Wednesday 31 July - Herrenberg

Where's Bertie? He's unmoved, in the Stellplatz at Herrenberg.
Weather: There was a spell of heavy rain overnight, but today has been dry with good sunny intervals.

Having mainly run along or around water over the last few weeks, today was a bit of a departure: cycle paths through crop fields, complete with undulations.

That brought me up to 107 miles run in July - a total that pleases me, considering it's all been done for the fun of it, not because I'm in training for anything. Mick was pleased to manage 50 miles without aggravating any part of his body - it's been a long while since he managed such a consistent spell.

By the time lunch had been despatched, we were ready for a bit more exercise, in the form of a walk over to the 'Schönbuchturm' (tower). Had we felt lazy, we could have driven to one of the large car parks that sit 400m away from this landmark, but a circuit taking in the tower and the Schlossberg Plateau, returning via the town, was only 5 miles, hence we walked.

This is what we went to see (and ascend)...

...and here are its vital statistics:

We didn't pause at the two lower viewing platforms, but I can report that the top one swayed in the breeze and I had to give myself a talking to, to convince myself that the engineers had done their calculations correctly and all was perfectly safe.

View from the upper platform

Our return route was via paths through the woodland and wild-flower meadows that line the ridge that runs between the tower and the town (don't think of anything dramatic when I use the word 'ridge'; we topped out at around 560m today, and weren't even 100m higher than the plain below us). At the start of our descent to the town, we found the remains of the castle, as well as a few of the sculptures on the 'sculpture trail' we'd seen described in a leaflet yesterday. The ones we saw weren't such as to persuade either of us that we would want to see them all.

One of the more interesting sculptures

A short while later we were sitting in the town square and I was telling Mick about the history of the fountain, when he interrupted me with the words "Where's Wally?". I looked up from the text I was reading, and immediately caught his reference:

Finally, a little bit more knowledgeable about some of the key sights in the town, we strolled back along the road to Bertie.

Now to look at a map. Does it make sense to go to Tübingen? It was originally in our plan for this week, got scrapped yesterday when we had to replan for a service point, then was recommended to us by a local German motorhomer last night.

July 29 & 30 - Waldenbuch and Herrenberg

Where's Bertie? He's in a Stellplatz next to the Freibad* at Herrenberg. It costs €5 per day to stay here. Water and electricity are available at extra cost. Exact location: 48.59009, 8.87747. (Last night he spent a second night at the Stellplatz at Waldenbuch).
Weather: Both yesterday and today have given us good periods of sunny intervals. Today has been a bit warmer (high-twenties vs mid-twenties)

Monday 29th - Waldenbuch
I was right that we got to see more attractive things yesterday (compared with our walk around Glashutte the day before). A walk of a mile took us into the Waldenbuch's old town, perched upon a small pimple in the landscape, the sides of which were so steep as to make it look like the buildings were stacked one atop the other. All was quiet as we walked around, with it being Monday afternoon, but it was a nice place for a bit of wandering:

Looking both ways across the Market Square

Sculpture of the day

Perhaps not 'attractive' in a conventional way, but it caught my eye on one of our forays along the cycle/walking path that ran past Bertie.

Tuesday 30th - Herrenberg
After a quiet night (the adjacent car park playground had been busy all afternoon, but the final few kids** eventually went home as daylight faded) and a run for me this morning (oooh, tired legs!), our plan was for just a short hop (5km) along the road to Neuhausen. It was only as I looked up the lat/long to programme the SatNav this morning that I noticed our target Stellplatz had electricity (which we didn't need), but not a service point (which we did need).

A period of staring at my phone ensued and once I'd considered the options and calculated various distances, the rough itinerary we came up with a couple of days ago went out the window and to Herrenberg we came.

A good decision - what a lovely town!

The Stellplatz here is another new-in-2019 one (that's four such we've found in the last week) and it's nicely-presented, in an elevated position with views - which is probably why it costs €5 rather than being free.

The old town is 1km away and we approached it with no expectations. This was the first street along which we walked as we entered the town, and it set the scene nicely:

Then we got to the Market Square:

Yes, we've stumbled across another town on the Half-Timbered Route***

Unfortunately, there's no Tourist Information office as such (info is available from one of the municipal offices), and we weren't able to find any information in English. Even a search around t'interweb on my phone, whilst we sat in the square, didn't net anything useful. So we just wandered the streets, exclaiming at the wonkiness of buildings as we went.

