Silvretta Alpine Road, Austria

Sunday 19th July - Silvetta Alpine Road

Weather was awful so thought we would head on and see if we could find some sunshine, we headed to Fredriechshafen. It was so cold we put the heater on in the van and found ourselves intoxicated by the smell of what we thought was fumes from a factory.

Unfortunately, as it transpired, we had a little engine trouble (diesel everywhere) and so made a stop when we came across a road block. Using a bit of patch it up now, sort it out later, we got the beast back on the road again.

There was a summer festival taking place and many roads were closed, also the campsites were all full. We tried a site at Lindau, further around the Lake which was also full so changing our plans we bought a vignette for the roads and crossed the border into Austria.

At a motorway services we were looking through the maps and reconsidering our route when a friendly maintenance man offered us his advice for a beautiful trip through the Alps. We took his directions, unsure of what would lie ahead.

It all started well – a route along a valley at the foot of the Alps, with the ski resorts either side of us and lush green fields. Then it got out of hand – as we entered the National Park we realised we were upon the Silvetta Alpine Highway. A toll road, that took us 2000m high into the mountains up some extremely treacherous roads.

All that can be said is that eventually the van made it. Paul and I were scared ****less however by our predicament.

Monday 20^th July – Silvetta Apline Road

We stayed the night in the mountains – the temperature dipped to 4 degrees and there was snow all around us. We woke up at 5am and took so many pictures, the scenery around us was spectacular. We went for a walk around the dam which was hard work given the altitude. Eventually we found our way back to the van, the snow had melted around us but the clouds were closing in. We settled in for the night with our hot chocolates.

Konstanz

Saturday 18^th July – Meersburg

We caught a ferry over the Lake to the capital – Konstanz; accidentally stumbling into a gay pride parade. Made friends with various transvestites and have a strange urge to research gaywine.com thanks to various merchant stalls around the town – if anyone fancies looking on our behalf; please report back…

Lake Constance

Wednesday 15^th July – Uberlingen

The storms continued so we pressed on towards lake.

Thursday 16^th July – Uberlingen

We went for bike ride around Lake Constance towards Meersburg – about 30km there and back. We travelled through a nature reserve to sit by the lake for lunch.

Friday 17^th July – Meersburg

Weather turned – raining really heavily all night – got no sleep so got on road to find another site – went to Meersburg – arriving about 4pm. Waited the rain out and explored the town.

Stockach, Germany

Tuesday 14th July
Enjoyed the company of a nice Australian couple who drove a German Camper, even though they were on 'the wagon'. This was interrupted by an enormous lightning storm which continued on into the night. It was hard to ignore the myriad of forks zipping across the sky every few seconds.... so we got the camera out!

Continuous lightning forks throughout the night.

HUGE bolt touches down over the hill,

everything else is relatively dark in comparison.

Triberg

Monday 13^th July – Triberg

From Freiberg we headed to Triberg – recommended in the tourist books for its spectacular waterfall. We parked just 200m from the entrance to the national park area – well guarded in case a tourist might enter without paying, and spent the night on a very noisy site before visiting the falls the following morning. The series of waterfalls were beautiful. We took many photographs like the coach loads of people visiting, saw many cuckoo clocks in the town and got on the road again heading for Lake Constance.

Frieberg, Black Forest, Germany

Sunday 12^th July – Frieberg

Headed for Frieberg, in the Black Forest, with intention of spending several days. The weather was warm, very muggy, but not very sunny. We eventually found the stellplatz, spent an age on the internet due to a thunderstorm and set off first thing the next morning to explore the city, visiting the Munster and returning to the van for the afternoon to head deeper into the Black Forest.

Westhalten

Saturday 11th July

A France Passion site in the hills of Alsace surrounded by vinyards and so quiet we slept like babies. We cycled into the tour of Soutzmits for some supplies down a very steep hill, Paul made it back up - I got halfway before walking!

Ribeauville

Friday 10th July

We cycled to Kintzheim and then on to Selstat to tour the wine towns - a distance of about 30km in total up and down hill through the vinyards.
It was very windy but the sun was out and both got a little redder than we intended.
We stayed on another very quiet site and treated ourselves to a take out kebab ( the only food we could get apart from Five Star restaurants.)

Thursday 9th July

On the way to Ribeauville we stopped at Obernai for a quick visit around the town, a services stop at an Aire to take on water and then we headed to a France Passion site further south.

Molsheim, Alsace, France

Wednesday 8^th July

We woke up late as the farmyard was so quiet, plus we had been the only people to stay. It rained more-or-less all day so we pottered about site speaking with the farmer’s brother and went to see the locally famous Bugatti Museum, which incidentally included a look around a re-constructed monastery. We later discovered a Bugatti history exhibition in the town hall. Finished the afternoon off with a gaufre (waffle) topped with chocolate and cream whilst sat in town square.

