Episode 13

On the road again; as the song says we are on the road again though I do wish that L would not try and sing it, believe me it's not easy to take:

After bidding Heather and Dawn farewell we then called on Keely and Robin in Gravesend to pay a brief visit. I really like Keely as back in 2012 she had let me sit on her motorbike occasionally in China and Mongolia, but I have to keep my affections very low key as I fear Robin may become a little bit jealous and tear me limb from limb. It was good to see them again:

Then it was off to Dover and onto the Dunkirque ferry, soon we were in France. Over the next couple of days we made our way south east following the Belgium border but not crossing into Belgium until just west of Luxembourg. We skirted around the city, filled up with cheap fuel while still in Luxembourg, then crossed into Germany for a short way, then back into France. Passed through the small town of ***** (don’t you just love the name), it has a castle sitting on top of the hill dominating the town. Crossing the Rhine near Baden Baden we travelled south east on a very scenic route through the black forest and over mountains to Biberach in southern Germany to visit with another couple of friends, Maggie and Oliver. Maggie had only read about me from my blog so this was our first one on one encounter and I do believe I genuinely impressed her with my charm. Again I have to keep my affections low key otherwise Oliver could tear me limb from limb. Being a bit of a charmer does pose unexpected problems I fear.

My humans both inspected the new landrover camper that Oliver has recently had delivered. Although not a large motorhome it has most of the comforts and should make for pleasant journeys. Later in the year it will be shipped to Cape Town where they hope to do a few trips in Southern Africa, perhaps up into Namibia and beyond. Then next year the plan is to ship it to Australia for a trip there next winter. At some point it will be shipped to North America too, so it’s sure going to clock up some sea miles, let’s just hope it manages to clock up many more land miles too.

Oliver enjoys a nice piece of plum cake each day so I got to see all the lovely cakes on offer in the cake shops, but I could only look while all the humans pigged out on what ever it was they fancied. However, I did make friends with one of the cake shop assistants, using my charm again.

We did enjoy some walks while with Oliver and Maggie, some exercise to help negate the effect of all that cake, though D needs far more of the exercise and far less of the cakes according to L. Think I’ll keep well out of that one.

One of our walks took us through an interesting area where there is a lake, some swamp land and woods that wobble. It’s an ancient lake that was left from the last ice-age. Gradually it has filled in with silt and debris from vegetation forming a very spongy base for the forest. In places it is possible to make the ground bounce a little though usually it needed someone somewhat heavier than Maggie and L. As for wild life we saw some frogs in the swamp, a moor hen feeding her chicks, and some swans. This isn’t the wilds of the Okavango swamps, this is over populated southern Germany.

After a very pleasant couple of days with Maggie and Oliver I waved them goodbye and we headed north to visit another couple of friends, Wilf and Gabbie at a small settlement not far from Stuttgart. These were more new people for me to meet and use my charm. I do think L should have given me a bath before leaving England as I’m not sure I’ve leaving the best impression being a bit grubby as I am.

Gabby greeted us with a meal on a Friday evening. Wilf arrived back from a business trip in China the following afternoon and we all enjoyed a BBQ at a neighbours that evening. The neighbour had done some house renovations and all the neighbours were invited to the BBQ as a celebration of the completion of the interior work and to show it off. All those invited did a tour of the house. While the kids kicked a football around, no doubt inspired by Germany’s win of the world cup, the adults sat and chatted. The sun shone until well into the evening then a full moon rose over the mountains above the village. These people put my humans to shame really, nearly everyone spoke some English while my lot can barely say thankyou in German.

One day we visited Kirchheim to do some shopping in the market. It’s a very pretty small town, not small to us Aussies though. Many of the houses resemble the English Tudor style, L thinks they call them 'frame’ house here. Always very prettily painted, at this time of year the narrow balconies have boxes full of brightly coloured flowers. An old church has parts that date back to the 13th century and a stone storehouse is from the 15th or16th century. There is part of an old castle wall and a deep grassy ditch that was once part of the moat.

On another day we visited Esslingen, this is another small town with vineyards tumbling down the hills into suburbia. A castle sits on top of the hill overlooking the town and in summer there is an outdoor cinema screen erected in the castle grounds so people can enjoy the fine summer weather and still see a movie.

Again there are many of the ‘frame’ buildings, on the old market hall the large wooden pegs that hold the building together are clearly visible. The church here too has parts that date as far back as the 12th century or earlier. We saw a working water wheel, it produces some electricity, and visited a wine cellar where there was an old bottling machine. There are still two gate towers remaining from the old town wall. Much of the stone in the buildings is a lovely soft golden sand stone. When we climbed up the covered walkway to the castle tower D counted 318 steps. Got a lovely view over the town from here:

We walked back down along a path through the vineyard and read about the different grapes grown here. One variety was introduced to the area in 882, L expects the monastery records must by the source of that particular bit of trivia.

