Germany... is full of roads.

One of the things I've come across recently is the fact that most Germans have no real concept of proper wilderness. Wilderness as in "no, there's really nothing and nobody around to help you when you get in trouble, and there's also no shop that will sell you food and water". Because, well, there's no such thing in Germany. You are never far from the next village, or the next road, or the next house, or the next shop. (I was tempted to write "or the next telephone booth", but that, actually, is not the case anymore. There's still about 12.000 of them left, but they will be taken out of service this year, according to Telekom plans.)

Germany as a country is rather densely populated, and there's a huge amount of roads to get you about everywhere in your car, if you so choose. Which means that you won't be able to get further than about 13.48 km from any road - and that's only the case if you travel up to the small island called Greifswalder Oie, off the coast of Germany. On the mainland, you're usually less than a kilometre from the nearest road - if it's more than that, you're already sort of far out.

If that's made you curious, go and check out the fantastic map made by Hans Hack, where you can see the distances to roads throughout Germany. And the next time you wonder why Germans have no concept of being in the wild, or feel like they are on a different planet if there's lots and lots of land with no signs of civilisation... you know why!