Steinfurt ~ Getting stuck in tiny one-way cobble-stoned streets!

Stopover : on the way to Bremen
Date : 15th June 2018
Country : Germany
State : North Rhine-Westphalia
Region : Munster
District : Steinfurt

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Ummm…. This was one of our first German “experiences” driving straight into the old town centre on cobblestone streets with pedestrians everywhere! Our online maps doesnt show us exactly how NARROW these old streets are and once youre on them…. ITS TOO LATE… you just gotta go straight and hope not to get stuck!

YES… I was stressing

We were a bit flustered as its tough going in those small streets with a campervan 2.5m wide and 7m long! We have to stop to let other on coming cars go past… People were looking at us, but more with interest (I hope) we finally found a supermarket parking lot just off the main street in more cobblestonned area with no lines and we (thankfully) stopped here… getting out of the town we could think of later…

2 birds with one stone, we did our shopping as well as a walk around the town

A really cute little town in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.

It is the capital of the district of Steinfurt. in 1975, 2 neighbouring towns, Borghorst and Burgsteinfurt amalgamated, creating Steinfurt

Influenced by Protestants, education is key to this little town, one of the oldest academies is found here

After we found a carpark and parked the van… we had to sit there for 10mins just to relax a bit from that whole experience! I know I learnt a lot from that, I had to make sure that before entering a smaller village / town to open up my maps.me app as well as the GPS and zoom in to see the details and size of the town so I could guess better the street size so we dont get into this situation again, cos next time we may not be so lucky (and unfort, we DID get into this situation again but thats another story!)

Steinfurt is a fairly new town when 2 towns, Boghorst & Burgsteinfurt merged, it became known as Steinfurt back in 1975

There are so many beautiful buildings around this tiny town and all from different ages and adding to the beauty its surrounded by BAGNO NATIONAL PARK which houses the oldest free-standing European concert halls

The name Steinfurt originates from an old stone passage (or “ford”) across the river Äa

War between House of Ascheberg & House of Steinfurt

The first rival was the Ascheberg clan living in a castle near by and there seemed to be a permanent war between the 2 houses, and in 1164 the Ascheberg clan destroyed the castle of Steinfurt clan and in retaliation they destroyed the castle of Ascheberg

This was the tiny street we had to drive through with cars parked either side and barely enough room for us to sqeeze through with our van

We thank fully found this parking area with plenty of parking just outside a supermarket so did our shopping and had our lunch in the van before heading back out onto the tiny streets and back onto the bigger roads