Saturday 21 July - Sigmaringen

Where's Bertie? He's at a Stellplatz in the town of Sigmaringen. It costs €8 per 24 hrs to stay here, and electricity and water are available at extra cost (waste is free). Exact location: 48.08546, 9.20965.
Weather: Rainy start, brightening up, then a rainy afternoon (some remarkably heavy).

Arriving back from our run this morning, a bread van was found to be parked in front of Bertie. No horn had been heard to signal its arrival, making us wonder if it comes around every day and we had missed it, or whether it's a once- or twice-a-week thing. Our need for bread was less than it had been yesterday, by virtue of a supermarket being on the agenda this morning, but in the interests of supporting a local business providing a valuable service to the community, we bought a loaf and some rolls.

It was mid-morning by the time we had organised ourselves to move on, and after half an hour or so of driving down an interesting road (one section abutting the towering limestone cliffs was narrow and involved a few tunnels bored through outcrops) we arrived at Lidl in Sigmaringen.

Exiting the shop with a loaded trolley, I wondered if it would all fit, but it did so easily - the cupboards and fridge were about as bare as they get. There was then just one other call to make before we left town: a quick visit to a service point.

With tanks filled and emptied, I programmed our next stop into the SatNav and found it was an hour away. Not a problem, except that it was already 1pm, and we'd not had elevenses yet, never mind lunch. Should we stay here instead? A chap we'd just met recommended that the town was worth a look around, but the argument against was that we have an increasingly urgent need for a laundrette and if we stop everywhere that's nice we'll never get there*. But, hey, one more day wouldn't make that much difference would it?

So, we stayed.

We couldn't have known at the time, but with hindsight it wasn't the right decision. As we parked up and set about preparing and devouring lunch, the sun was beating down. By the time we finished eating, rain was positively pouring, to the extent that Bertie had gained a moat:


There was no way we were going out in rain that heavy and if we had known that we were just going to sit around in Bertie, then we would have chosen to do it somewhere free.

Thus, when the rain eased just before 5pm, we donned shorts and sandals (i.e. sensible rain gear if you want to minimise the amount of clothing that needs drying, and if you have to wade through a moat to go out) and went for a quick look around the town. The main feature is the castle...

Call us unobservant, but we hadn't noticed the castle until, whilst loading the groceries, Mick saw someone taking a photo across the supermarket car park. Wondering what their subject was, he looked around and there it was.

...but there are other attractive buildings too...


...albeit the whole experience was marred and rushed by virtue of the weather.

Our return to Bertie was along the river, gatecrashing a wedding as we went (the guests were all gathering on the cycle path outside of a restaurant for a speech and photos, and we had to walk straight through them).

It was after tea, with our moat (and the rain) still persisting, that it occurred to me that rather than wading through it every time we wanted to go outside for something, we could just move Bertie to any of the other empty spots. That we did, and the view out of our right side is now of the castle. It's just a pity about the rain streaked windows in between!

^{(*The obvious solution to the laundry issue, other than going to a city in order to find a laundrette, would be to go to a campsite. There's one right next to tonight's Stellplatz. However, when we don't need any other campsite facilities, we can't bring ourselves to pay €22 (which is the cheapest, non-electric, pitch next door) just so that we can pay even more to do laundry. Plus, campsite laundries often use the 'Speedqueen' style of machines, which, in my experience, don't get your clothes particularly clean. Laundrettes tend to have better, bigger capacity, machines at lower prices.)}

Friday 20 July - Beuron

Where's Bertie? He's still at the Stellplatz next to the Abbey at Beuron.
Weather: Sunny start, gradually clouding over, with showers and rumbles of thunder this afternoon. One shower was a downpour including some big lumps of hail.

My legs were feeling back to their usual energised selves this morning, so the walk that we didn't take yesterday was back on the agenda.

This one was around 12.5km and for the first 4km it wound around in relatively uninteresting woodland with only a couple of mediocre viewpoints. Just as I was wondering if there was any point to it, it started to pick up and two panoramic viewpoints of the valley (including two sets of buildings (castles?) atop limestone outcrops) plus two caves later, I was happy that it had been worthwhile. (There are more words and photos on the subject over at our walking blog).




The original plan had been to move on today, but before setting out we'd decided to play roulette with the payment machine again on the whim that if it gave us a ticket, we would stay another night. We did get a ticket and on this occasion (thanks to returned coins) it cost us €2.50. Today's added eccentricity was that it registered a 50c as a €1, but then evened itself out by eating, but not registering, the next one we put in.

