt. So
the below picture shows the "swimming area" for our campground.
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| In case
the lack of water didn't make it clear, the security tape encourages
you not to dive in. |
Disappointing, but
the rest of the lake was still full of water, and we enjoyed a nice boat ride.
The temps were pretty low, but the kids even managed to get in some swimming at
a stony beach down the road, at least until they came out with teeth
chattering.
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| My kids (and dog) making a rare, but still anonymous appearance on the blog :) |
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| I love the way it looks like these rocks are growing up out of the ground on
shore |
We
also got to walk on the dam itself.
The area is extremely hilly, and a
long, long, long stairway was built so you can walk up to the top of the dam
from the other side. Seriously, once on these stairs was enough.
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| Looking down |
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| Looking up the Himmelstreppe or Stairway to the Sky |
The
region is known for its slate mining, and many houses were covered in it, giving
them a dark but really unique appearance.
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| House in Meschede |
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| House in Eversberg. It's built into the hill so this side only shows the upper floors. |
Being
a reader, I liked the buildings in the village of Eversberg even better. They
had phrases painted on them. My favorite house reminded kids to keep their
bedrooms clean!
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| The phrases are in the horizontal timbers. |
In
Eversberg, we hiked up to the ruins of a fortress built in 1242 for a lovely
view.
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| View from the top |
Something I wouldn't have noticed on my own, but my husband
did, is how all of the roofs are dark slate, compared to the red tiles in
Franconia, where we live.
As
for whether I'd recommend this area for a vacation...let's just say there were
some nice aspects, but it was generally less suitable for sightseeing that most
of the places we've vacationed in Germany recently. But we enjoyed our relaxing
time there nonetheless.
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| Bonus pic: I had to prove I actually visited the ruins, didn't I? |
All
pictures by me or my family.
