Editor Dan gets behind the wheel with friends Nick North Star and Alan and Michael Perry. What sights did they behold on their 1.5k mile road trip? Nick, Alan and Michael playing D-Day at Tactica. “How about turning Tactica 2022 into a Road Trip?” said I to friends and Tactica regulars Alan and Michael Perry. Having later recruited our long-term chum Nick from North Star we duly set off from Nottingham for Hamburg three days before the show started ready for untold adventures, 1,500 miles of driving and lots of lovely French, Belgium, Dutch and German beer. Hurray! We planned our route with two overnight stops on the way to Hamburg, two at the destination, and one on the return. Ghent (Belgium) and Münster (Germany) were our two outgoing destinations and beyond the beer, there was plenty to keep four wandering wargamers happy and entertained en route to the show. You can read all about the show itself in the December issue of Wi, what follows is a whistle-stop account of our whistle-stop road trip. AND THEY’RE OFF! Ghent is somewhat of a poor relation to nearby Bruges, but it does boast some great medieval streets and waterways, and (unlike Bruges) a fascinating castle. The excellent hall of arms and armour more than made up for the terrible audio tour and provided a rare opportunity to view a Landsknecht's Zweihänder at close quarters. Gravensteen Castle, Ghent, Belgium. The Zweihänder sword. Our next stop was unavoidable for any wargamers in that neck of the woods; Waterloo. Three of us had visited this most famous of European battlefields previously, so we decided to steer clear of the main sites and visit Plancenoit, with its famous Church, for a change of scenery. Plancenoit Church. The Prussians are coming! The next day we made a spur-of-the-moment/sharp left turn decision to visit the open-air Freilichmuseum, just outside Münster. The area is a retirement home for buildings from across Germany which have ‘upped sticks’ and been lovingly rebuilt/relocated on the outskirt of this Lower Saxon town. Whilst wandering around and admiring the buildings was good enough for me, the talented Mr (Alan) Perry had to go one step further, and only went and whittled up a couple of the buildings in miniature using plasti-card and green stuff on our return! The Freilichmuseum Windmill. A wayside chapel at the Freilichmuseum. The talented Mr Perry’s Freilichmuseum inspired miniature wayside chapel. And his Freilichmuseum inspired wagon barn. Our last stop-off before Hamburg took us to the site of the famous Battle of the Teutoburg Wold: Varusschlacht. The first thing to note about the Battle of Teutoburg Wold is that no one calls it the Battle of the Teutoburg Wold
