Where's Bertie? He's in a Stellplatz just behind a very large car park in the town of Ingolstadt. It costs €5.50 per day to stay here, including electricity and water. (Exact location: 48.76018, 11.42046)
Weather: A bright and promising start, but soon clouding over. Light rain mid-afternoon then a thunder storm later on.
At half past eight last night we could no longer hear rain on Bertie's roof, so we snatched the opportunity for a quick walk, in the opposite direction from the town, to the river Lech. Unfortunately, the rain hadn't stopped. It had switched to copious quantities of that fine drizzly stuff that really gets you wet. We turned back before reaching the river and hung our wet jackets and shorts up to dry overnight.
This morning we did make it to the river, just for a little exercise before we made tracks to our next stop. Many of the sections of rivers we've encountered in Germany (on the Danube, the Lech, and the Ammer to name three off the top of my head) have been artificially wide, in that they have barrages at regular intervals controlling the flow and creating, in effect, a series of slow-moving lakes. This morning we joined the river at a barrage (indeed, we ascended a staircase inside one of its buttresses, and stood atop it), before forming a loop taking in a section of the riverside path upstream of the control gate:
In the absence of the barrages, this would be a small river.
Our return route was through some pleasant woodland, dotted with pools, where we came across a newly crafted bench
The drive to Ingolstadt took about an hour, which was longer than one would expect for 45km, but the road was single-carriageway and heavily used by lorries that struggled up the inclines. Once here elevenses were rolled into a quick lunch, before we hastened townwards, hoping to see some of it before the threatening sky unleashed its moisture upon us.
The first thing we saw on entering the Rathausplatz was the new Rathaus directly opposite us. This is not what we've come to expect of German town halls in old towns!
Next door is the old town hall - that's more like it!
There was no problem in getting hold of a 'town tour' leaflet at the Tourist Office here. There must have been a dozen languages on display - the biggest challenge was spotting the right one.
The tour was comprehensive, in that it covered plenty of places, but lacking in that it told us so little about each one. They could do with taking tips from Donauwörth, who set the gold standard in tour leaflets, in our opinion.
For example, the entirety of the description of the most notable church in town (the snap above of the towers doesn't convey how vast a building it is - should have taken a photo from the side too) was thus:
"The Minster with its massive roof and two towers set at an angle, is an imposing building and one of the largest late-Gothic churches of its kind in Bavaria. The grand high altar, unusual side-chapels, reliefs, pictures and carvings are all worth a closer look."
Our immediate thought on looking around was "when was it built?", but it seems there were other fun facts that could have been included in the leaflet, as our guide book, to which I only referred when we got back to Bertie, added that it is "notable ... for its vast, steep roof, which conceals seven attic storeys for which 3800 tree trunks were needed."
Incidentally, I'm not usually impressed by outlandish altarpieces, but the paintings on the altar here (covering it both back and front) were exceptional. Apparently the fresco in another church in town was also worth a look, but the €3 a head entrance fee didn't feel like good value, so we gave it a miss.
This building "has the tallest Baroque facade in southern Germany and is among Ingolstadt's most impressive sights".
The new castle (early 1400s)
The old castle (1200s) and the oldest secular building in the town.
It had been raining very gently for a while when the tour took us past the Stellplatz, but we didn't make a beeline back to Bertie, opting instead to take a walk to Luitpold Park, on the other side of the Danube, just shy of 1km away. It's not a location that would ordinarily attract tourists, being a fairly ordinary area of wooded parkland. Our interest was to find the location of the start of tomorrow's parkrun and, once we were there, we thought we may as well check out the course (it's a three-lapper, so it only required a mile of walking to see it all).
A different route, alongside another body of water (part of an old town moat?) via some more old town defences, brought us back to Bertie, in good time for the afternoon thunderstorm. We would not have wanted to be out in that rain!
(Anyone who has been reading this blog for a while may notice this tour is a departure from our norm, in that we usually intersperse town stops with countryside stops where we can explore some walking routes. Because the theme of this tour is turning out to be 'parkrun tourism' and because this area of Germany isn't a quality walking area, we're being very heavy on the towns and cultural stuff. This may change if, over the next few weeks we get to the point of thinking each town is rather like the last, but thus far we're perfectly happy wandering around towns and along rivers.)
Weather: A bright and promising start, but soon clouding over. Light rain mid-afternoon then a thunder storm later on.
At half past eight last night we could no longer hear rain on Bertie's roof, so we snatched the opportunity for a quick walk, in the opposite direction from the town, to the river Lech. Unfortunately, the rain hadn't stopped. It had switched to copious quantities of that fine drizzly stuff that really gets you wet. We turned back before reaching the river and hung our wet jackets and shorts up to dry overnight.
This morning we did make it to the river, just for a little exercise before we made tracks to our next stop. Many of the sections of rivers we've encountered in Germany (on the Danube, the Lech, and the Ammer to name three off the top of my head) have been artificially wide, in that they have barrages at regular intervals controlling the flow and creating, in effect, a series of slow-moving lakes. This morning we joined the river at a barrage (indeed, we ascended a staircase inside one of its buttresses, and stood atop it), before forming a loop taking in a section of the riverside path upstream of the control gate:
The drive to Ingolstadt took about an hour, which was longer than one would expect for 45km, but the road was single-carriageway and heavily used by lorries that struggled up the inclines. Once here elevenses were rolled into a quick lunch, before we hastened townwards, hoping to see some of it before the threatening sky unleashed its moisture upon us.
There was no problem in getting hold of a 'town tour' leaflet at the Tourist Office here. There must have been a dozen languages on display - the biggest challenge was spotting the right one.
The tour was comprehensive, in that it covered plenty of places, but lacking in that it told us so little about each one. They could do with taking tips from Donauwörth, who set the gold standard in tour leaflets, in our opinion.
"The Minster with its massive roof and two towers set at an angle, is an imposing building and one of the largest late-Gothic churches of its kind in Bavaria. The grand high altar, unusual side-chapels, reliefs, pictures and carvings are all worth a closer look."
Our immediate thought on looking around was "when was it built?", but it seems there were other fun facts that could have been included in the leaflet, as our guide book, to which I only referred when we got back to Bertie, added that it is "notable ... for its vast, steep roof, which conceals seven attic storeys for which 3800 tree trunks were needed."
Incidentally, I'm not usually impressed by outlandish altarpieces, but the paintings on the altar here (covering it both back and front) were exceptional. Apparently the fresco in another church in town was also worth a look, but the €3 a head entrance fee didn't feel like good value, so we gave it a miss.
It had been raining very gently for a while when the tour took us past the Stellplatz, but we didn't make a beeline back to Bertie, opting instead to take a walk to Luitpold Park, on the other side of the Danube, just shy of 1km away. It's not a location that would ordinarily attract tourists, being a fairly ordinary area of wooded parkland. Our interest was to find the location of the start of tomorrow's parkrun and, once we were there, we thought we may as well check out the course (it's a three-lapper, so it only required a mile of walking to see it all).
A different route, alongside another body of water (part of an old town moat?) via some more old town defences, brought us back to Bertie, in good time for the afternoon thunderstorm. We would not have wanted to be out in that rain!
(Anyone who has been reading this blog for a while may notice this tour is a departure from our norm, in that we usually intersperse town stops with countryside stops where we can explore some walking routes. Because the theme of this tour is turning out to be 'parkrun tourism' and because this area of Germany isn't a quality walking area, we're being very heavy on the towns and cultural stuff. This may change if, over the next few weeks we get to the point of thinking each town is rather like the last, but thus far we're perfectly happy wandering around towns and along rivers.)
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