Where's Bertie? He's in a car park just outside of Höhenpark Killesberg (a park, perched on a hill) just to the north of Stuttgart. (Exact location: 48.80888, 9.16882)
Weather: Sunny intervals. The cloud has occasionally been dark and threatening, but we've not had more than a few drops of rain.
It's been one of those days that has seemed quite full even though we've not done much.
Being a Saturday, it started with a parkrun*. Mick's back was worse today, so he took on a cheering role (a two-lapper, so plenty of opportunity), whilst I ran the Kräherwald course for the third time (the first two being last summer). I think it must be my favourite parkrun course, even though it's also the lumpiest one I've run to date.
The post-run coffee looked in jeopardy for us when we found a closure blocking access to the road where we wanted to park (the coffee location being 3km away from the parkrun). By the time we'd found a suitable slot elsewhere, walked to the cafe and got to the front of the slow-moving queue, the other parkrunners had mainly finished their breakfasts. Even so, we managed to sit around chatting until a few minutes before noon. As last week, it was a nice departure from the normality of life on the road to spend a morning with people we'd met before (both at Esslingen last week and at Kräherwald last year).
Our onward journey from there was less than 2km, to bring us to this car park, chosen as it's well-positioned for our intention to return to the Mercedes-Benz museum in the morning. Having learnt from last week's aborted visit, we'll be there at opening time tomorrow.
It must be our week for coming across viewing towers, as I happened to notice on Google Maps that the park adjacent to our car park houses one, so this afternoon we nipped over to take a look.
First view of the top of the tower. Yes, those are flamingos in the foreground.
At 42m, this one's 7m taller than the one we visited by Herrenberg earlier in the week, but the uppermost viewing platform is only 1m higher.
Would I have been so keen on going up if I'd seen the bottom of the central pole first?
Far-reaching views.
Bad hair day!
The outlook may be industrial in this snap, but in the foreground you can see the tiered series of lakes within the park
Looking back up to the tower from the lowest lake.
Our return to Bertie was extended by a bread-buying excursion. As the crow flies the nearest shop is probably less than 100m away, but between us and it lies an escarpment, necessitating a rather longer (and thoroughly uninteresting) walk. Should have thought to buy bread when we bought cake before we left the cafe/bakery at lunchtime!
(*When it comes to parkrun tourism, we were positively local today. The other tourists were from Mexico and Australia. I had a good chat with the Australian, whose local parkrun involves a friendly emu (I saw a fantastic snap featuring parkrunners and said emu). He's apparently not a bare-foot runner, but ran so today as the only shoes he has with him are walking boots and flip-flops, so he decided that, given those options, bare feet were preferable. A top chap and I hope the rest of his extended tour of Europe brings him many adventures. Even better if we happen to bump into him again somewhere along the road.)
Weather: Sunny intervals. The cloud has occasionally been dark and threatening, but we've not had more than a few drops of rain.
It's been one of those days that has seemed quite full even though we've not done much.
Being a Saturday, it started with a parkrun*. Mick's back was worse today, so he took on a cheering role (a two-lapper, so plenty of opportunity), whilst I ran the Kräherwald course for the third time (the first two being last summer). I think it must be my favourite parkrun course, even though it's also the lumpiest one I've run to date.
The post-run coffee looked in jeopardy for us when we found a closure blocking access to the road where we wanted to park (the coffee location being 3km away from the parkrun). By the time we'd found a suitable slot elsewhere, walked to the cafe and got to the front of the slow-moving queue, the other parkrunners had mainly finished their breakfasts. Even so, we managed to sit around chatting until a few minutes before noon. As last week, it was a nice departure from the normality of life on the road to spend a morning with people we'd met before (both at Esslingen last week and at Kräherwald last year).
Our onward journey from there was less than 2km, to bring us to this car park, chosen as it's well-positioned for our intention to return to the Mercedes-Benz museum in the morning. Having learnt from last week's aborted visit, we'll be there at opening time tomorrow.
It must be our week for coming across viewing towers, as I happened to notice on Google Maps that the park adjacent to our car park houses one, so this afternoon we nipped over to take a look.
Our return to Bertie was extended by a bread-buying excursion. As the crow flies the nearest shop is probably less than 100m away, but between us and it lies an escarpment, necessitating a rather longer (and thoroughly uninteresting) walk. Should have thought to buy bread when we bought cake before we left the cafe/bakery at lunchtime!
(*When it comes to parkrun tourism, we were positively local today. The other tourists were from Mexico and Australia. I had a good chat with the Australian, whose local parkrun involves a friendly emu (I saw a fantastic snap featuring parkrunners and said emu). He's apparently not a bare-foot runner, but ran so today as the only shoes he has with him are walking boots and flip-flops, so he decided that, given those options, bare feet were preferable. A top chap and I hope the rest of his extended tour of Europe brings him many adventures. Even better if we happen to bump into him again somewhere along the road.)
You should have been on the grid at the German Grand Prix with those shades.
ReplyDeleteAt least I would have had a helmet on to hide the bad hair day in that case!
Delete