The most interesting thing we found was a display inside the church (which sits atop the prominence upon which the old town is built), charting the building's 700 year structural history. Essentially, until the 1980s, the church had been sliding towards the town at a rates of up to 1mm per year (various bits of the church were sliding at different rates) and the tower (originally twin towers, modified to a single dome-topped tower in 1749) had been built on a dome-shaped foundation, which left the outer edges unsupported. The entire explanation was in German, but with the assistance of diagrams, a bit of Google Translate and some examination of the tower itself, we got the gist of it. Far more interesting than what one usually finds in a church!

Unfortunately, the faults in the tower structure that were obvious to the naked eye probably aren't visible in this snap.

Views across the town from outside the church

We left the town without having seen everything, but as Mick said: "Best leave something for tomorrow!". I did another search for information when we got back to Bertie and immediately found the page that I thought must be lurking on the internet somewhere, setting out the points of interest on the town tour. At least we'll be armed with that when we return tomorrow.

I've also got in mind to take a non-urban walk tomorrow - something that has been unusually absent thus far in this tour.

Sculpture of the day (in leiu of a fountain worthy of the award)


^{(*No trip to the pool for us today. At €4, without a cheapie evening rate, we wouldn't get value for money.
**From our observations, Germany doesn't seem to have the same overprotective attitude towards children as is often seen in the UK. We therefore see quite young children out and about without adult supervision. The final four children out playing last night ranged, I reckoned, from 5 up to 10 years old. They finally went home at around 9.15pm. Unrelated to that, they seem to have a lax attitude as to safety on building sites too: who needs hard hats and high viz, even when there are cranes swinging stuff around just above head height?!
*** I'm still not yet bored with looking around historic towns & villages, even though it's a major theme of this trip. I know they're all very samey in many respects, but they also provide a visually pleasing and often-interesting location for some urban walking.)}

Sunday 28 July - Oberesslingen, Stuttgart and Waldenbach

Where's Bertie? He's in a free three-space Stellplatz (no services), forming part of a car park by Waldenbach. (Exact location: 48.63440, 9.15291)
Weather: A grey and slightly drizzly start, then a period of rain, then more greyness with the occasional glimpse of sunshine, then more rain this evening. Still warm.

With remarkable similarity to Friday, we retired last night to the sound of rain drumming and with flashes of lightning all around. The difference was the temperature: the day hadn't got above the mid-twenties.

The reason we stayed in the car park in Oberesslingen last night was due to its proximity (about 5m) to a riverside path for a run this morning. Our route was such that Mick was with me for the first 7 miles, at which point he stopped as we passed Bertie and I carried on (throwing a couple of river-island circuits in at the end) to bring my distance up to a half-marathon.

This bridge also features in the parkrun course

Along the river

Much greener further along

As the temperature hadn't dictated an early start (it was just gone 8 as we'd headed out), by the time I was back and we'd showered, breakfasted and elevensesed, lunctime was upon us. It was thus afternoon by the time we were ready for the next activity scheduled for today.

When we left Esslingen 6 weeks ago, we decided we would visit the Mercedes-Benz museum (on the east side of Stuttgart) on our return journey. For ease of parking, a Sunday seemed a good time to do that. The day had rather run away with us, but as we set off museumwards, there were still 5 hours of opening remaining.

Our expectations had been set by our Audi museum visit a couple of weeks ago (walked straight in and up to the ticket desk), so we didn't expect to arrive to find the ticket queue snaking out the door and across the concourse. We duly joined the queue and about ten or fifteen minutes later we reached the door, where there was a sign telling us the wait from that point was approximiately one hour. Inside the queue snaked around and about until it finally reached the ticket desk.

The outside queue as viewed from both directions. The internal queue was many times this length.

Aside from not having the inclination to stand in a queue for another hour, by the time we were inside the museum, we would only have three hours left until closing. With an entrance fee of €10 each, I didn't want to feel rushed, so we ducked out of the queue and left. A wasted journey, but if we should go back at least we now know where we can park and we'll make sure we're there for opening time.

