Day 16 Wolfenbüttel to Hornburg - 26 km. Total km: 335

Most nights our accommodation is a bit of a distance from the town centre, and not directly on the VRG. Rather than back track to the route in the mornings we consult our trusty Mapy app and make our route that will eventually join up with the VRG, sometimes quite quickly and others, like this morning, much further on.

The route we made up this morning took us out through a park and on to cycle tracks. As we entered the park there were crows everywhere on the ground but the trees were alive with them as well and the racket they were making was incredible. We much prefer listening to the cuckoos calling each day and we heard several throughout today.

After walking for several kilometres we wanted to find somewhere where we could sit and have a break for morning tea. We ended up walking to a church, St Nikolai Kirche, in the wee settlement of Neindorf and sat on a low wall, all we could find. 

St Nikolai Kirche 

This war memorial was prominently placed in front of the church. 

After that we walked through or skirted around settlements of Kissenbrück, Bornum and Börßum before walking on to Hornburg. 

It was the landscape we walked through that really made today's walk something special. It was one massive patchwork of crops of greens of all shades, contrasting with the yellow. Today we realised that we could see hills all around us and for the first time we had long low inclines and descents. And we could see way into the distance - so different from the flat landscape we had been walking through up to now. 

We are still walking through cropping land - acres and acres of crops, mostly grain and seed crops. We seem to have left the potato growing area behind us, although we did see one small planting of potatoes plus a few patches of another crop that we don't recognise. It looks like young silverbeet so maybe it's sugar beet.

It was amazing to see hills all around us.

Our lunch spot.

The day started out with a cold 6° but warmed up to around 16 or 18°. I went from wearing my warm jacket and scarf to t-shirt and sun sleeves. 

In Bornum. 

A few snaps taken in Börßum: 

The signage has been almost nonexistent the last couple of days. These old faded ones are the only ones we found today. It's so good that we have the mapping apps.

Finally we walked into Hornburg - the birthplace of Pope  Clemens II. He was born in Hornburg in 1005, he was pope for only a short time from December 1046 until his death in October 1047.

A stork nest on the way into Hornburg. We've seen very few. 

I don't know what we were expecting - Hornburg surprised us with all it's old houses as the other villages and settlements we walked through today didn't have any. It amazes us that these half-timbered houses,  Fachwerkhäuser in German, are the locals' homes and businesses, and not museum pieces.

Walking into Hornburg. 

A few snaps taken on our way to the supermarket :

A beautiful alcohol free beer to go with our pizza in the small family run pension we are staying in tonight. Their children are so cute - and they speak fluent German 😁

Hornburg is a town and a former municipality in the Wolfenbüttel district, in the German state of Lower Saxony. Since 1 November 2013, it is a part of the municipality Schladen-Werla. It is situated on the Ilse river, a tributary of the Oker. Hornburg is part of the Samtgemeinde Schladen and home to numerous historically valuable half-timber buildings.

Population 2,441

Source: Wikipedia