So finally we did travel this year!

Monika and Gene bought a new car with even more space for me and a luggage compartment. I had a great time travelling up north to the Baltic Sea to have my first encounter with salt water.
The Volvo is made to measure for me. I guess it is the only car so big that they can put in two sets of bars to keep me from falling about in a crash. So now I have got a snug compartment all to myself and the luggage (including my favourite food) is safely tugged away behind the middle bars. All the windows around me have been sealed with a blackish reflective foil so that I can look out and about, but the sun cannot heat my black fur. Actually, anyone trying to break in on the off-chance will have a surprise meeting me.

So the trip itself was glorious. We had a cool sunshine all the way and as the car was brand new, Monika and Gene stayed off the autobahns for most of the way. First we went to Hameln where we had lunch. As it happened we were just in time for the great tourist attraction of "Hamlin", the bells played some strange tune and big figures of men, children, and rats walked in circles half way up the church facade.
Then we travelled on to the seaside of Mecklenburg - Vorpommern where I first of all met the Hotel dog, a black Labrador called Hotello.

Time to relax... When we first walked down to the beach I could not believe how fine the sand was. As hardly any people were there I was allowed to run free and dig up whatever I wanted. Monika and Gene took long walks on a daily base. We covered between 16 and 20 kilometres per day.
Most of the time we followed the water line, but every now and then we went inland to walk through woods and across meadows.

The weather could not have been better. Low temperatures but dry sunny spells every day.
Although we had to pay extra at the hotel for me and although the owners had their own dog, there was no extra service for me at all, I mean the humans got food and a tiny chocolate everyday and children got sweets all day long, but they never ever offered any to me.

The room itself was tiny not offering much in form of a place to rest for me.

And as a said there were no sweets whatsoever. (Oh, God, I love to eat!!!) I could have been sneeky if I had wanted to, I mean I could have drunk from Hotello's water bowl every time I passed it in the restaurant, but I didn't.

You know me by now. That's just not my character. And besides, Hotello and I never really made friends. He eyed me up whenever I entered the restaurant, but as I was a paying guest he couldn't say much about me resting in the place that he would have liked to be resting in.

Eat your heart out, baby, I'm simlpy the best looking guy in town!
On our way back we visited friends in Hamburg and then did another very pleasant tour through Germany on roads and lanes far off the busy crowd on the autobahn.