Battling our way back out of Stuttgart, to Waldenbach we came, to another brand-new Stellplatz (an old car park, but newly installed motorhome spots and signage). As I type, Bertie has no neighbours, although there has been a steady stream of cars bringing children to visit the adjacent play facilities.

They don't just give you somewhere to kip, but also usually provide information as to what might entertain you nearby. This is one of two information panels here.

We're saving a look at Waldenbuch until tomorrow and the nearby walking route was too long to entice us, considering this morning's exersions, so this afternoon we just took a tiny strollette around Glashutte. We'd thought as we set out that it was a village, but now I'd class it as just a satellite residential area. Aside from the old school house and a well-past-its-best guesthouse, there is nothing there bar housing. Much of that housing is very ordinary and some of the rest is verging on ugly, which is not what two summers in Germany has led us to expect! I'm sure we'll find more attractive things to look at tomorrow.

In the interests of not only posting photos of chocolate box villages, here's a random snap of a street in Glashutte.

Saturday 27 July - Oberesslingen

Where's Bertie? He's in a car park alongside the river Neckar by Oberesslingen. (Exact location: 48.72831, 9.32488)
Weather: Surprisingly dry since 8am, with sunny intervals.

When a thunder storm approached and passed overhead, starting at just after 10pm last night, we could hardly hear the thunder for the amount of rain drumming on Bertie's roof. Sleep was not going to be possible with that racket going on, but neither was it looking particularly feasible with the temperature, even at 11pm, stubbornly refusing to drop below 30.7 degrees - and that was with the fan in front of an open window.

In fact, over the course of the night the interior only fell to 25.7 degrees. Sticky!

The rain was lightly pattering away again as we set out at 7.30 this morning for the uneventful drive to Oberesslingen, and with the forecast telling us we were in for thunder storms all day, we expected a wet parkrun. What a bonus that it stayed stopped not just for the run and the post-run coffee, but for the entire day.

This is the same parkrun as I did 6 weeks ago on our way south. Mick was injured at the time, so missed out. He requested the return visit, and I'm always happy to repeat a course*.

Post-run, pre-coffee.

There was a good bunch here today and to our surprise we recognised not only people we met here 6 weeks ago, but also two visiting runners - they're from Stuttgart and we met them when we visited Kräherwald parkrun in June and August last year.

The savoury muffins provided by one of the regulars here were absolutely delicious! The recipe is Delia Smith's Savoury Mini Muffins and I shall be trying it out when we get home.

By the time the post-run coffee gathering had broken up and we'd walked back to Bertie, it was very nearly lunchtime. We'd arrived here this morning with no plan as to what we were doing as of this afternnoon, so a bit lenghty spell of map staring and pondering was required.

The result was a decision to stay here (in the spot where we parked first thing this morning) tonight, and we have a list of possible stopping points to the south of Stuttgart for next week.

There's nowt else to report from today. A short strollette late this afternoon has been our only other activity.

^{(*Knowing a course is always a boost and maybe I can thank my prior experience here for setting a new 5km Personal Best this morning. Only last Saturay, during the first mile of the parkrun in Nuremberg, I conceded that my 2019 running objective of improving my 5km time was not going to happen. Two miles later, having finished relatively comfortably quite close to that time, my confidence increased. Today I bettered the PB I set in Rouen last autumn by 18 seconds (down to 24.36). And it didn't kill me ... even if towards the end it felt like it might! I was much chuffed!)}

Friday 26 July - Schorndorf

Where's Bertie? He's in a free Stellplatz just outside of the town of Schorndorf. As usual, water and electricity are available for a small fee. Unusually, there's also a charge here (€1) for black/grey waste. (Exact location: 48.81662, 9.54132)
Weather: wall-to-wall sunshine and silly-hot until mid-afternoon, when clouds quickly developed and a delicious breeze picked up. A few rumbles of thunder, about 3 drops of rain then back to breezeless sunshine.

We had two key requirements for today's nightstop. The need to be within 45 minutes of Esslingen - to position ourselves for tomorrow morning - gave us lots of possibilities. The limiting factor was that it also needed to have a service point for us to use in the morning as we may be about to enter a period without easy access to one.