Various afternoon activities have included finishing my second pair of roll-top trainer socks and dodging showers (windows open, windows shut; chairs out, chairs back in):

Didn't quite achieve a match on this pair. It started going awry on the heel turn of the first sock and was compounded when I merrily knitted through the point where I was meant to start decreasing for the toes. I did unknit a round and a half, before deciding I could live with one sock being slightly longer than the other.

This evening the Stellplatz has started to look like a Hymer convention - principally a vintage one with three old vans amongst the five here (one early 1980s, one late 1980s and one early 1990s, if my Hymer spotting skills are up to scratch). Bertie is the newest of the collection and between them all you can see that the fundamental design really hasn't changed all that much.

Thursday 19 July - Beuron

Where's Bertie? He's still at the Stellplatz at the Abbey at Beuron.
Weather: Glorious sunshine to start, gradually clouding later. Rather hot.

The helicopter left just before 11 last night (leaving the car park strewn with hay, making it look like a tide mark from a flood). Our neighbours chatted outside our door until midnight. The monks were called to their first service of the day at 4.45, by the lengthy clanging of the bell atop the monastery building. Apparently, one of the monks failed to attend on the first call* as a few minutes after the clanging stopped, it started up again with renewed vigour. At 7.30 it was time for the second service and the clanging started over, but by then my alarm had gone off, and I had hauled myself wearily out of bed. (*This is probably not at all true, but I liked it as an explanation for the renewal of the clanging.)

Combining the disturbed night with the amount of walking and running I've been doing lately, there was a great deal of weariness as I trotted up the valley this morning, back to the restaurant we passed yesterday afternoon, and slightly beyond. On my return, Mick was met running towards me and, turning, he provided a little distraction from the weary legs for the final couple of miles.

Taken during yesterday's walk. This morning I ran along the track that was crossed by yesterday's path.

I'd really wanted to walk another circuit today, as this area is so stunning, and as the walking routes are plentiful. However, in view of the level of weariness in the legs, I had to concede that the more sensible option was a quiet day.

So, after breakfast and elevenses, we wandered up to the church, finding a service to be in full swing (being a working monastery, there are so many services a day that I reckon any visitor will have a 50/50 chance of finding one underway). We stood at the back a while and observed.

Wandering off around the village, we found it bigger than I had expected (which isn't to say it's big, but I'd formed the impression that there was nothing here but the monastery, a couple of hotels and a cafe). It's a spectacular place to live, with all those limestone outcrops around ... but you'd have to get used to sleeping through clanging bells!


What a magnificent building. No idea what it was, but it is now abandoned and starting to fall apart.

We managed to hit the church between services on our second attempt, giving us the chance for a better look around. It has the blingiest organ I can remember seeing...

...but it was the ceiling that was really striking:

The side chapel was well decorated too:


Our tour was completed with a walk back out along our running route, to grab a snap of the entire complex:

Viewed from across a field of cultivated wild flowers.

Deciding to stay here another night, we went and fed some more money into the machine. In contrast to yesterday, when it return the money and gave us a ticket, today it ate the money and didn't give us a ticket. Should have 'bought' two days yesterday! With it clearly faulty, I was loathed to put more money in, as it seemed likely that it would also swallow that, still leaving us with no ticket. We've put an explanatory note on the windscreen and hope that will suffice.

I think we could happily stay here another couple of days, to take the walk we didn't do today and to run along the river again (it's gloriously cool and shaded in the early morning), except that there are no shops nearby (not even a bakery) and we are missing some ingredients we would like (notably bread). Plus, we were meant to be heading to a city right about now to do some laundry, and at the rate we're going it's going to be another three weeks before we achieve that, which is about three weeks longer than we have clean clothes remaining.

Wednesday 18 July - Fridingen and Beuron

Where's Bertie? He's at a Stellplatz at the Benedictine abbey at Beuron (exact location: 48.05320, 8.96716). It costs €5 per 24 hours to stay here. Electricity is available at €1 per 4 hours.
Weather: Almost entirely sunny. Some clouds bubbled up early afternoon, but there wasn't a hint of a shower or thunder today.

At around 8.30 last night, the wind picked up, the sky darkened and within twenty minutes the dust and dirt that had washed off the trees and onto Bertie at our last Stellplatz was getting thoroughly rinsed off, at least on his roof and windward flank. The thunder was still rumbling as we went to bed, but it wasn't much of a storm, as they go.

It was only a short drive (10km) from last night's Stellplatz to the car park just outside of Fridingen, which was to be the starting point for our walk today.

