Lake Constance to the Rhine and a visit to France for a day

Lake Titisee

Lake Titisee was our next stop, and I had high hopes of a book exchange, as we were to be attached to a campsite. It all felt a bit of a let down however, the book had said there was electricity, there wasn’t, though we didn’t need it if we were only staying one night, there was a book exchange but hidden away up some stairs, it had one English book, so I had it. The showers/toilets were very good, and very, very warm, but €15 felt like a lot. Campsite location: 47°53'11.3"N 8°07'51.1"E

Proper Black Forest Gateau

The afternoon was lovely however, so we walked round the lake, to Titisee itself with it’s cuckoo clock shops, possibly originating in China as were most of the tourists. We weren’t going to go into the tourist information, a we’d done the walk, and seen the town before we got to it, but for some reason we did wander in, firstly into the attached cafe, where Brian’s jaw dropped at the sight of the Black Forest Gateau (why do we call it Black Forest Gateau, rather than cake? It’s not French...) We had to have a piece (we are eating cake most days, so can only share a piece, or we’d have exploded by now!) it was fabulous, kirsch in the cream, cherries, chocolate..... he hasn’t stopped going on about it, but it was delicious. 

A sawmill in the forest on our walk. We saw a number of these, no longer used but all now preserved

The saw and ratchet mechanism inside the sawmill

The lovely lady in the tourist information, when we finally made it in there, must have watched all this as she recommended some good walks, and gave us a very useful little booklet. So we moved the following day, slightly back on ourselves it has to be said, which is never good, particularly as we still hadn’t actually gone north at all, still only west. We parked up at Hinzarten station and set off. It was a great walk, not much up as it followed the river and railway, some old historical saw mills, a glass blower and shopping outlet, a viaduct, under which they were setting up ANOTHER Christmas market. (We’ve seen so many little huts, but we are just too early.) The return was up the river, beautiful falls and little bridges. Really something for everyone.

An information board in the sawmill showing how water power operated both the reciprocal motion of the saw and a ratchet feeder mechanism to push the log along while cutting

The glassblowing and shopping area on our walk

On to our parking for the night, right next to the railway line, which actually wasn’t a problem, lovely view, cheaper than the previous night, with 8 hours of electricity for €1! We were toasty warm! Most of the electricity has been by the kw/hr and I have to admit, we’ve rarely paid. Someone has left half a kw/hr so we just mop up. That is enough for us to top Ted up, charge the laptop while doing a blog or watching a movie. The gas is much more efficient for heating and water, though blowing the air around does use a bit of electricity and the electric ring is really very slow. Stellplatz location: 47°51'29.9"N 8°06'56.6"E

The railway viaduct on our walk, apparently a highlight of the walk. The huts underneath is a Christmas Market just setting up - we're too early!

The best part of the walk through a gorge

We didn’t rush off in the morning, it was raining, so we got sausage and beans cooking in ‘the Dog’ and set off for an hour and a half journey. An hour in, in traffic, in Freiburg, I saw a sign saying their Christmas market had been open two days..... whipped out the parking book, it was five minutes away on the route we were going so change of plan! Funny place, had a reception, though not for an hour or so, but when it opened had a cat and a book exchange! Happy days. We went to the market, had a cheese fest of stall food, and even an ice cream! Stellplatz location: 47°59'58.4"N 7°49'30.5"E

Lots of walkways, little waterfalls and high cliffs in a deep gorge

Artwork in Frieburg. We both quite liked this

This left us with a whole half hour journey on Thursday to Ile du Rhin, an island in the Rhine, on the French side! We tried an old historic French town, but it poured, so we popped back into German to look at Briesach between showers. Before returning to the island for the night. Very odd having to think “bonjour” rather than “Morgen”. Aire location: 48°01'14.7"N 7°34'47.6"E

Finally, in Freiburg a Christmas Market that was open!

