Ketrzyn Wilamovo for Hitler's bunker, Wolfsschanze or Wolf's Lair (photos from above)

The airfield with some nice Wilgas (l) and some maybe migs (r)

Julian having a beer with some nice gents at the amazing palace belonging to the owner of Ketrzyn airfield, we stayed in a lovely room for  €35 per night including the biggest hot and cold breakfast you've ever seen.  Mmmm the apple blinis....

where we stayed from above, with cow sheds out the back and those nice sculptures all over the park, you can tell them by their red colour - unfortunately the fisherman by the pond isn't easily recognisable from the air

Ketrzyn is a pretty little East Prussian town with the solid classic / jugendstil buildings to match.

Hmm should have taken a photo of the main street, but this is part of the church buildings on top of the hill.

Part of the bunker complex, note railway line leading here from Ketrzyn airfield approx 6km away.

Hitler spent 800 days of his last 3.5 years staying at this bunker complex in what is now Eastern Poland, which was the military headquarters for the eastern front.  It is a very large complex that is quite difficult to photograph as at the end of the war the Nazis tried to destroy the complex, with the limited success to be expected in attempting to destroy massive concrete buildings.  Now many remains are covered in plants and are as well disguised as they were in the war with that nifty camoflage netting.

spot the bunker

Day flight from Berlin to Eberswalde Finow

68ha of solar cells, awesome MIG shelters, how cool is this place?

This isn't a really long trip from Berlin, but as usual the people are what made it great.  We landed on a 2540m asphalt runway thoughtfully provided by the Russians and weren't quite sure what to do.

Luckily after a short chat at the cafe next to our plane's parking spot, Matthias from the tower offered to give us a tour of thee airfield, with its three different types of MIG shelter, one of which now includes an apartment where the exhaust gas ducts once were.

We also scrambled on top of a shelter to assess the roof terrace potential. Fabulous. Each shelter cost the same as 10 DDR homes did, back in the day, and is now yours for only €30K. Bargain. The runway looks like soon being shortened  to 1000m as the 68ha solar array (we thought it was a lake when we were approaching it) is extended. We shall see.


Still to come, a photo of the famous boat lift in Finow.....

Lemvig (DK) – barrows and shipwrecks

The weather forecast was for deteriorating weather, and with Norway being a high stakes kind of country we decided to fly directly south from Bergen back to Denmark, specifically Lemvig on the north west coast of Denmark (nordvestra Jyllands).  But it was not to be.  We made a weather break in Stavigner, and after a couple of hours of rain, continued down.  The clouds were low, and we saw several small Norwegian villages being smote, but managed to duck and weave until the sun came out at around the point of the international boundary.

Lemvig is a beautiful little town not far from the fantastic flying club based at Lemvig international – an old airfield put up by the Germans during WWII.  There are around 30 bunkers in the area and the airfield itself was hidden during the war with a couple of local decoy fake airfields placed in nearby towns.  More recently Lemvig is a popular tourist destination as it is so pretty and until 15 years ago it had a large Bang and Olafson factory.  The club itself has hangars and workrooms that were German truck workshops and the clubroom itself was bought from B&O when they shut down and moved on site. 

Coming in to land, note sand mining and dirt bike track

The harbour

Part of the old hangar which was originally a truck workshop

The kitchen in the ex B&O clubhouse

We were lucky that Patrick, a Brisbane boy who has lived in Denmark for many decades, took us under his wing. He showed us all the local sights: the bunkers, the model plane meeting at Lindtorping for jet propelled metre long models – scary stuff, the Strandingsmuseum (shipwreck museum – for those of you who have told us that the South coast of England is the most dangerous in the world, the Danes would put the North West coast of their land in the first place), local barrrows and the remains of a viking fortification, the following day by popular request (i.e. by me) the Thyboron Fiskedage (fish day), where we got to taste local specialties, hear Torfisk play (lit. salt fish, but actually the local band that is Danemarks aeldeste Boyband), and buy a massive Kulmuehle – coalmouth or hake, mmmm it was nice baked.

Kulmuehle (hake) prior to cooking

We had to stay an extra day in order to see the Traktor Trek, where custom built tractors compete to pull a moving weight behind them.