Where's Bertie? He's at a commercial Stellplatz in Freiburg, where a small pitch, without electricity, costs €9 (medium without electricity = €10; big with electricity = €11; we went for the cheap option). Exact location: 47.9993, 7.82648.
Weather: sunny start, gradually clouding over, but warm.
Last night, at around 6pm, six lads appeared and started playing football on the all-weather mini-pitch next to which Bertie was parked. I was veritably impressed that they played vigorously (albeit latterly showing a slight slowing down) for 2.5 hours until their curfew called them home. It made me wonder: if that pitch didn't exist, would they have all been sitting in their individual bedrooms playing on their PlayStations or equivalent? Is the installation of a little facility like this a stroke of genius by the local council, keeping the kids both fit and out of mischief?
Bertie, and a football mini-pitch
Our exercise this morning started bright and early, helped by the local church having a policy of no one being allowed a lie-in beyond 7am (as Mick said at the end of the chimes: is it really 128 o'clock?).
Balzer Hergot was the first key sight of our 10km outing. I gathered the history simply from the pictures on this information panel:
In or before 1936 someone put a statue of Jesus here. Then the tree gradually ate it. Then in 1986 modifications were made to the tree so that it became framed instead.
Today it looks like this:
A hippy-looking chap was, by appearances, meditating, indulging in some yoga and smoking something herbal in front of it when we were there.
The second key sight of the outing came after we had dropped down, down and down some more into a gorgeous valley...
... when we climbed all the way back up via a wooded gorge.
This snap doesn't do it justice. The stream was a delight.
It was still morning when we left Gütenbach, initially intending to head for the town of Waldkirch, to decide whether to stay there or to continue on to Freiburg, with today's main consideration being to find somewhere for Mick to watch the football tonight (i.e. a nice quiet parking area out in the sticks would not have been a popular choice!).
In the event, Waldkirch didn't get a look in, due to a road closure, so here we are in Freiburg, where we have checked into the Stellplatz for two nights.
We won't go for a proper look around until tomorrow, although we did get a taster this afternoon when we went in search of possible locations for tonight's football.
For that recce, I was wearing these, which I'd finished about five minutes earlier:
They're just a pair of socks, but I'm very taken with the yarn. This pair used less than half of the ball, so I'll be casting on another pair tonight whilst the football's on - socks are such a handily portable project!
Weather: sunny start, gradually clouding over, but warm.
Last night, at around 6pm, six lads appeared and started playing football on the all-weather mini-pitch next to which Bertie was parked. I was veritably impressed that they played vigorously (albeit latterly showing a slight slowing down) for 2.5 hours until their curfew called them home. It made me wonder: if that pitch didn't exist, would they have all been sitting in their individual bedrooms playing on their PlayStations or equivalent? Is the installation of a little facility like this a stroke of genius by the local council, keeping the kids both fit and out of mischief?
Bertie, and a football mini-pitch
Our exercise this morning started bright and early, helped by the local church having a policy of no one being allowed a lie-in beyond 7am (as Mick said at the end of the chimes: is it really 128 o'clock?).
Balzer Hergot was the first key sight of our 10km outing. I gathered the history simply from the pictures on this information panel:
In or before 1936 someone put a statue of Jesus here. Then the tree gradually ate it. Then in 1986 modifications were made to the tree so that it became framed instead.
Today it looks like this:
A hippy-looking chap was, by appearances, meditating, indulging in some yoga and smoking something herbal in front of it when we were there.
The second key sight of the outing came after we had dropped down, down and down some more into a gorgeous valley...
... when we climbed all the way back up via a wooded gorge.
This snap doesn't do it justice. The stream was a delight.
It was still morning when we left Gütenbach, initially intending to head for the town of Waldkirch, to decide whether to stay there or to continue on to Freiburg, with today's main consideration being to find somewhere for Mick to watch the football tonight (i.e. a nice quiet parking area out in the sticks would not have been a popular choice!).
In the event, Waldkirch didn't get a look in, due to a road closure, so here we are in Freiburg, where we have checked into the Stellplatz for two nights.
We won't go for a proper look around until tomorrow, although we did get a taster this afternoon when we went in search of possible locations for tonight's football.
For that recce, I was wearing these, which I'd finished about five minutes earlier:
They're just a pair of socks, but I'm very taken with the yarn. This pair used less than half of the ball, so I'll be casting on another pair tonight whilst the football's on - socks are such a handily portable project!
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