Panorama in Freiburg of the basillica and market square

Rain all overnight, and today, on the whole we have been very lucky with rain, but today we bought an umbrella, in Gengenbach. Stellplatz location: 48°24'06.5"N 8°00'26.5"E. We didn’t see much of the town, gave it up as a bad job, but tomorrow is sunny, the Christmas market opens, we’d had hot chocolate and cake, and had a blog to write. Am I glad we came back? Kitten came to visit. He took a bit of winning over in the carpark, but now we are best of friends. He’s eaten all the biscuits and is being remarkably soft. How long will he stay is the question?

We finally got let down by Doris, our Sat-Nav. This was in Neuf Brisach, just inside France and is an old fortified town. We'd programmed in the location of a free Aire (parking area) where we thought we'd stay the night. We have put our motorhome dimensions and weight into Doris and, up to now, she has always told us when we're too big or heavy to use certain routes, but on this occasion she wanted to take us over that bridge (3.5T limit - we are 4.5T) and through that gateway. To be fair, the sign did say maximum height 3.1m and that is exactly our height, but that opening is arched and our roof isn't. We managed to turn round just on that zebra crossing and beat a hasty retreat!

The very nice German border town of Brisach, just the other side of the Rhine to the French Neuf Brisach. We took a self guided tour of the town using an information leaflet from the tourist office and its a splendid medieval walled town that has been almost totally destroyed twice. Once in 1793 by Napoleon as he didn't like the imposing fortified town overlooking France at a crossing point, and again in 1945 when the Allies se<<|

One of the town gates at Brisach. The ducks under the bridge by Jackie paddled over hoping she had some food 

View from the Aire on Ile du Rhin just inside France that we stayed at. On the skyline is a Rhine cruise liner just navigating through the locks of the Rhine canal which makes this part of the river navigable to suck large boats

This is the Town Hall in Gengenbach on a wet Friday. The Christmas market is set up and opens tomorrow (we're staying for it) and the windows in the Town Hall act as the worlds largest advent calender as each window is open on each day. The first one opens tomorrow, a day early as no-one will be there on the 25th. We'll be there at 6:00pm tomorrow when apparently a band will be playing as it opens. Number 1 is the bottom left window. Watch out in the next blog entry! 

The lovely town of Gengenbach. used as a set for part of the film Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Hopefully better photos tomorrow as the forecast is for sun and blue skies

Walking back to our campsite in the rain. Gengenbach is only 1km away along the river Kinzig, on the right

But when we got back and the rain stopped Jackie saw a pussy cat. It took some coaxing, but finally it came over for some biscuits...

...had a lot more biscuits....

...was encouraged into the van by you know who...

...and is now, some two hours later as I finish this blog, into everything! He already walked all over the keyboard deleting a load of photos I'd put on and is fully 'at home'!

From Ravensburg jigsaws to Zeppelin Airships

An interesting sculpture in Wangen

Left, right, up or down? Which way to go? West a little, to Lake Constance, before beginning the journey north, a vague plan. Wangen im Allgäu, the first of four one night stands. Gas had become important after a clunk this morning as the large bottle ran out and the heating went off. LPG is plentiful in Germany, but always seems a little hard to find just when we need it, so much so we actually went 10 minutes in the wrong direction to fill, just to get the job done. An hour and a half drive followed, but it was pretty and pleasant, as was Wangen. Another old town, though we’ve seen a few of those now, a park up with free electric, and even the bread van in the morning (stellplatz location: 47°40'54.1"N 9°50'02.1"E).

This is a small church in Wangen with many painted panels on the ceiling depicting various scenes from the bible. On entry you collect a mirror to help you examine the panels without having to strain your neck

Main street in Wangen. A beautiful well kept old town

Ravensburg next, though we both found this a bit of a let down. It’s the centre of jigsaw production, but not much was made of this in the town, though we did pop into the shop and try to work out who would spend in excess of €300 on a 42000 piece, 6m jigsaw, and where they would then do it! We did go to the Humpis quarter museum, a set of seven buildings and their story and the story’s of the normal, every day people who had lived there. It was interesting but the audio guide contained so much information our heads exploded (stellplatz location: 47°46'54.6"N 9°35'59.3"E).

