Already 3 and a bit days cycling behind us. So, what have been the highlights?
First, the sinkholes. This is where you are meant to see the disappearance of (some of) the Danube water, knowing that this water will travel underground to join Lake Constance, i.e. joining the Rhine and ending in the North Sea instead of the Black Sea. That is a real sliding doors moment, which appeals to both of us. When we arrived at the sink holes, however, there was no water innocently awaiting its random fate, or for that matter, not Danube at all. Maybe there are sink holes upstream that, combined with the drought, explained this sad absence?
[picture]
We slept at a free municipal campsite in Tuttlingen. Only Graham did not sleep because of the rowdy noises uttered by some fellow campers who were there for the BMX bike convention.
Today, a major highlight was a town called Stein am Rhein
The first proper cycling day was curtailed by the forecast of thunderstorm. This arrived hours later than forecast, by which time we had decided it wasn’t going to happen and had made our way to the pizzeria at the local airfield. Very wet trip back to the campsite.
The storms were spectacular, going on until deep into the night. Uninterrupted thunder, lightning and torrential rain. It was so bad that Graham What’s Apped the children, to ask them to send a small boat. Needless to say that none was forthcoming.
Next day was also a short day, this time because due to shortage of campsites, it would be either a short or a very long day. Never mind, the campsite was lovely and we put up our tent right next to the Untersee, which is part of the Bodensee. (One of the quirks of language means that ‘See’ means ‘lake’) We even swam in it. Hmm.
Today we had a full day. We naively thought that the Rhine was the border between Germany and Switzerland but that is definitely not the case. There are major bits of Switzerland sticking into Germany north of the Rhine. And there are little islands of Germany injected into those bits of Switzerland. So cycling along the high Rhine is like drawing a line on a Dalmatian dog. Its all a bit of a laugh until you realise that
a) Switzerland is really expensive
b) We don’t have any Swiss francs
c) (despite what we have been told) cash machines in Switzerland do not dispense Euros
d) almost NOBODY takes card – they all want cash
e) we were hungry and thirsty
One of our major preoccupations was to find a cashpoint (in Germany) that dispensed Euros combined with a coffee shop (in Germany) that would sell use coffee and cakes.
Basically, we spent a large part of the day faffing about trying to find a Euro cashpoint
We had a cup of coffee, piece of cake and drink of apple juice for breakfast (in Germany) and then nothing else to eat until we arrived at the campsite more than 50 km later in the evening (in Germany) when we stocked up with salad, flammkuchen, pizza, beer and wine.
Good night!
Day 4 already?
Let me first go back to some of the items that were missed in the previous blog. Very much recommended is a town called Stein am Rhein, just inside Switserland. Very picturesque.
[Photo of Stein am Rhein}
The other item is Maigret. We tend to download audiobooks for long drives, and it tends to be Maigret. We are on the 4th book (yes, I know, we drive too much). This time, as mentioned before, our drive to Strasbourg was forced on us by Brexit bureaucracy. While this car trip should not have been necessary at all, it was not long enough to finish the book. So we started listening to it in the tent after dinner. How it panned out was: Graham listened, I fell asleep and Graham would explain to me the plot developments on the bike the following day.
Tant pis. C’est pas grave.
So, to day 4.
