Category: Travels

The Schlossberghöhlen in Homburg is an amazing venue. A sandstone cave, originally laid down some 250 million years ago, it was first mined 500 years ago. It was then used as air raid shelters during the 1940’s. Conversion began in the early 1950’s into a nuclear bunker for the president of Saarland when, for only…

Posted 20 September 2023 This is a short trip for me, joining Ray for just 4 shows during his September tour. We will be in the west of Germany this time with the first show being inside a sandstone cave in Homburg followed the next day with a long drive travelling north for 3 shows…

I am home now after 19 days of travelling. It was a very good tour, finishing with over 150 people at the outdoor concert in Altlandsberg on Saturday and 40 people at a private concert in a barn on Sunday. I travelled home on Monday (yesterday) while it took Ray two days to get home.…

On Saturday, we drove south east to Altlandsberg which is just outside of Berlin. The concert was an outdoor event organised by the main church in the town. The church was built originally in 1450. It has been modernised recently and now has underfloor heating and chairs and a stage that can be moved outside…

Friday nights show was in the concert hall of the Klostergarten in Bad Doberan which is on the north coast of Germany just 10 minutes drive from the Baltic. A monastery was founded here in the 12th century followed by an abbey church in the 13th century. The church is huge and has undergone many…

Thursday nights show was at a small cafe in the south of Hamberg. The Komm du Kulturcafé. The cafe is a nice cosy meeting place for people to get information on music, theatre and the arts in Hamburg. Ray has played in Hamburg over 30 times, that’s as many times as The Beatles! With Oysterband,…

Ray has a show in Hamburg on Thursday evening and so we took the opportunity to go there a day early. We had been invited to view Miniatur Wunderland by Hauke, a friend of Ray, a long-standing Oysterband fan and, for the last 4 years, a modeller and guide at the exhibition. It was too…

“En Vacker Vän” is Swedish for A Beautiful Friend. At the end of the concert at the vineyard in Bad Bentheim, the applause and shouts from the audience brought Ray back for a second encore. Someone asked for a Swedish song. This is what happened ….

Today we drove west, back the way we came yesterday, and onwards towards the Dutch border and the town of Bad Bentheim. The land is flat until you get to the town where there is a huge block of sandstone on which stands the very imposing Kronenburg Castle. There has been a castle here for…

Barkhausen (where Ray played a house concert last night) is a small village of some 400 inhabitants but it has a UNESCO World Heritage Site where dinosaur tracks were discovered in a quarry which is now abandoned. Instead, it is now an open air museum where people, especially families, visit to see the tracks. Today,…