A bit of a misty day in Wangen, but this photo is taken on top of a hill with a building that is now a Youth Hostel. There used to be a  castle here and in the 1400's the town built that tower you can just see there improbably high (particularly for the period) just so the castle didn't over shadow it

Ravensburg 40320 piece jigsaw anyone? Its 6.80m x 1.92m

Friedrichshafen on Saturday where the zeppelin was developed and built. Not much of an old town as it was bombed in the war, which I guess is not surprising, but a very interesting museum. Lots of information, and enough in English, a life size model of part of the Hindenburg for you to walk through and much about the conspiracies and theories as to why it exploded. A lovely lake front walk with mountain views into Switzerland and Austria, and finally it has warmed up a little (stellplatz location: 47°39'00.1"N 9°29'48.0"E).

On the lakefront at Friedrichshafen wit the Swiss and Austrian Alps visible on the other side

See that tower there on the end of that pier?.....

Further round the lake today to Meersburg, an old town with two castles and built on a hill. It’s strange to realise how many of the towns have been flat. A ‘lunch’ was on the cards for today, but having walked up and down and roundabout twice we nearly called it off, every restaurant was either Italian, or jolly expensive, or both. We finally ended up in a little cafe, that was actually much nicer on the inside than it looked from the outside, with a lovely bloke who despite being busy still had time to explain what everything was and have a laugh. I’ve enjoyed what we’ve eaten out, on the three occasions we’ve eaten a proper German meal, but I’m glad we don’t have to eat it every day! German wine, fizz and gluwein however is another story....

This is what Friedrichshafen looks like from the top of it

Inside the Zeppelin Museum, this is a recreation of part of the Hindenburg

There was even a cat to say hello to on the way to, and from town, she was very cute, but Brian has stopped taking photos of me and cats even though I can probably count strokes on two hands (stellplatz location: 47°42'03.7"N 9°16'04.1"E).

Some notes from Brian: Friedrichshafen made a great impression on me, not only for the Zeppelin airship but for the excellence in mechanical engineering for which the town is rightly proud and as a mechanical engineer myself I can see what an exciting place it would be to work. Zeppelin Systems GmbH is still a big manufacturing company today, employing 9000 people and with a turnover of €2.9 billion, although these days mainly concerned with bulk materials handling. The airships they manufacture today use carbon fibre frames rather than the aluminium, rivetted together originals.

Extract from one of the newspapers on display showing the sizes of the Hindenburg and Graf Zeppelin airships

Inside the structure of the Hindenburg part recreation

Also in the town is the engine manufacturing company MTU, that used to be known as Maybach and, at one time used to manufacture a luxury car known as the German Rolls Royce. Today MTU is owned by Rolls Royce Systems and still manufactures huge engines for marine and rail, fabulous, to me proper engineering that I'd have loved to have been involved with. Read their history here:  https://www.mtu-online.com/great-britain/company/history/. They are another huge company, employing 10,000 people worldwide.

A boarding card for the airship

The third company that was of personal interest to me as I used to complete with them in a very small sector of their products, and that is ZF, or to give it its original name: Zahnradfabrik Friedrichshafen (https://www.zf.com/). This is a huge company worldwide, employing 149,000 people in 230 locations around the world and with a turnover of €36.9 billion. They are mainly concerned in gears and transmissions for busses, trucks, cars and industrial machines, and its the industrial side that I can across them as a competitor to the French company Redex, that I used to work with.

All of these companies originally came to Friedrichshafen in the early 1900's to support and supply parts for the Zeppelin Airshirps, as well as Maybach producing engines for tanks, ships, military vehicles, airships and airplanes, and ZF transmissions for the same. It is not surprising therefore that the town became a major target for bombing in the last war and 85% of the town was destroyed almost leading to the loss of the technology. It was rebuilt after the war and has again become a centre for excellence the world over and has to be admired. It really is German mechanical engineering at its best. No wonder ZF were such a difficult company to complete with!