After a lovely few days spent with Wilf and Gabby we took our leave loaded up with some lovely apples and the sweetest small plums ever, all from their very productive garden. Wilf had made apple strudel that hadn’t lasted long enough to get stale.

Slowly we wended our way towards Fusson with the intention of visiting Neuschwanstein Castle. It’s one of those fairy tale type castles and L says to tell you it’s a big mistake to even consider visiting it at this time of year. My humans carefully studied the full car parks and the long queue of potential visitors and quickly decided that we should leave a visit here for another time. Even if we had got a place on one of the tours it would probably have been too crowded to enjoy.

However, we did visit the small and very pretty castle that sits on the hill overlooking the tourist town of Fusson. Of the masses of tourists in the town very few seem to visit this castle. Parts of it dates from the 11th century and archaeological digs have found that a Roman fortress once occupied this site. The castle has some painted decoration on its exterior walls that is quite unique and dates from the 16th century. Also from that time is the coffered ceiling in the Knights hall. There are many paintings on display mostly of a religious nature.

We climbed to the top of the clock tower from where we got great views over the town. I got dangled outside while L took a photo, good job I don’t suffer from vertigo, it was one hell of a long way down.

On our way back into the town we looked into the Monastery church. It is really stunning with many beautiful marble columns and exquisite decoration. Again, very few of the hundreds of thousands of people who come to the town to visit Neuschwanstein castle bother with visiting this lovely church, like the castle it was almost deserted. The town below was packed to almost bursting point.

Well, that signalled the end of our good weather, the next day it poured continuously and although we passed through some wonderful scenery the valleys were full of fog and fog also hovered over the lakes and forest. The flowers in window boxes were bent over with the weight of the water and a couple of the rivers were hovering not far below bridge level.

With a bit of a break in the weather we took a boat trip on Konigsee, this is a very large lake surrounded by high mountains of three sides and the resort town of Berchtesgaden on its northern end. Midsummer is not the ideal time to do this however we braved the crowds and found that there wasn’t a long queue for the boat, only had 15 mins to wait which was quickly filled in looking for a bite to eat.

The boat carried about 50 passengers and ran so quietly that D thinks it may have had an electric motor. The lake was very calm and the high mountains breathtaking. We were only going as far as a small church called St Batholoma that is featured on a great many brochures and postcards with its bright red roof. This is about 2/3rd of the way along the lake and the most popular destination. However, the roof isn’t very bright at present, perhaps it needs a fresh coat of paint, or some sunshine.

With heavy clouds looming we were lucky to get a great view of the church and a look at the interior then a lovely walk through the forest and back along the lake shore, then just as we queued for the return trip the heavens opened and out came all the colourful umbrellas the Germans never seem to venture from home without. Fortunately most of the waiting was under cover but once back at Berchtesgaden it was a quick dash back to the car.

Another major attraction in this area is Hitlers hideaway known as the Eagles Nest. To reach it we first drove up the mountain side from the valley on the Salzburg road to a special bus station. There for the very expensive price of €16.10 (AU$24)ea, not me I sneaked in with the kids under 6, we caught the special bus up the narrow mountain road to this retreat of Hitlers.

L believes that any money made out of this place should be going to his victims, it’s not something the Germans should be using to make money. Not only is the bus expensive but the actual building is now used as a restaurant and a tour through the place has to be specially arranged.

Taking advantage of a sunny morning we caught the first bus of the day and got wonderful views on the way up and even better ones when we go to the top. The height is over 1800m and the road and house were built from 1933 to 1935. There are several tunnels and one hairpin bend on the road.

Of course there is a hiking trail up, approx 2 hours the sign says but with my lot it would probably have taken them at least an extra half an hour. Still they did get a bit of exercise at the top by scrambling over the rocks at the highest point and walking along some of the trails to other view points. L saw that lovely high cliff and decided that some parapente (paragliding) or abseiling from there would be just the thing. Well before we were ready to leave the cloud had descended on the place and we’d lost the view. Salzburg had been clearly visible when we’d arrived.

We were glad we’d taken the early bus because by the time we left a couple of hours later the crowds were arriving in groups of around 250, the busses coming up in conveys of 6 at a time, every 15 minutes. On the one way road there was a lay-by where the ones going down pulled in and let the upward bound ones overtake. Arriving back at the bus station we saw a great long queue that would have taken an hour to clear. We managed to have a coffee before the drizzle started. Later we found out that it was a public holiday in Germany, that may have accounted to some degree for the massive crowds.

Backtracking down the mountain and up the valley a little we crossed over into Austria and drove down to Zill Am See, then south towards the Italian border driving up a long valley with high mountains that had a light dusting of fresh snow on their tops. We could only see this when the rain eased up and the cloud cleared a little as it did now and again. Driving through pretty little villages that seem to have a disproportionate number of guest houses and hotels, probably for the ski season, we could see many idle ski lifts and cable cars. Narrow waterfalls and tiny mountain streams tumbling down the hill sides into rushing torrents of water that created great white water rafting conditions in the rivers that we drove beside.

© Lynette Regan August 16 2014