Nothing on our drive nor upon our arrival, indicated that the nature of our surroundings had changed remarkably. It was only as we walked the 15km route that we came to appreciate that, to the east of Fridingen, the Danube runs through a valley flanked by limestone cliffs and outcrops. Thus our walk, that had us weaving a line through the forest (it was very wiggly, both horizontally and vertically), was through stunning scenery, as well as visiting a ruined castle, a lived-in castle and a cave.

We arrived back at Bertie precisely at the time I had estimated when we had set off and promptly drove the 4km further down the road to where we are now sitting.

Our arrival here was a few moments behind a Spanish van, and we both found ourselves at the payment machine at the same time. The Spaniard was perplexed by it, and for good reason. It took us a little while to spot that although the machine was spitting the coins back out, it was still registering them as paid and allowing tickets to be issued accordingly. Thus, we all obtained free parking. I was perhaps a bit too honest, opting only for one day, so if the machine is repaired (or maybe just emptied) tomorrow, then we will pay for tomorrow night. However, we weren't too honest to see if the same fault applied to the electricity points (for which you pay using the same machine) - although, in the same vein, I did only go for 8 hours of electric. We know that at least one other visitor went for the full 24 hours.

It is absolutely lovely just here. We can see the limestone cliffs from where we are sitting, sticking out between the covering of trees, beyond the cropped grass of the flood plain. Tomorrow I will see if I can find a vantage point for a snap of the monastery.

I took lots of photos of our surroundings today, but in view of the poor phone signal, I shall only share one of them with you for now:


Later ... drama involving a flashing ambulance, an air ambulance landing on the plain just across the road, a 4x4 police car.

Tuesday 17 July - Neuhausen ob Eck

Where's Bertie? He's still in the same Stellplatz as last night, at Neuhausen ob Eck.
Weather: Wall-to-wall sunshine this morning, clouding in by 2pm, a few rumbles of thunder and drops of rain around 4pm, then clear again. Warm.

Our neighbours last night were Sheenah & Steve, who are just heading back to the UK at the end of a trip that started last September. Mick had gone missing after tea and I eventually located him sitting chatting to them. More chatting ensued and by our usual standards it was a bit of a late night.

I still managed to get up reasonably early this morning, and by 8.15 (after my customary cup of tea and banana) I was heading off to trot around a group of nearby crop fields. Up went the circuit (steadily but noticeably), then up some more, before dropping back down more quickly than it had ascended. With not a single tree for shade, and with the sun beating down, it became more of an effort on each lap, so I called it a day after four (tot: 4.5 miles).

A couple of hours later came the main event of the day: an excellent visit to the Freilichtmuseum. It's an open air museum, on a large site, with 15 historic buildings, all of which have been painstakingly moved there (or, in one case, reconstructed following a fire) from their various original locations around the region.


The same building, in its original location and once moved to the museum. You can play spot the difference with this one. Presumably the features missing from the reconstruction were later additions and the decision was made to return it to its original state.

We knew before we went that the information boards were only in German. From one point of view it's a real shame that we don't understand the language as the information would have interested us greatly. On the other hand, if we had been able to read everything that was there, we would have been there all day.

Walking towards the 'village square'.

Panoramic shot of the village square.

The village shop, which stopped trading in its original location in 1992. Its stock was interesting and varied (from sombreros to something that looked suspiciously like a sex toy!).

The family tree of the owners of the shop - it was worth the few minutes it took for us to work out the details of it.

The insides of the buildings did get a little bit samey after a while (perhaps all rustic bedrooms of the period really did have the same style of bed and bedclothes, and I'm sure that carding and spinning equipment was commonplace), but at no point did we get bored. Well worth the €6.50 entry fee, I would say.


This was the building that had been largely built from scratch, to the original design, following a fire. We couldn't understand the narrative of the video that was playing, explaining the techniques used, but it was still fascinating. No saws were used in the shaping of the timbers - only bladed instruments of the axe family.

In area 'B' there were a couple of watermills, this one powered a sawmill.

And this one was a flour mill. The little dormers on the roof were the exit points for cables running from the gears, which then entered the nearby house and ran various bits of equipment in its loft.

Wandering back to Bertie for a very late lunch (taking a picnic would have been wise) I was feeling weary from all of my exertions, so I was quite happy to sit quietly for the rest of the afternoon.


I so wanted to have a go on this, and the second time we passed it, there was not a child (or anyone, in fact) to be seen nearby. Alas, having crawled my way into the structure I found that instead of having a staircase, you have to haul yourself up via ropes and platforms, involving gaps incompatible with a grown adult who doesn't want to get her limited clothing supply filthy. A retreat had to be made.