Jackie goes up into the Hindenburg

The complete day for me would have been a tour of one of the factories, but that was not to be, I made do with the Zeppelin Museum which, itself was very informative and an exciting place to visit.

This apparently is exactly how it looked to travel by airship. It took 2 days to fly the Atlantic in absolute luxury (for the time). It could take 50 passengers, which required between 40 and 50 crew. The windows on the right would give a birds eye view of the ocean and land below. The cost of a trip across the Atlantic was equivalent to half a years salary of one of the construction workers

Luxury living? One of the bedrooms on the airship

Photograph inside the airship showing one of the hydrogen airbags in position. The horizontal section at the bottom would be the passenger quarters shown in the above photos. Imagine having all that flammable hydrogen above your head!

Photograph of maintenance people on the outside of the ship making running repairs during flight

A photo of the New York Times on the day of the disaster of the Hindenburg on 6th May 1937

A chair from the doomed airship

Just out of interest, here's a few information panels from the museum that I thought worthwhile inserting:

At the end of the Romantic Road is a fairy tale castle on a hill

The fairy tale Neuschwanstein castle built by King Ludwig II

Sunday we deviated from the Romantic Road and went to Oberammergau, a name I’m aware of for the Passion Play, though I didn’t know what that meant. Apparently when the bubonic plague was rife, in 1633, the church wardens made a deal with God, they promised to hold the Passion Tragedy play, of Christ’s life and death, every 10 years if the village were to be spared. They were, and they did the first performance in 1664, though now it is every year ending in 0. It takes 2000 village inhabitants and is performed for 5 months. Oberammergau itself was an attractive little town, though we expected more from it on a Sunday as obviously did the other people drifting around looking for something to do. The painted houses were amazing.

Have a look at our short Youtube video of our journey to the end of the Romantic Road:

We really should have learned by now to take advantage of available facilities. We hadn’t filled with

Linderhof Palace

water as we left Landsberg as the site at Oberammergau had free water, if you took the €12 parking option. However on arrival the campsite is being refurbished, so the only available space is the €7 option with no services. They told us we could stay for free, but no, no services, and no, they wouldn’t give us the WiFi code. Fortunately we had showered, done the toilet, and had just done a drive so Ted was charged. That’ll be a free night then (Parking location: 47°35'20.9"N 11°04'22.2"E). Sadly it was cold, wet and foggy, and had been all day, so although we knew there were mountains we couldn’t see them. The following morning was clearer, so a grand view while preparing the chicken

A snow swan, symbol of Ludwig II

casserole to go into the Mr D thermal cooker, which we now call ‘the Dog’ so when we are wandering, driving, sightseeing, whatever, we can gleefully say “And dinners in the Dog”. 

We were headed to Schloss Linderhof, the only castle built by King Ludwig II that he actually saw completed and lived in. We are feeling a bit sorry for Ludwig II, he was the most beloved king to rule Bavaria, though his parents paid him little attention. He was a sensitive soul, fascinated by romantic epics, architecture and music, briefly engaged to the sister of the Austrian empress, he never

Linderhof Palace in its mountain setting

married, preferred the company of men, and worshipped composer Richard Wagner. He became King at 18 and was initially enthusiastic, until 7years later he became a puppet king after the creation of the German Reich. This did mean he got a good allowance to spend on drink, draw up castle plans, and view concerts and operas in private. He spent 15 years at this, till his (not the state) finances were in a terrible state, and his erratic behaviour (he seemed to be nocturnal, sleeping all day, and being awake at night) put him at odds with his cabinet. They had him declared as mentally unfit to rule and removed him to Schloss

Artists impression of Linderhof Palace. We couldn't get here as the gardens were closed

Berg, where a few days later he and his doctor were found drowned by the lake in just a few feet of water. No one knows what happened, but there are many conspiracies....

