Where's Bertie? He's in a car park (that may also be an official Aire) in the town of Obernai (France). Exact location: 48.459501, 7.486264
Weather: Mainly overcast, the odd bit of sun, a few drops of rain. Mid-twenties.
The worst nights we've ever spent in Bertie have been due to mosquitos (Bad Waldsee was the very worst), so when we realised we had one of the little blighters inside at gone 10pm last night, I sprang into action. We'd already tried a few times to splat it, and we know from experience that's a game that can go on for hours. However, during one of the lock downs in 2020 one of my projects was to make a mosquito tent to cover Bertie's bed. It was the work of just a couple of minutes to dig it out of a crate in Bertie's boot and deploy it last night.
Photo taken when I first made it in 2020. Mick wasn't sleeping in his clothes last night and we had bedding!
I'd like to say that we then had a good night's sleep, protected from the little critter, but we had both already been bitten to pieces (no doubt earlier in the day whilst out in Strasbourg), so I spent most of the night awake and itching like crazy, trying not to scratch any of the many bites.
Even so, I didn't feel too bad at getting up time, and once Mick had made me a nice cup of tea, I hauled myself out of bed and headed out for a run.
The path alongside the Rhein turned out to be through an interesting park, making me wish (very much with the benefit of hindsight) that we'd got off the tram a few stops early yesterday and walked back that way.
Back at Bertie, a cold shower (it saves on gas and water, as I feel disinclined to linger under cold water), then we headed out for one last little outing in Kehl. It really was short, in that the feature that was our objective was only 500m away:
44m high, with 210 steps to get to the uppermost viewing platform.
I'm sure the view would have been better yesterday when the sky was blue, but it was still worth the effort this morning.
Views
Back at Bertie we were soon packed away and ready to move on. Via a supermarket (meat and veg being cheaper in Germany than France), then a petrol station (likewise the difference for diesel between the two countries is around 17c/litre), we drove the 40km to Obernai.
(Woo hoo! I interrupt this blog post to announce that I just splatted the mosquito. Possibly only managed it because it was fat and slow, being full of blood from one of us. Let's hope it didn't have any mates in here.)
One of the first things we spotted when we walked into the town was the Petit Train, but having already taken two of those tours in the last two days, we opted not to do the one here. Having done a self-guided walking tour instead, I'm not sure the train would have offered good value in this location.
Obernai is a mediaeval town that was undamaged in the world wars and thus still has its entire defensive wall (complete with 15 towers), and within that wall is a town of olde-worlde half-timbered houses. Always attractive for a stroll, but I had already questioned (back when we decided to come to Alsace) how many mediaeval towns we could visit before we got mediaeval-towned-out. I think the answer may be 'not many', so it's possible we may turn west sooner rather than later.
Weather: Mainly overcast, the odd bit of sun, a few drops of rain. Mid-twenties.
The worst nights we've ever spent in Bertie have been due to mosquitos (Bad Waldsee was the very worst), so when we realised we had one of the little blighters inside at gone 10pm last night, I sprang into action. We'd already tried a few times to splat it, and we know from experience that's a game that can go on for hours. However, during one of the lock downs in 2020 one of my projects was to make a mosquito tent to cover Bertie's bed. It was the work of just a couple of minutes to dig it out of a crate in Bertie's boot and deploy it last night.
I'd like to say that we then had a good night's sleep, protected from the little critter, but we had both already been bitten to pieces (no doubt earlier in the day whilst out in Strasbourg), so I spent most of the night awake and itching like crazy, trying not to scratch any of the many bites.
Even so, I didn't feel too bad at getting up time, and once Mick had made me a nice cup of tea, I hauled myself out of bed and headed out for a run.
The path alongside the Rhein turned out to be through an interesting park, making me wish (very much with the benefit of hindsight) that we'd got off the tram a few stops early yesterday and walked back that way.
Back at Bertie, a cold shower (it saves on gas and water, as I feel disinclined to linger under cold water), then we headed out for one last little outing in Kehl. It really was short, in that the feature that was our objective was only 500m away:
I'm sure the view would have been better yesterday when the sky was blue, but it was still worth the effort this morning.
Back at Bertie we were soon packed away and ready to move on. Via a supermarket (meat and veg being cheaper in Germany than France), then a petrol station (likewise the difference for diesel between the two countries is around 17c/litre), we drove the 40km to Obernai.
(Woo hoo! I interrupt this blog post to announce that I just splatted the mosquito. Possibly only managed it because it was fat and slow, being full of blood from one of us. Let's hope it didn't have any mates in here.)
One of the first things we spotted when we walked into the town was the Petit Train, but having already taken two of those tours in the last two days, we opted not to do the one here. Having done a self-guided walking tour instead, I'm not sure the train would have offered good value in this location.
Obernai is a mediaeval town that was undamaged in the world wars and thus still has its entire defensive wall (complete with 15 towers), and within that wall is a town of olde-worlde half-timbered houses. Always attractive for a stroll, but I had already questioned (back when we decided to come to Alsace) how many mediaeval towns we could visit before we got mediaeval-towned-out. I think the answer may be 'not many', so it's possible we may turn west sooner rather than later.
Bits of Obernai
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