The new-this-year Stellplatz at Schorndorf fitted the bill. On the plus side, it was likely to be quiet (word won't yet have got around about its existence) but on the risk side, there were no reviews to give us an indication as to what to expect.

By our standards, it was a reasonably lengthy journey to get here (knocking on for 2 hours), but before we got started we had a couple of errands to run. The grocery shopping went fine (except the queue for the pfand (bottle deposit return) machine), but the LPG-filling exercise nearly defeated us.

We found the LPG pump without a problem, even though it was separate from the petrol/diesel forecourt, but such had been our concentration on its position that we'd failed to notice that there was no manned kiosk. The sole payment machine was also tucked away on that forecourt, so it confounded us for a while as to why the pump wouldn't reset to zero or dispense. We got there in the end, replenishing all of the gas we've used over the last six weeks - annoyingly at the highest price I've seen recently (although we're not talking big enough numbers to make it worth going out of our way to find somewhere cheaper).

After a fight with the SatNavs, to Schorndorf we came, via the shortest cross-country route. Would we have been better detouring to the motorway and going the long way around? It felt like it as we drove through 50km/hour limits every couple of kilometres and wound our way up and down hairpins bends, but some quick sums suggest there wasn't actually a lot in it time-wise.

So, Schorndorf! We knew nothing about the place (other than it was conveniently placed for our purposes) when we arrived, but when I went for a little look around our immediate area*, I saw a waymarker that made me suspect we may have accidentally hit another town on the Half-Timbered Road. Once I'd confirmed that was the case, we felt obliged to nip into town for a look around, although our initial plan was to leave that until this evening. We're 2km out of town here and the afternoon was silly-hot.

When it suddenly clouded over (temperature down; humidity up), our plan was brought forward and thus we got to admire the outstanding Market Square:

Standing in front of the Rathaus looking up the square.

Standing in front of the fountain looking back at the Rathaus.

We made no efforts to obtain any tourist information, being happy with just seeing the centre of the old town and walking back to Bertie via the Schloss - and via a cake shop that called our names as we passed.

Just a small indulgence

We were about two-thirds of the way back when the first rumbles of thunder were heard, but in the end neither that nor the next set of rumbles amounted to anything. In total I only felt three drops of rain. The breeze was nice whilst it lasted!

Fountain of the day

^{(*As well as having excellent cycling and walking infrastructure, we've noticed that Germany invests in quality sports facilities. The Stellplatz here is adjacent to (although not within sight of, thanks to lots of greenery) a sizeable 'sportspark', featuring an athletics stadium, tennis courts, a football pitch, a bmx park, outdoor gym facilities and lots of other stuff - all immaculately kept.)}

Thursday 25 July - Feuchtwangen

Where's Bertie? He's still sitting in the Stellplatz at Feuchtwangen.
Weather: A few clouds bubbled up mid-afternoon, but then dissipated again. Silly-hot.

Last evening an old, converted Royal Mail van pulled into the pitch next to us. It's occupants, a young couple called Ellie and Bert, converted it themselves and 10 days ago set off for an adventure that is going to last either a year or until the van irretrievably dies. I do hope it's the former.

We chatted to them as the light started to fade out of the day and as it did so the temperature dropped quickly. Assisted by setting up the fan in front of one of our open windows, we hit the magic 'under 30 degrees' before 10pm - hours earlier than expected.

It was another early morning, which shouldn't have involved a run for me, but Mick was heading out so I went along too.

Our route didn't take us along a river today, but we did find ponds.

Wanting to cram everything in before the day got too hot, after breakfast, we went to see the sights. Feuchtwangen is another attractive Romantic Road old town with a compact centre - which was perfect for today. It didn't take us long to see all the points of interest on the tour leaflet, following which we went down a couple of back streets where we found that you don't have to stray far from the market square to find that everywhere isn't as pristine as the main streets would have you believe.

The Market Square. After walking around the town we sat on a shady bench not far up a side road and observed that every single building we could see was unique, historic and interesting.

The most interesting building we saw - originally a produce warehouse.

By lunchtime Bertie was sharing the Stellplatz with just one other van, and surprisingly that's still the case at half past seven. It was full last night. Perhaps everyone else wisely decided to find some trees under which to park today?