Monday 16 July - Neuhaus Ob Eck

Where's Bertie? He's in a Stellplatz at Neuhaus Ob Eck. The Stellplatz is free, as is electricity. Water and waste cost €1 each. (Exact location: 47.97461, 8.92365)
Weather: Wall-to-wall sunshine until lunchtime, then a few cloudy periods with rumbles of thunder, but only a few drops of rain.

We had a few priorities this morning, namely: a service point, food and diesel.

It was the need for water and toilet emptying that changed our intended destination for today. Whilst there was a service point at Tuttlingen, it was behind the temporary 'arena' that had taken over the usual motorhome parking area, meaning we couldn't get close enough to fill up Bertie's tank. So, instead of heading along the Danube to the location for our next intended walking route, we deferred that visit and headed to Neuhaus Ob Eck, via a Lidl and two petrol stations.

The first petrol station visit (little place hidden in a retail park, allegedly cheap) was aborted when we found that they didn't accept credit cards and weren't actually cheap. Instead we went to an Esso station on a main road, where we not only paid 5 cents less per litre, but were also able to fill up with LPG. It's 33 days since we last filled up with diesel and LPG, telling us that: a) we've not travelled very far! & b) we have been going through less than our average of 1 litre of LPG per day - surprising given how warm it has been, thus making the fridge work harder. Perhaps we've not been washing often enough? (Or, in my case, I've been having more cold showers than necessary.)

Arriving in Neuhaus we fulfilled our final requirements. Water bottles and tank filled; toilet emptied. Then we parked up and plugged into the free electricity at this free Stellplatz.

The most obvious reason why so many towns and villages in Europe provide free motorhome parking is because they want to attract visitors. A place that also gives free electricity strikes me as being doubly keen. I therefore expect such places to be worthy of a visit - and almost universally they are. Neuhaus has thus perplexed me a little.

We both walked around the town this afternoon (separately - I'd washed our running gear and wanted to get it dry outside, which meant one of us had to stay in) and neither of us found anything remotely interesting about the place.

The most interesting thing in the town itself?

There is an open air museum 500m up the road, out of town, and we can only guess that the museum is to what the town is trying to attract visitors by providing this facility. It sounds interesting enough for the price, so we shall oblige by paying it a visit tomorrow, thus deferring our Danube continuation a day longer.

Spot Bertie! Taken as I walked back from town via a circuit of the farmland adjacent to the Stellplatz.

Sunday 15 July - Tuttlingen

Where's Bertie? He's still at the Stellplatz at Tuttlingen.
Weather: Mainly overcast, but some clear-skied periods. A couple of short showers.

I was miffed this morning. My decision, last thing last night, to get up early, after not enough sleep, and run today was based on the weather forecast (dry today, wet tomorrow). I was just ready to go out when the sound of drumming was heard on Bertie's roof. Harrumph!

It turned out that we only caught the edge of the shower. It was dry within minutes of me setting out, and even though I could see rain falling over the high ground to the one side of the valley, it didn't catch me again.

Some doctorish/healthish TV programme I watched a few years ago mentioned a study that had been carried out that showed that people who go to the gym for an hour on a weekend morning can often be less active, and eat more, than those who don't. Their thinking (conscious or otherwise) is "I've done my exercise, I can be lazy for the rest of the day now". That pretty well describes me today, as I used my 8-mile run to justify doing almost nothing for much of the rest of the day.

Which isn't to say I stared vacantly out of the window. In fact, I could call the period I spent looking at maps and thinking about where we go next, productive.

On the one hand, I'd quite like to head south from here and spend a while amidst striking mountains. But, on the other hand, it feels like we've just timed it wrong to do that, having hit peak holiday season when the campsites will be expensive and the motorhome Stellplätze crammed. The parking options also become seriously reduced as the scenery becomes more striking, as the more touristy areas tend to ban motorhome parking in most of their car parks. Plus, as much as I love the mountains, my focus is on running just at the moment, and I do prefer to do that somewhere reasonably flat.

So, we're not heading south. Instead we will continue to follow the Danube for a while, which will take us NE.

Eventually the sitting around, looking at maps and parking databases, and reading my book got too much, so after lunch a strollette was had. With impeccable timing, it started raining as we stepped out of the door. That shower didn't amount to much either, although as I type this I can see patches of sky that look very dark and threatening.

(Bit of an interlude there as we've sat watching a family who have been quite clearly searching for a geocache. It took them a good long while to locate it.)

The outdoor TV screen at the other end of the car park is now in action. People wearing Croatian football shirts are around. It must be time for me to gather my knitting and for us to walk back towards the Irish Bar for our final football fix.

Later...

Just a modest amount of food. We had to wait about an hour to be served, so full was the pub that we had to ourselves yesterday afternoon.