Where's Bertie? He's in a Stellplatz in the town of Baumholder, where it (theoretically) costs €8 per night with water and electricity available at a small extra cost*. There are also showers (tokens; don't know how much they cost) and toilets, but probably only open during the day. Exact location: 49.611280, 7.34946
Weather: Sunny and warm after a coolish start (still around 17 degrees, so not cold, but cool enough to need a jumper first thing).
We were away from our pitch at Minheim only a few minutes after 0830 and after a service-point-faff and some roads that were distinctly unGerman in their roughness, we arrived in Bernkastel-Kues. Had we tried a bit harder, we could have found some free parking there, but after a false start in a huge car/coach park on the Bernkastel side of the river, we drove out to the motorhome/coach park on the Kues side where it costs €2 per hour. We paid for two hours, but ended up with 2hrs45 as we had arrived 45 minutes before the chargeable hours started.
Mosel, river cruise boats, castle up on the hill
We were in the town before any businesses bar the bakery were open, but that's not to say it was dead. As well as the two cruise boats in the photo above, there were another two or three the other side of the bridge, and the town was already alive with organised tour groups and individual cruisers. Many American and UK accents were heard.
If Disney made a German town...
Bit of a lean going on there
Really looks like it should topple
We wandered around a bit and concluded that we were going to be able to see everything within two hours, which meant we could fritter some of the bonus 45 minutes on our parking ticket at the bakery, to fuel us for a walk up to the castle.
The castle was still quiet when we got up there, but we did get chatting to a couple from one of the cruise boats, who (small world that it is) come from a village not far from where I grew up.
Good view point, up by the castle
I asked Mick to pose prettily, then I cut his legs off.
By the time we got back down to the town, it had transformed in a manner that suggested that the cruise boats and tourist industry are by far its main purposes in life. Eateries or drinkeries abound, with tables now lining the main street.
The main square, now free of delivery trucks, and with tables having replaced them.Even with a quick walk around Kues, we were back at Bertie with fifteen minutes to spare, and there we found some workmen just removing the motorhome parking signs. There was also no evidence of the service point that had been there on our arrival. How curious!
With lunchtime upon us, we didn't drive the whole way to Baumholder in one go, but stopped in a hikers' car park en-route. We could happily have spent a night there, but the only thing around was hiking trails through the forest, and Mick's preference was to spend two nights in one place, so with lunch over, we came on to Baumholder.
The jury is out as to whether this will prove to have been a good move. Wikipedia tells of a long history of the town, and that it is a state-recognised tourism resort. That makes it sound like there's something interesting here. Our walk around the place this afternoon suggests otherwise, unless we count the fact that we've managed to time our visit for the Old Town Festival, which is just setting up today and starts tomorrow. That could be good as it will give us something to visit tomorrow, or could be noisy.
We are parked next to the town's swimming pond, where there's a separate eating/drinking/music event going on tonight, but only until 10pm.
As for the Stellplatz, we are currently the only vehicle here, and the sparsity of the reviews on Park4Night would suggest that it doesn't get many visitors (although that's not a reliable metric, as the vast majority don't leave reviews). There are six marked bays, and each one has a QR code to be used for paying the fee. The problem is that the QR codes don't work, and the links from the town website and the tourist office website don't work either. I've sent an email to both the Mayor's Office and the Tourist Office asking how we can pay and await a reply.
(*We have plugged Bertie into the mains for the first time on this trip, although only because there's a total of 4kWh left on the two hook up points nearest to us. That said, at €1 for 4kWh it's probably cheaper than running on gas.)
I read the caption for the leaning house getting the word emphasis wrong because the two words " going on" have a particular relevance for me. It was my mother's inevitably fated mission to get some kind of order into our lives with her oft repeated "we're going to have a right going on here."
ReplyDeleteWas that a usage of the term unique to your mother, or just one that I've never come across?
DeleteI'm not sure but being literary and a writer of poetry Mother had a penchant for words and a whole arsenal of sayings and words of her own. Somewhere my brother listed all those he can remember. It is somewhere in the depths of my MAc. I may try and find it and put it into a post.
ReplyDelete