Another two hours of punishing the Gutless Wonder along motorways and we reached our destination for the next two nights: Leipzig, or “Less Pig”, again because Kristina couldn't remember the name of it. I should probably point out that while I had emailed all the details of the trip through to her well in advance, she didn't exactly commit any of it to memory, which will come more into play later on. So anyway we pitched our mansions for our first night of camping, made friends with the neighbours, and borrowed their hammer (good tip ;)

Half a million Krouts call Less Pig home and for the most part it seemed to be a pretty nice city, except for one minor incident where some punk in his van dangerously and blatantly cut me off in the Gutless Wonder at speed, after which I went and had a (one-sided) ‘chat' with him at the next red light. A few famous composers from back in the day including Bach and Wagner once called this city home also, but they're all dead now.

Ooo look at that - a hammer! we still needed to find one of them.

We meandered around the city for a bit, got some brunch, and admired the SS solders singing on the roadside. Less Pig apparently has some of the finest classical music and opera in the country. I'm sure the mannequins there were enjoying it.

We then set out to see this random thing - the Volkerschlachtdenkmal, that's right the Volkerschlachtdenkmal (isn't German a beautiful language). In English, this is the Monument to the Battle of the Nations. The Battle of the Nations (or the Battle of Leipzig) took place in Less Pig in 1813. The Battle of Less Pig was fought over three days and was one of the most decisive defeats suffered by Napoleon. The rumble involved over 600,000 soldiers, making it the largest battle in Europe prior to World War I. As for this 91-metre high monument, it was erected in 1913 to mark the battle's 100th anniversary, and cost a great sum of money for what is really an eyesore, complete with poo-brown pond. Never mind.

Earlier in the day while wandering aimlessly around the city and scratching our chins for something to do later, we found a big road-side map of Less Pig and spotted a massive parkland just west of the city that looked as though it might be semi-fascinating. Turns out, it really was! We rocked up, wandered about for a bit, the local cyclists swerved to avoid Katie working her magic behind the camera in the middle of the path, and Kristina and I gorged on some good old German wurst!

We found some very random fair going on, complete with rides, an MC on stage, and some very bored looking kids. We really couldn't figure it out, until a colourful spinning wheel was brought out and people started to gather and take turns at spinning the thing. All of them looked utterly disappointed afterwards and the MC kept going “Ohhhh” followed by some gobbledygook in German. I figured out (by a process of elimination) that the aim was to spin blue, so Kristina and I thought we'd give it a crack! She spun red (“Ohhhh blah blah blah” gobbledygook), and I spun...

...blue! (“Yahhhh blah blah blah” gobbledygook). I was handed a piece of paper and told (well, motioned) to go speak to the folk over there by the massive Mitsubishi banner and brand new show cars. Not having a clue what was going on, I might have just won a car for all I knew hehe! Turns out I didn't win a car, I had instead won a €50 oil change hahaha awesome! We managed instead to walk away with two Mitsubishi-branded laptop bags instead hehe, score!

Out the back of our campsite was a cycle path running alongside a river. It had been another hot day and we were in the mood for a dip.

Amid bemused looks from everybody who walked or cycled past, we jumped into the river, got whisked downstream a ways, clambered out, walked back up the river, and did it again a few more times - bloody great fun!

We had dinner that night at a restaurant a ways out of Less Pig on the shore of a lake - good spot. In the distance a massive thunder storm was brewing (spot the lightning in my shot above, damn I'm good ;) I'm one of these geeks who counts the seconds between a lightning strike and the subsequent thunder clap to establish how far away the storm is hehe. Well those seconds were getting fewer and fewer meaning the storm was coming in this direction, and sure enough before too long the wind picked up and rain pissed down, hard! Everyone hastily headed inside, but us tourists stayed outside under cover and just enjoyed the show. Love a good storm!

The next morning we packed up our very wet tents and hit the road again. Next destination: Sachsische Schweiz (Saxon Switzerland), a 275-square-kilometre national park near the Czech Republic border.

We arrived at our campsite at about the same time as this dude. Rather than walk around to find a good spot to pitch his tent he instead drove around. He eventually drove down this hill to do a U-turn, but thanks to last night's rains he couldn't get the van back up the hill hahaha! He only got as far as he did here because I pushed him up but at that point the hill got steeper and the ground got muddier and even four of us pushing made no difference. So he went off to confess to the boss while his wife looked on in disgust. Next thing, along came a digger that had been doing roadwork out the front of the campsite hahaha! Two snapped ropes and a lot of wheel spinning later he was finally out of there.

After that excitement we set off to explore to place. This is a gorgeous area and there are plenty of narrow and winding roads to screw your car around. Good fun (unless you're a frog).

The nearest wee town to our campsite was Bad Schandau, a very cute wee place but we had even nicer spots to go find.

I'm not sure where this is exactly - I lost track of the myriad of small places we passed through on this trip, but regardless this was another cute wee town in the national park (with no shortage of rooftops).

Anyway this was the whole point of us coming to this area: the Bastei lookout! Lonely Planet labelled this "one of the most breathtaking spots in the whole of Germany" - they got that right! The landmark was formed by water erosion over one million years ago. This has supposedly been a tourist attraction for over 200 years. In 1824 a wooden bridge was constructed to link several rocks for visitors, and was replaced in 1851 by the present Bastei Bridge (above-middle) made from sandstone.

Way over there in the distance above it all, a couple of guys were either climbing up those things or abseiling down (we couldn't tell - they weren't making a lot of progress either way hehe).

Several ancient artefacts on display nearby.

Bastei sits a couple hundred metres above the Elbe River, and the views here are equally stunning! It was getting on in the day by this point and Katie suggested we go check out the small town down there on the far-left in search of dinner.

Good call! This is Niederrathen, part of the village of Rathen which includes Oberrathen on the other side of the river. Between the two of them there are about 500 inhabitants, and it is fucking gorgeous!

Looking from Niederrathen across to Oberrathen.

River-side houses with the Bastei lookout top-left.

Sunset - time for dinner!

A very quaint little pub overlooking the river. No English menus of course (I'm not sure how many tourists they get venturing down this far), but one of the locals set about practising his English on us by trying to explain every last thing on the menu hehe, cheers!