Where's Bertie? He's hiding in plain sight in between four vans-in-storage in the Volksfestplatz car park in Eichstätt (Exact location 48.88487, 11.19975). Other places he's also been parked today where he could have stayed overnight: the town car park (48.88718, 11.21361) and the sculpture park (48.89524, 11.17951).
Weather: Mainly sunny until late afternoon when the cloud started to build, leaving us with sunny intervals. Hot.
It has felt like an action-packed day, although perhaps mainly because of the back-and-forthing, rather than as a reflection of the quantity of stuff we have done.
After a half-hour drive from Neuburg, the old town of Eichstätt was our focus for the morning. Following the lead of all of the vehicles in front of us, we ignored the 'road closed' signs and found our way to the town car park, where Bertie made like Goldilocks, moving three times until he found a spot that was just right. Or right enough.
Not sure how long we were going to be there, I paid for two and a half hours' parking, which proved to be spot on. Without rushing, we had coffee, found the Tourist Office and made our way around all the points of interest in the old town within the allotted time. Our verdict: Eichstätt is an attractive town with more than its fair share of palaces and religious buildings (monasteries and a convent along with plenty of churches), in a lovely setting. To quote the tourist leaflet: "Eichstätt is situated in the southern Franconian Jurassic region, in the centre of Naturpark Altmühltal ... in an impressive valley." After weeks in flatlands, it was nice to see steep slopes and rocky outcrops here.
Looking along the river as we crossed into the town.
Residenzplatz. The tourist leaflet says: "The whole scenery including the buildings on this square ranks among Europes top sights." Really?! It was nice (including the huge palace behind me as I took this snap), but I'm beginning to think that these leaflets are quoting opinions given by the town Mayor, or some such.
Another town view that hopefully conveys a little of how attractive this town is.
Another palace, viewed across one of its fountains.
Our whistlestop tour complete, Bertie took us a little further along the road for a quick shopping trip, before backtracking 4km to our next stop (which would have been our first stop if I'd thought about it at the beginning of the day!). Because our town tour had concentrated on what was within the old town, ignoring everything outside of that small area, I'd not read about Point of Interest No. 22. Thus, when we parked up at Figurenfeld im Hessental, our visit was purely based upon a photo I'd seen online - I knew nothing about the place, other than that it's a sculpture park, until after we had walked around.
The first four pieces we saw (out of a total of 79, as I've since learnt) were dotted around an open meadow, where sheep had clearly been grazing recently, and they were definitely in the 'abstract' category of sculpture:
A chicken?
Weather: Mainly sunny until late afternoon when the cloud started to build, leaving us with sunny intervals. Hot.
It has felt like an action-packed day, although perhaps mainly because of the back-and-forthing, rather than as a reflection of the quantity of stuff we have done.
After a half-hour drive from Neuburg, the old town of Eichstätt was our focus for the morning. Following the lead of all of the vehicles in front of us, we ignored the 'road closed' signs and found our way to the town car park, where Bertie made like Goldilocks, moving three times until he found a spot that was just right. Or right enough.
Not sure how long we were going to be there, I paid for two and a half hours' parking, which proved to be spot on. Without rushing, we had coffee, found the Tourist Office and made our way around all the points of interest in the old town within the allotted time. Our verdict: Eichstätt is an attractive town with more than its fair share of palaces and religious buildings (monasteries and a convent along with plenty of churches), in a lovely setting. To quote the tourist leaflet: "Eichstätt is situated in the southern Franconian Jurassic region, in the centre of Naturpark Altmühltal ... in an impressive valley." After weeks in flatlands, it was nice to see steep slopes and rocky outcrops here.
Our whistlestop tour complete, Bertie took us a little further along the road for a quick shopping trip, before backtracking 4km to our next stop (which would have been our first stop if I'd thought about it at the beginning of the day!). Because our town tour had concentrated on what was within the old town, ignoring everything outside of that small area, I'd not read about Point of Interest No. 22. Thus, when we parked up at Figurenfeld im Hessental, our visit was purely based upon a photo I'd seen online - I knew nothing about the place, other than that it's a sculpture park, until after we had walked around.
The first four pieces we saw (out of a total of 79, as I've since learnt) were dotted around an open meadow, where sheep had clearly been grazing recently, and they were definitely in the 'abstract' category of sculpture:
A soldier ... or a mushroom?
Then we got to a viewpoint and looked down into the valley to this sight:
We could clearly see that some of these were figures and once we'd made our way down to and around them our conclusion was that the concept of the display was a battlefield. We also wondered at the age of the exhibition (50 years was my guess), as contrary to our original thoughts that they were carved stone, we came to notice they were decaying concrete.
It was only when we got back to Bertie that I Google Translated the sign next to which we were parked, whereupon I gave us high marks for our correct interpretation:
Our intention when we had arrived in Eichstätt was to move on to Weißenberg for the night, but over lunch I'd concluded that the options for a run tomorrow morning were more pleasing here than they would be there. With the decision to stay over, the question was where? We could have stayed at the sculpture park, but the adjacent road was surprisingly busy with lorries and thus noisy. We could have returned to the town car park. We opted to try the Volksfestplatz, in between the two, which is where we have settled.
There are no parking restrictions here, but it does feel a little cheeky, as I've now discovered that this car park serves as access to the official motorhome parking area, where we're not parked because it costs €10. If we'd gone there first thing this morning, we wouldn't have minded paying, but by late afternoon, and with an intention to be away relatively early tomorrow, it seemed a lot of money just for a patch of land when we could have one around the corner for free. So, unless anyone objects to us being here (cunningly disguised in amongst vans being stored here) this is where we intend to stay.
Then we got to a viewpoint and looked down into the valley to this sight:
We could clearly see that some of these were figures and once we'd made our way down to and around them our conclusion was that the concept of the display was a battlefield. We also wondered at the age of the exhibition (50 years was my guess), as contrary to our original thoughts that they were carved stone, we came to notice they were decaying concrete.
It was only when we got back to Bertie that I Google Translated the sign next to which we were parked, whereupon I gave us high marks for our correct interpretation:
Our intention when we had arrived in Eichstätt was to move on to Weißenberg for the night, but over lunch I'd concluded that the options for a run tomorrow morning were more pleasing here than they would be there. With the decision to stay over, the question was where? We could have stayed at the sculpture park, but the adjacent road was surprisingly busy with lorries and thus noisy. We could have returned to the town car park. We opted to try the Volksfestplatz, in between the two, which is where we have settled.
There are no parking restrictions here, but it does feel a little cheeky, as I've now discovered that this car park serves as access to the official motorhome parking area, where we're not parked because it costs €10. If we'd gone there first thing this morning, we wouldn't have minded paying, but by late afternoon, and with an intention to be away relatively early tomorrow, it seemed a lot of money just for a patch of land when we could have one around the corner for free. So, unless anyone objects to us being here (cunningly disguised in amongst vans being stored here) this is where we intend to stay.
Hello All, I've happily caught up and will try to be more attentive in future. Also caught up with your TGOC entries.
ReplyDeletePleased to see you enjoying a bit of culture whilst we toil away in the garden under the hot UK sun.
Keep it up, and enjoy your travels...
I hope that involved a lot of skimming, otherwise you deserve some sort of medal!
DeleteWe were jealous a few days back to hear of hot weather in the UK when we've just had a spell of cool (20 deg), overcast days. The mercury is climbing again now, so we'll soon be complaining again of it being too hot to sleep.
Just a bit of skimming, so no medal, but I'll try harder to keep up to date. Enjoy your cake!
ReplyDelete