Linderhof castle was beautiful, though sadly as covered in snow they had closed all of the gardens with the various buildings built within. The castle was small, and heavily influenced by King Louis XV who he was obsessed with. No pictures were allowed indoors which is a shame as I can’t describe the Rococo interior, it was amazing, too much to possibly live with, but it was amazing.

UNESCO listed Weis church

Back on track with the Romantic Road we headed up to the village of Wies, which has an amazing church, for somewhere in the middle of nowhere, again completely over the top. A quick stop and we were on our way to Füssen, the final stop.

The attraction here are Neuschwanstein castle and Hohenschwangau castle. The latter was where King Ludwig II grew up, the former one of the many castles Ludwig designed, a Romantic medieval castle that Disney based his Sleeping Beauty castle on. They are very touristy, but from the outside you can see why. We decided to only go in Neuschwanstein, assuming we could

The fabulous interior of Weis church

get tickets. We cycled to the ticket office, by the lower Hohenschwangau, and got tickets for 1 1/2 hours time. They have to include the 40 minutes it will take you to get up to the castle in the booking time, not that it took us that long, but hey. It gave us a chance to look around the outside including the Marienbrucke ( Mary’s Bridge) which was signed as closed, but was open and gave amazing views of the castle and waterfall. I also met a very friendly black and white cat, both on the way up and down, I did try to explain to her that the doorstep she was sitting on said it was shut till the 6th December, but she didn’t really listen.

The castle was amazing, again, no pictures. It was impersonal as tours were every 10 minutes, it was a bit like a sausage factory, you had to go in a group, but only had an audio tour, with the guide pressing play, when nearly everyone had got to a room! We are glad we went, his ideas were completely way out, we walked through a manufactured stone grotto, somewhere on the 2nd floor. The artwork and decoration were again over the top, many based completely on mythology inspired by the works of Richard Wagner. He never saw it finished and only managed 177 days in residence, before they said he was mad, removing him, and then opening the castle to the public the following year.

Inside the Medieval walled town of Fussen

Hohenschwangau castle

We rushed back planning on having lunch at the Vietnamese restaurant that owns the parking we are in so were very disappointed to find it shut all day on a Tuesday, with no signs to this effect. We made up with pizza from a little hut opposite instead (Campsite location: 47°34'56.1"N 10°42'07.8"E).

Today, cold and grey, with low cloud we went for a cycle . The views aren’t as good as they could be, but at least it wasn’t raining, or snowing. For the first half of the ride round the Hopfensee lake we kept coming upon little woodcarvings which were a joy. Back into Füssen we didn’t get very far before I called Brian back as

Neuschwanstein castle on the hill

it appeared there were outdoor clothing factory shops or outlets down here. Normally we wouldn’t bother, but my approach shoes have bitten the dust leaving me with very cold wet feet after a rainy day in Oberammergau and a snowy day at Linderhof. Success at a reasonable price, hurrah, though it did curtail our trip to the Lech fall. 

Might go out after blogging, but I bet we don’t, it’s jolly cold out there, and I’ve got mussels to prepare, for the second time in a week, but at €1.39 for a kg too good to miss.

Waiting outside Neuschwanstein castle for our guided tour (no photos allowed inside unfortunately)

Hohenschwangau castle and the amazing Alpine scenery from Neuschwanstein castle

Marienbrucke bridge from Neuschanstein castle

Jackie holding the castle in her hand (all the Chinese tourists were doing it so we thought we would too!)

The perfect view of the castle with Fussen and the Alpine mountains behind

Looking down over the bridge at the waterfall far below

A plan of the castle showing, in grey, towers that were originally planned by Ludwig II but never built after his death

Posters for sale outside one of the shops. They weren't expensive, but we have nowhere to hang one

Here's another one. We'd like to have seen it like this but, although there is snow about, its not this low

On our bike ride today round Hopfensee lake

Which had, at regular intervals, birds carved from tree stumps using a chain saw 

Isn't this just idyllic? Misty mountains across the lake