We’ve just got back from our third visit to our house in Oderwitz.

I’ve nicknamed it ‘By the Berg’,  (as per the Blog title) since we have Swanlamer 12, nicknamed ‘By the Beach‘ in Swakopmund, and  it’s is close to the Zittau Hills (Zittauer Gebirge, hence by the ‘Berg’ part.

The unfortunate part about the Zittau Hills, despite being stunningly beautiful, this part of Germany is less known by those outside Germany, and English is spoken, occasionally, but not well, my task of eventually marketing the place as a daily rental will need either my German to improve or my marketing (i.e to the English speaking public) to improve.

Despite that, and despite our first accounts being slightly over what I expected, I love the place.

On this trip we had the following great experiences with the kids and family:

• We introduced Sascha to the steam train, routing from Zittau to Oybin, we took the leg from Jonsdorf to Oybin  – his best day ever.
• Wandered through the ruins of Oybin castle and the still operational church, Sascha fully energised from the train trip led the way, never once asking “I want up”. Amazing!
• Zehnya had her best day ever when she held butterflies in her hand, at the Smetterlingshaus (Butterfly house) in Jonsdorf, amazing. They also have reptiles and other insects, including a rather hairly looking spider, and some very pretty chameleons, lizards and geckos.
• We met some friends at the airport in Gorlitz, and had a great time, both finding out about the flying scene, and visiting Gorlitz, (Gorlitz is an historic town, one of the few that survived the war, and has amazing churches, buildings, restaurants, and a beautiful bridge to walk across to Poland).
• We found a great airfield where you can hire an aircraft for around 200 Euros as a club member.

From my side we achieved some good moves forward, on plumbing, paint colours, flooring choices.

What we thought was quite a strange custom, in Germany it is not compulsory to rent a property with a kitchen. We debated the whole issue in and out, upside and downside; on one side it seemed wrong for us to leave it out, and on the other side people tell us, don’t put a kitchen in, it’s not the done thing, the renters will not look after it.

Well, we found a wonderful kitchen, from a really great kitchen company in Oderwitz. Amazing really as Oderwitz is pretty small, with what seems like only around 15 shops/businesses total, all in the main street. It was perfect, and a showroom model at a very good price, and they will keep it prior to delivery for a bit we said great, no rush, as kitchen ETA is only Early 2015.  So we will see how it fits upstairs, and if the tenants do not like it, we’ll move it downstairs.

Asides from a slightly higher bill than expected on the upgrades, on the upside, we found so many new treasures in town, and will hope it all works out okay in the end.

Ricco’s made a decision we likely need to come back in December,