Back at the van Alfonse (our Farmer host) wandered over with 3 glasses and a bottle of his own brew. After about 30mins of Suzy overdosing on Alsace/French/English translation he donated the rest of the bottle to us as thanks for Paul helping to plant lettuces for the restaurant and bid us bonne nuit and bon voyage.

Tuesday 7^th July

Next stop was a France Passion site in Molsheim. France Passion is a scheme set up for Motor home owners, allowing them to stay for up to 24 hours on a farmers land with a view to sampling and purchasing local farmers produce, although it’s not compulsory.

Molsheim is a very sleepy village with the obligatory collection of stalks’ nests.

The farm also had a restaurant serving tarte flambé and a very jolly farmer who was entertaining wine samplers. We decided to park up and go for a wander about town and returned to find the farmer lighting up a wood burning stove. Paul helped Alfonse to plant lettuces in his extensive garden whilst waiting for Suzy to cook dinner.

Kehl

Sunday 5^th July

We woke up to bright sunshine, set about maintenance and did some much needed washing having decided to head for Strasbourg in the afternoon. We stayed on the German side of the Rhine and drove to Kehl stellplatz.

We cycled into town later that evening to find most things closed on a Sunday except for restaurants and takeaways – so we treated ourselves to a pizza.

Strasbourg

Monday 6^th July

The same person who turned up at 11:30pm the previous night decide to leave at 7:30am in the morning, this kick-started us to get up early and cycle into Strasbourg for the day.

Stopping for a hot chocolate by the cathedral, we went on to see the astrological clock strike and perform at half past twelve. True to form the heavens opened the minute we decided to leave the café and we got soaked through. The clock was a complete waste of time, no pun intended, but the cathedral was stunning.

Camping Adam - Buhl

Saturday 4^th July

Saturday morning was so hot that you couldn’t sit in the Sun. We started sampling the beer early and admitted defeat with an afternoon siesta followed by yet more storms which we thought we’d seen the last of. The sky cleared slightly and gave us a beautiful red sunset, unfortunately the storms then carried on all through the night.

Friday 3^rd July

With the aim to visit the Black Forest for the weekend we trekked into Baden-Baden, however it was a very unfriendly place for a motor home, not to mention car drivers. We gave up after the mile long tunnel filled with exhaust fumes and headed for the nearest campsite given that no-where seemed appropriate to stop for wild camping.

After arriving at Camping Adam we found a prime spot right next to the lake, however right on cue there was a massive thunderstorm that lasted for over three hours with fork lightning, one struck so close Suzy screamed - thinking we had been hit! Or shot, seeing as the thunder was so immediate and loud. Fortunately only our eardrums were injured, so we ventured out for a bite to eat (campsite chips) and a walk around the lake after the storm.

Speyer to Nurburgweier

Thursday 2^nd July

At 6.30am the next day we awoke to the sound of a jet taking off, the sound revealed our proximity to an airport… so we grudgingly got up early to spend the day at Speyer TechnikMuseum, just next door. A large Lufthansa 747 airbus was mounted about 50 metres off the ground, pitched as if just taking-off, such an angle made almost impossible to walk from one side of it to the other without feeling disorientated, but you could walk out on the wings which gave some impressive views.

They had an original Apollo Space shuttle, loads of classic cars, war memorabilia, trains, the odd submarine and planes dotted about – a bit like an eccentric engineer’s laboratory. We could probably have spent several days there had it not been in excess of 30 degrees. Later that afternoon, once the air had cooled slightly, we drove to a lake and to a stellplatz that didn’t exist (cheers TOMTOM). Instead, after a long day in the sun we headed for the river Rhine, aplace called Nurburgweier, not too far away, to spend a night wild camping.

Heidleburg to Speyer

Wednesday 1^st July

We got up early and cycled into Heidleburg, heading towards the cable car and heading straight up the mountain towards the viewpoint and the castle. It was stunning but again we were plagued by thunderstorms that reverberated off the valley walls and were unbelievable loud. We returned to the campsite after sampling ice cream and wandering around the shops to head deeper into the Black Forest. There was another UNESCO site at Speyer – a large cathedral – worth a visit we thought and so sped there. Met by a very strange lady (we’re not sure if she was a lady though) we organised in our best German to stay the night and to get discount tickets for the Technik Museum for the next day.

Heidleburg

Tuesday 30^th June

We set off on a cultural visit to a UNESCO heritage site – an abbey in Lorsche. We opted to leave the town and head towards Heidleburg, arriving with about ten minutes to sit in the sunshine alongside the river then deciding to spend the night on a campsite (as we needed electricity for the fridge) just as an almighty thunderstorm was upon us.

It cleared to reveal a valley with clouds forming along each side of the hills – the campsite was pretty much deserted and quite eerie.

Beibelheim

Monday 29^th June

Left Bingen site and found stellplatz site at Beibelheim. It was far too hot (nearly 34 degrees in the shade) to do anything. So we used the Wi-Fi on site and had some rest, carried out some essential maintenance and settled for the night with a BBQ feast of what we thought was pork chops in a marinade, but turned out to be lamb which we washed down with the local Weiss bier.