Germany - The Black Forest & The "romantic Rhine route"

We set off early, following the lonely planet's suggested route through the Black Forest.
I was expecting it to be more dense and dark than it was and there wasn't even a big board welcoming you to the Black Forest, as I thought there might be...tourism shmourism!

We made the designated little stop off like proper pensioner tourists (that was the visible age range!) at the world's largest cuckoo clock - listed in "The Guinness book of World Records", don't you know!
There were so many clocks ticking away that it made you feel that you were late for something! We also saw several grandfather clocks for sale at meagre €5,000! Some hideous ones and some tastefully new modern ones.

We also realised that this was the first shop that we had been in, other than a supermarket and we had only ended up walking through there because you had to in order to arrive at the cuckoo clock's mechanism; Angie you would have died on this holiday..no shopping!

After this pit-stop, we pootled on through the lush dark green woodlands and arrived at the ear-marked campsite to find reception closed until 15h00. After a sneaky use of their facilities and a look around, we decided it was not quite the "Black Forest experience" that we had in mind, so we jumped back in Mabel and did a 6 point turn out of there!!
We called another campsite en route (that was a short journey away) to be told, "yes, we have places enough...you can come".
We laughed a lot at the German's welcoming, hospitality - never adding unnecessary pleasantries or wasted words...unlike my husband who is still quasi German and wittering / commenting on everything he sees in his comedy accent. However, despite "being German" he declined my offer of booking him a trip over Lake Constance in a Zeppelin...!

The next site at Wolfach was magical. We had a huge space, a view over the lush green valley and hardly any neighbours. As the site didn't cater for children (no play area, no kids' club) it was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. Really. (Pity for those friendly neighbours at nightfall when Colin's snoring kicks in!).

At each check in so far, the people at reception have rubbed my nose in it by asking if I have a dog, and here was no exception. This time, to see her reaction, I said, "no, but I want one". She was German - no reaction!

Colin did some nifty set up parking, this time using the levellers only on the front right and back right. Until now, we had only needed them on the front or the back, but this time we were wonky. We are such experts now ;o)

I spent the afternoon reading and enjoying their super duper power shower facilities (never have I seen such an amazing power shower like this in a house, let alone in a campsite - needless to say, I was gone a while!) whilst Colin worked on his model airplane! It was a blissful afternoon and evening.

The next day, we packed up Mabel and waved goodbye to our friendly Swiss neighbours at 10h00 the next morning. Destination - the romantic Rhine, as called in all the tourism blub. This was to be our last stopover for two nights before we returned to Belgium. The van had to be back at 10h00 on Friday so rather than spend money staying close by to the rental place, we had decided to return on Thursday afternoon, giving us two nights on the Rhine.

After a few hours on the autobahn (where Colin was guessing the speed of the the cars whizzing by and wishing he was with them, I expect) we came off and took a secondary road that ran adjacent to the Rhine - it was fab! Just what I imagined it to be. Both having a good knowledge of the German cities where we have travelled for work, we agreed that we had not imagined Germany to be so beautiful.

We arrived at the site that Colin had found that was situated right on the river. You could not reserve and pitches were not marked so unless you had a German or a Dutch passport, there was no way you were going to be on the front row! In any case, we found a lovely spot on the second row. The reason it was probably free of vans was because the electricity point was such a long way away. Colin decided to plug the cable in first, unwind it as far as possible and then I waited with the plug while Colin approached it to park! I wonder what all our onlookers were thinking - because you do, don't you? Every new arrival,
you sit in your relaxer chairs and just surreptitiously study their set up technique!!

We unloaded the bikes and set off for a pre-dinner cycle in order to see from which jetty we needed to catch the boat for the Rhine route the next morning. It's been great to have the bikes - even if I wanted to throw mine in Lake Bled by the time we got there up all those hills. On the flat, my city bike is a dream but as Colin said, I will sell it and buy one that is a bit more versatile! Get me! first buying a car, then talking about swapping my bike! I am so "in there" now with bloke conversations. Next thing you know I will be choosing to watch the re run of the re run of the re run of Top Gear...and have an opinion about something on it!

OH YES!! AND AND AND... On closer inspection, I have realised that all these old Dutchies that I thought must be super fit overtaking me up the gradients (can't really call them hills!) have only got bloody battery packs on their bikes! I am sorry for swearing, but that is how cheated I felt when I realised!! So, the next time they went smugly cruising past me, I gave them a dirty look - I am on to them now! HA!

Back at the campsite, we went via the shop to choose an ice cream for our pudding (anyone counting? We are up to three now! ) and then had our aperitifs watching an English family (grandparents and strange grandson - he was a bit weird) put up their tent. We were going to offer to help but by the time I had poured my wine, they had the situation under control! Grandad had some sort of tool belt on (much bigger than Colin's Leatherman pouch, so he was a bit envious), so we are guessing he was ex-marine, ex-army, scout master or some such.

The next morning we were up at dawn, watching the world go by, whilst waiting for the boat trip. We cycled back to the town, bought our tickets and then parked our bikes at the train station (as we were going up river to Koblenz by boat and back to St Goar by train).
We boarded the boat at 11h14 - it was late - wouldn't have experienced that at Lake Lucerne where the Swiss made sure that everything ran bang on time!
It was a gorgeous two hour cruise, spotting castle after castle nestled in the hills - very "land of the fairytales", just as the books had described.
When we disembarked, we had a lunch and then took a cable car across the river to the Koblenz fortress. It was hooooge. Colin did a bit of marching to the sound effect band playing over the speakers - thankfully no one was around!
Although the 15 minute cable car ride was pretty, having been on the massive cable car earlier on in the week, it was a little bit of an anti-climax height-wise, but still a great way to travel.

Once back down in the town, we walked to the train station and took the train back to St Goar, where thankfully our bikes were still in situ!

So all in one day we did bike, boat, cable car and train!

That evening was spent packing up Mabel and enjoying the last evening of our holiday. I have now calculated all the stats and will post them in a separate blog entry!
Bet you can't wait!!!