Bodensee/Lake Constance and the Black Forest

Fri.12th July
On Mon. (8th) we had an easy morning, not waking till about 8a.m. then after breakfast, showers etc., we took a leisurely bike ride into Bad Aibling and back before packing up and leaving at 11-ish. Our destination for the night was Schwangau where we camped with an early ‘assault’ on nearby Neuschwanstein Castle the next morning our objective. We arrived at Schwangau in the early afternoon, after a lovely drive through the countryside and in time to get a load of washing done and hung out in the sunshine. Our next door neighbours turned up as we were eating dinner…an Australian family of seven from Windsor in NSW who had collected their hired motor home in England only 5 days beforehand. They are travelling for five weeks, a lovely family with children ranging in age from 22 to 11…apparently they all get on well which is a good thing in the confined space of a motorhome. We can only hope that they are all still good friends after the five weeks!
We were up early on Tuesday 9th and left shortly after 9a.m. for the ten minute drive to the castle. Well…we were not the only ones who’d decided to get an early start. After parking Boris we joined the queue for tickets, which took about twenty minutes, then joined the queue for the bus to take us up the mountain, another twenty minute wait but it was preferable to the 40 minute walk uphill to the castle, then we had another hour and fifteen minutes wait before our 35 minute tour began. It was somewhere we had both wanted to visit and all the waiting was worth it…we’d have liked to be able to wander through at our leisure, to take in the magnificence of the castle but a tour is the only way of seeing it…there must be thousands of people visiting every day and I guess it’s the only way that it can be done. As with the ice cave last week, cameras are not permitted in the castle so we have no photos of the interior but we did take one or two from the outside.

At the end of the tour, we opted to walk back to the car park, quite a long walk down the mountain but an easy, comfortable stroll with trees on either side of the road providing shade and a soft breeze to keep us cool. When we reached the car park and saw the dozens of tour coaches and the hordes of people milling around and queuing for tickets, we were extremely glad that we’d arrived ‘early’, before the said hordes arrived.
Leaving Neuschwanstein at about 1p.m., it was another drive through lovely countryside to Isny, with a lunch stop at a parking place along the way where from our picnic table we could sit and admire the seemingly never ending gorgeous scenery. In Isny, we stayed near an old mill house,

A short walk away from the old walled town where we ambled around for a while in the afternoon sunshine. It’s not a tourist town, so not crowded though when we wandered in again the next morning for coffee and f.a. cream cakes at one of the many cafes in the town, it was quite busy but mostly with locals.

It was late morning on Wed.10th when we left Isny and headed for Lindau on the Bodensee, about an hour’s drive away. On the autobahn just before reaching Lindau, we crossed back very briefly into Austria and about two minutes later were back in Germany after taking the off ramp. We found the camp which was our intended overnight stop but the road in was so narrow, with cars parked on either side, there was a motorhome trying to back out of the camp, people on bikes and on foot trying hard to get run over, it was utter chaos and we could see that there was ‘no room at the inn’, so turned around, managing to not crash into anyone or anything, and left. It was a very stressful ten or fifteen minutes and we just drove on not knowing where we were going, so stopped for a drinks break as soon as it was possible and checked the map. As it happened, the motorhome we parked behind belonged to a couple from Coffs Harbour who had lived in Perth for a number of years and whose three sons still live there. We all chatted for a while, they had almost finished their sixth year of motorhoming in Europe and store their vehicle near Munich each winter…they recommended one of the stops which we had on our list of possibles so we decided to go there.
So, we are now in Stockach/Bodensee at the western end of the lake, though actually about 15km inland. We’ve been here for two nights and yesterday we caught a little train from Stockach to Radolfzell on the lake and from there, a ferry

 which took us to Konstanz via Iznang, Mannenbach on the Swiss side of the lake and then to Insel Reichenau back in Germany where we had a 25 minute changeover and ate our picnic lunch by the waterside while we waited for the next ferry. A couple more stops in Switzerland, though we didn’t actually touch land and then on to Konstanz. We strolled around Konstanz at seniors’ pace, wandering around the cobbled streets which were busy but not too crowded to enjoy, stopped for coffee and f.a. ice cream at a café by the church and caught the train back to Stockach with a change at Radofzell. A relaxing and stress free day.
This morning we’ve been tidying up, rearranging cupboards etc. while waiting for delivery of a new electric step, which we ordered on Wednesday from the Caramobil shop a couple of hundred metres away, to replace the original which, you may recall was severely damaged some weeks ago. When that has been fitted and in operation, we will continue our journey west towards Paris.

Sat.13th July : The step duly arrived yesterday morning and with the aid of some tools borrowed from his new ‘friend’ at the Caramobil shop, Mike was able to fix it in place and it is now operational. We left Stockach at 1pm for the drive to Freiburg, stopping at Donaueschingen for a half hour visit to the Furstenberg Brewery Shop to purchase a beer glass, a replacement for the one bought on our 2009 visit with good friends Rob and Larry, and which shattered about six months ago and a shirt to replace the 2009 one which is now worn out!

Onwards then through familiar Black Forest country, having stayed for a week in the area four years ago. It would be so easy to spend another week, at the very least, in the Black Forest, it is so lovely.
Once we’d arrived in Freiburg and settled in yesterday afternoon, we enjoyed a relaxing afternoon and evening doing as little as possible.
This morning we cycled into town, parked the bikes and did a walk around. Freiburg is a lovely city, cobbled streets everywhere with trams, hundreds of bikes and

the biggest church we’ve seen so far, hundreds of cafes and even more people.
We decided to have a snack and Mike Had the biggest plate of chips ever. Four different types of Kartoffel and needless to say he couldn't finish it.

We were then attracted on our walk by the sounds of a brass band so sat and listened to them for a while,

then a little further on while visiting the huge church, a girls’ choir began singing just inside the entrance so we sat and listened to them too…fabulous sounds.

“We shall have music wherever we go!”
Back to camp now for another night in Freiburg…there is a big rock concert on in town tonight, the camp place is full and we’re expecting a bit of noise…the joint’ll be jumping!
In English the band is called “Dead Trousers” Sounds like something Paul would like!