In the absence of trees, we spent the afternoon feeling like we were melting and at 1700 on the dot we were on our way to the swimming pool. Oh what relief! The temperature in the main pool is absolutely perfect and I was happy, after a short swim, to just sit on the side, legs in the water, feeling the breeze.

We've apparently only got one more day of temperatures this high. Hopefully we can find some trees to hide under tomorrow to make it more bearable.

The upside to the heat: the clothes I hand washed this afternoon dried in a couple of hours and that was with just a 'squeeze' rather than a 'wring'.

Not fountain of the day, although it did have merit, as fountains go

Definitely not fountain of the day, but a rare shot of me posing. (I wouldn't even have classed this as a fountain, but it was a point of interest on the town tour and the town thinks it merits that description).

This one! That's fountain of the day.

Wednesday 24 July - Feuchtwangen

Where's Bertie? He's in a free Stellplatz in Feuchtwangen. Water and electricity are available for a fee. (Exact location: 49.16109, 10.32728)
Weather: wall-to-wall sunshine and hot (36 degrees)

Last night we watched the thermometer, willling it downwards until finally, just before 10.30pm, it stumbled below 30 degrees and we started making moves towards bed. It was 5.20 this morning when the light streaming in through all of the open rooflights woke me. I duly got up and closed the blinds, but further sleep then evaded me, so at 6 I thought I may as well take advantage of the coolest part of the day for a run.

Visually my route was lovely and largely shaded, but I hadn't appreciated when I'd looked at it on Open Cycle Maps that a chunk of it was on roads (quiet roads - but I'm accustomed to off-road cycle routes in Germany). Nor had I appreciated that once I was down at the river, I would continue to descend, causing me to spend the outward leg thinking about the ascent on the return.

It may have been a road, but it was quiet and gloriously shaded in the early morning.

The early start left us ready to hit the road by just after 9am, by which time the temperature was already in the mid-twenties. Oh, the glory of cab air-con whilst driving! Pity the drive was only half an hour, but it was cheering to see that our chosen pitch (yes, a pitch, not just a parking space) at our new location had some shade, for us, even if not for Bertie.

A free Stellplatz with individual hedge-bounded pitches. It's not in a pretty location, but the town has made a big effort to make it nice.

We thus proceeded to chase that shade, moving our chairs closer and closer to the conifer hedge behind Bertie, until we were almost joining the sparrows inside it. Once we lost the shade there, we had gained it outside of Bertie's main door.

In amongst all this sitting, thought was given to walking into town for a look around. The conclusion reached was that it was just too hot to contemplate such activity.

Instead, at 5pm we donned our swimmers and wandered next door to the Freibad (outdoor pool complex) where the entry fee had just dropped from the daytime rate of €3 to the evening rate of €1. It was worth that just for a shower!

A few lengths were swum. We sat on the side of the pool semi-immersed. We sat in the shade of a tree with a crossword. We enjoyed our first mains-water showers since we left home 6.5 weeks ago. It was possibly the best €2 we've spent so far on this trip.

We got back to Bertie to find the sun just caressing the corner of his huge windscreen - and we'd not put his eyemask on. With the side windows and door closed, the temperature inside had increased to 41.5 degrees. Ouch. If we abide by our usual 'no bed until it's below 30 degrees' rule tonight, it could be an awfully late one. I think we'll be investing in a little electricity later, to run a fan to help things along.

Tuesday 23 July - Rothenburg ob der Tauber

Where's Bertie? He's at a large Stellplatz just opposite the south end of the city* walls at Rothenburg ob der Tauber. It costs €12 per day to stay here. Water and electricity are available for extra fees. (Exact location: 49.36992, 10.18311)
Weather: Wall-to-wall sunshine and hot.

In June 2018, over coffee with parkrunners in Stuttgart, a chap recommended that we should come to Rothenburg. That is the only reason we found ourselves here today, although I have since learnt that this is a massively touristy place that's not just on the Romantic Road, but also draws coach parties from all around.

It took us around an hour to get here from Cadolzburg and we timed our arrival nicely, just at the lull in the Stellplatz between last night's visitors and tonight's. The official signs say there are spaces for 50 motorhomes here, but it was surprisingly quiet when we arrived. That gave us a choice: a level spot in the middle of the parking area, in full sunshine, or a shaded spot on the edge, adjacent to the road and on a side-ways slope. Today shade won over all other considerations, even though the slope is such that even our levelling ramps haven't been able to entirely cancel it out.

