Today we start with another couple of hours of driving, with only 10 days to get all the way to Denmark and back we knew the return journey would involve more time driving but the kids don’t seem to mind and either listen to audiobooks, read or do colouring. We’re heading to Hanover, mainly because I had heard of it and it matched up with driving times. On that basis I then looked for things to do. Knowing we wouldn’t arrive until about lunchtime I only picked one thing then figured with any time left over we’d just mooch around the town. We did have an extra delay sadly as reading and driving hadn’t agreed with Liliya and just as we were parking up she was extremely sick everywhere. Poor thing wasn’t so happy but at least she could strip off and get a full warm shower, dread to think how much more difficult that would have been in the van. All cleaned up we took the tram into the centre to go to the Wilhelm Busch German Museum for Caricature & Drawing.

I had chosen this because they had an interesting exhibition on climate change. They have a selection of the best cartoons from over 1,700 submissions for the Kaktus Cartoon Award 2023 on the topics of climate change and climate justice. I’m really pleased we came, there were some very thought provoking and clever drawings.

It turns out this was just a small part of the museum with the main exhibition being about a jazz musician and artist called Volker Kriegel. Unfortunately all the explanations were in German which would have added to the enjoyment and understanding of some of the drawings bit they were interesting all the same.

Each room had a kids drawing area too so when they weren’t looking at the art choosing their favourites they were getting crafty themselves.

Liliya’s favourites tend to have a theme in that there’s usually someone without clothes on 😂

Whilst paying for the tickets we were told about a red line that starts at the main station in Hanover and following it takes you on a 4km walking route around 40ish points of interest. You can buy a book that tells you all about them but we didn’t have that much time and it was quite wet out so we didn’t bother with the book and just followed some of the route. We did go past an impressive church, the old town hall (now a restaurant), along with some beautiful old streets.

I had also read about some art work that caused a controversy when first installed and our route took us past those.

The most unusual site along our walk though had to be the surfers practicing in the river!

Back in the main shopping area of the town we saw a sign for neon mini golf which looked fun but unfortunately they were fully booked, we tried to find an illusion museum as they are firm favourites with the kids but the closest was in Hamburg.

We did find a few interesting statues in the new town though.

With another couple of hours drive back in the moho we decided it would be easier to get a McDonald’s rather than cook, much to the delight of the kids. Given we don’t want them falling asleep again they are happy to be allowed to watch another movie whilst we make our way towards Dussledorf.