We were woken at 3am to torrential rain and an electrical storm; Colin jumped out of bed to gather in our biking gear which we had been putting to air out on the balcony.

The thing that is beginning to get me down is the fact that our coats, trousers, helmets and boots all STINK! We shower twice a day and as soon as we arrive at our next destination we wash our t-shirts, socks and underwear daily, we have also managed to keep washing our sightseeing and evening out clothes but we can't wash our outer clothes. We are very conscious now that there is a ripe aroma around us as we arrive and leave and I try hard not to get to close to anyone as I'm sure it is very unpleasant for them. We read in a newspaper at a German service station that the temperatures of 35-38 degrees that we have been experiencing are hotter than those in some of the Mediterranean holiday resorts! Colin has a new definition for hot: you can officially say that you are hot when you have rivulets of sweat pouring out of your sleeves and trouser legs and pooling on the floor-NICE!

The ride today was another long and hot one. The beginning and end of the ride were very pretty but the middle was mostly motorway, although it was a fast and smooth one.
Today as we left Austria we passed through lots of ski resorts that Colin had visited within the ski welt region.

The end of the journey was through acres of orchards: as we have travelled from Holland the one crop that has been consistent throughout the 12 countries has been maize. We have passed acres of sunflowers in Romania and Hungary and for the last 10 miles here we have passed acres of orchards of apples, pears, peaches and other fruit; so we are quite surprised that the local bars aren't serving local cider!!

We were both surprised when we arrive here as neither of us expected the place to be such a tourist attraction but it turns out to be right on the side of a lake. You can take a boat ride from just outside the hotel and go across the lake and visit Switzerland or to the end of the lake and visit Austria! We had no idea it was so popular.

The receptionist speaks perfect English but with a slight American twang and we wondered if it was an influence of American TV programmes or perhaps there could have been an American air base locally. The hotel Receptionist in Szeged not only had an American twang but threw in the odd word which was inappropriate for the sentence.

The town is quite small with a main street and lakeside promenade but behind and above the street are 2 castles and another almost like a citadel complex of tiny cobbled streets filled with curiosity shops and tourist tat, there are also a number of museums to explore.

We spent most of the afternoon in a Zeppelin Museum! We chose to go in here because as Colin pointed out in the last 4 weeks we have visited numerous castles and museums but nowhere else has there been a Zeppelin museum! We discovered that Count Zeppelin was from Konstanz which is near by and had his Zeppelins constructed at Friedrichshafen which is close to here and a place Colin has flown into for his St. Anton skiing trips. It was quite strange to watch the DVD and hear the English talked of as the enemy and Kaiser Wilhem's idea that Germany deserved to be the most powerful nation! As we sat having a beer after visiting the museum guess what flew over? - a modern day airship! Colin didn't manage to get a photo as we were sat under canopies and didn't see it until it was too late for a photo!

Meersburg is on Lake Constance which turns out to be the 3rd largest lake on central Europe after Lake Geneva (been there lots) and Lake Balaton - we were there last week! So in one year we have visited the 3 largest lakes!

The town is very pretty and exactly what I expect an old world German town to be like with painted houses complete with colourful hanging baskets and cobbled streets, with the obligatory cuckoo clock shop!
Our hotel is right on the lakeside and as a lake view which is very picturesque.

The downside of being by the lake is that there is no wind and due to the high temperatures and lack of air conditioning we are going to be in for a very hot and stuffy night: I've told Colin not to complain as it least we have been riding in the dry all these days!