I’ve spent the last few days at a customer workshop in Münster. I wish more of my trips went as smoothly as the journey out. Christine gave me a lift to Southampton Airport and within 20 minutes of leaving home I had cleared security. The flybe flight in to Düsseldorf arrived so early that Hertz were looking in the wrong pile of car keys. (They gave me a Peugeot again but at least it was a 207 this time!) The directions for the drive to Münster worked like a treat (Map24 is my favourite route planner at the moment when it comes to printing European directions). The only minor niggle was that, on arrival at the hotel, they couldn’t give me a door key that worked and someone had to let me in until they fixed it the following morning. Even then, I was still tucked up in my bed just four hours after leaving the house.
Unfortunately the workshop didn’t leave much time for exploring Münster. The Mövenpick has a very nice leafy location near the artificial Aasee Lake, a lap of which provided a good half hour run one morning, watching the mist lifting off the water. Walking through the old town to dinner in the evenings, bicycles were clearly the preferred mode of transport. The Dutch style frontages on the buildings are pretty impressive as is the way in which the post war rebuilding blends in (compared with Coventry for example). The food at the Jedermann was absolutely superb (although I didn’t get to see the bill). The Kleiner Kiepenkerl was more homely but the food was still pretty good.
Sadly the return journey wasn’t quite so smooth. Despite having a 9:20am flight, I made the mistake of staying in Münster the night before. As a result it took me over twice as long to get back to the airport as it had taken on the outward journey (a mixture of rush hour traffic, roadworks and a threatened train strike). I arrived at check-in about 25 minutes before take-off – probably the closest I’ve ever been to not making it.