And into Germany

 

I was sad to say goodbye to Phil and Jenny, not only loosing their company but it meant taking the plunge and moving to the next country – Germany. The road signs are so scary – the words look as if something bad is imminent.

Our first stop was Impflingen – Stuart’s wisecrack was it is the same as dwarf throwing only with imps. Impflingen was surrounded by vineyards, wheat fields and orchards. Apricots were being harvested as we cycled by on the lovely little concrete roads that separated the fields. We couldn’t figure out if they were public roads, they seemed to be used as cycleways and tractor-roads. When no one was looking I stole across to pluck a couple of those lucious looking fruit, but when they were within my grasp it was obvious those golden fruits were as hard as rock, so they remained on the tree.

We are flying blind in Germany, we have an enormous book map of France but only a fold out map for Germany which is low on detail. No Lonely Planet, no Rough Guide and we don’t have a lot of internet data to play with. We are using our book of camping aires as a guide to where there might be interesting places to stay.

We settled on going to a Bad place. Bad – means (thermal) bath and there were a lot of Bad places to choose from. The one we picked had an aire for wohnmobiles, set under leafy trees beside an expensive spa with a big open air pool. Even with the 10% discount we were offered, the spa seemed pricey. What amazed me was that the pool was only separated from the general public by upright slabs of stone that had people-sized gaps between them. This would not do in NZ.

Stuart has stopped at the fruit stall for raspberries

It has now got very hot – 30 degrees by 10 o’clock in the morning. We pressed on to a mountain area thinking (wrongly) that it would be cooler. We are now in the middle of the Black Forest area.

The Black Forest isn’t black – looks to me more blue/green. The villages are punctuated with needle like steeples. Steep pitched red tiled houses are huddled together around the church, and the Gasthofs (guest houses) are usually a floral bonanza to behold.

We curse the satnav at times and watched with amusement as a Swedish couple obviously following their satnav zig-zagged around town, even ending up behind the aire at the cemetary, before parking next to us. That particular aire didn’t score very highly on my scale of aire-points, all it offered was a chance to empty the toilet. However satnav was very well behaved and spot-on as she navigated us around the larger cities directing us to motorways and roundabouts, as well as through the main shopping thoroughfare if she could. We would really be blind in these situations – impossible to follow a detailed map if you had one, read the unfamiliar signs and keep up with the traffic. In one place in Germany there was no speed limit and traffic was hurtling past us.

Big cuckoo clock, Triberg

Our arrival in Germany is a big bread revelation for Stuart, he loves his bread and thought he couldn’t live without fresh French baguette for breakfast and lunch. On our first morning he chose a variety of seedy and grainy rolls at the bakery. Two hours later we visited a supermarket and he loaded long life bread into the trolley (in case of a bread emergency). In addition to the above mentioned rolls he bought some dark looking stuff for toast. Then he found the bread dispensing machine. This called for decisions – something he is finding harder as he gets older. There were 12 different kinds of bread. There was a pic of each type of bread with the price – push the button and it comes out. He stopped at just 2 choices which were warm and eaten straight away in the truck.

We spent a couple of nights at an aire that scored high points, (I should compile a matrix) cowbells, churchbells, large chalets and alpine meadows surrounded us. There was a free open-air ‘natural’ swimming pool a short distance away and as I had endured several days in the 30s I dragged Stuart along for a swim. Not quite what I expected – it was very big with all the usual pool trappings but the water was a murky brown colour and the bottom was gravel – still I was very hot. The water was very cold and I took ages to achieve neck-high immersion. It was incredibly popular though and I took great care not to ingest any of the turbid liquid. Luckily the wacky French requirement for men to wear speedos in swimming pools didn’t seem to apply.

The next day we had some reprieve from the heat with temperature dropping to mid 20s.

Moving right along, but not very far, we set up camp at an aire close to a lake, ie putting the handbrake on and faffing with levelling ramps if the gas hotwater won't work. We are very close to the Swiss border but won’t be crossing into Switzerland as we are restricted by export terms to stay in EU countries.

As in the other parts of Germany we visited, the cycle paths are excellent and we did a 20km circuit of the lake. Pine trees on the surrounding hills almost touched the lake’s edge. We watched some kids on a couple of sailboats, shades of Swallows and Amazons, their sails reflected beautifully in the dark waters of the lake, voices carrying across the water.

Next step is to get out the map, consult the bible and plan our next night’s possible spot, we might need to factor in a camping ground if we don’t find a waschsalon (laundromat).