Our opinion on the town, having had a comprehensive look around its streets this afternoon? If Disney created a German Medieval town, then this would be it. It's not just that it is, by appearances, perfectly preserved, but the fact that it was almost impossible to spot a local going about their business - the whole place was stuffed with tourists. English and American accents were everywhere. Also helping with the Disney feel was the knowledge that what we see today is, to an extent, a recreation following damage during WWII.

Did any of that put me off? No. I don't mind a bit of Disney.

I'm feeling like a cracked record saying this again, but I fear that these snaps don't even start to capture the nature of the place:

A couple of views along streets.

Two shots from the same spot in the Market Square. No snap of the town hall as the Ambassadors of Music (a large orchestra of High-School-aged teens from all over America) were playing a concert there this afternoon, so in that direction the view was mainly of chairs, audience and musicians.

The city wall can be walked the whole way around with access/exit points at most of the towers (of which there are many)

I reckon that if every side street, area of parkland and all of the walls were explored, as well as the river in the valley below, then we could happily spend a couple or three days here, and if the Stellplatz was nice, we probably would. However, whilst convenient for the town, it's in between a busy-ish road and a railway line and €12 for nothing more than a space in a car park (there's no prettiness or attempt at landscaping here) is purely a reflection of the touristy nature of the place, rather than value for money.

View down into the valley. Lots of trees, as expected in Germany.

Talking of woods, here are a couple of snaps from our run at Cadolzburg this morning. There was only one significant navigational mishap, when I led Mick up the steepest incline of the outing, only to realise at the top that we'd gone the wrong way.

I wonder where people put their hands when having a photo taken next to this chap?

We saw these in a shop window and were so intrigued as to what they were that we bought one. Worst cake of the trip. It's not that it was unpleasant; it just didn't hit the level of 'nice' required in a cake.

^{(*I would have classed Rothenburg as a small town, but the tourist leaflet refers to it as a city.)}

Monday 22 July - Cadolzburg

Where's Bertie? He's in a free Stellplatz at Cadolzburg. Electricity and water are available for a fee. (Exact location: 49.46116, 10.85151)
Weather: A bit of high level cloud every now and then, but sunny and hot.

A trip to Lidl was first on the agenda today, where their parking warden made a beeline for us to tell us we couldn't park there. Thinking we'd strayed into an area reserved for some other nearby business, we moved. He approached again. It turned out he'd assumed that as we were in a motorhome we couldn't possibly be there for the legitimate purpose of shopping. Bizarre.

A trip to Decathlon came next. Seldom does a tour go by that we don't find ourselves parting with money in one of their stores.

Then onwards to Cadolzburg, a village (small town?) to which I'd been attracted by unusually good reviews of the Stellplatz here, together with mentions that the village is very pretty. It certainly is!

This was our first view, from about 50m up the road from Bertie:

The huge castle dates from at least 1157, but was left with only walls standing after WWII. Rebuilding was agreed in 1979 and completed in 2017. So, not a very old castle, really!

By the time we were standing in front of the castle (closed today, of course, because it's Monday), I felt like I could have taken a worthwhile photo from just about any place I'd stood on my way there - it really is a place with an attractive historic centre:

This afternoon it was too hot to be indoors, or outdoors unless in the shade, so we wandered off to investigate a little of the large area of woodland I'd seen on the map:

Looking back to the town from the start of the woodland path 

All very nice, but significantly more undulating than we've been accustomed to of late. If I choose to go for a run there in the morning it'll be a shock to the system!

Back at Bertie, it was still too hot to be indoors, but he's parked with his door opening onto an area of grass bordered by trees. We've thus spent the latter part of the afternoon, into this evening, with our deckchairs sitting in the shade of those trees. With a hint of a breeze blowing, it's been rather nice. (It's now 8pm and I've just typed this outside, with my phone sitting on my left knee and my keyboard on my lap; it's not a comfortable position for typing, but probably more comfortable than the 32 degrees inside!)

Fountains of the day. I can't choose between them.

Seat of the day - we came across a few of these (different designs on the tops) dotted around the village. In fact, there's even one about 20m away from Bertie.