Tuesday 26 June - Bad Dürrheim and Triberg

Where's Bertie? He's at a huge, but almost empty (Bertie + one other), Stellplatz at Nußbach, just outside of Triberg, in the Schwarzwald (Black Forest) (Exact location: 48.13157, 8.25310).
Weather: Mainly overcast, but clearing to sunshine this evening. Warm enough to be out in shorts and t-shirts.

Laundry was our mission this morning and the nearest laundrette I could find was a bit of a backtrack up the road to Bad Dürrheim (not to be confused with Bad Dürkheim, where we spent our first night in Germany). It was an unusually convenient establishment, in that there was a Bertie-sized parking space available right outside its door.

What was less convenient was its unique feature that if you open the tumble drier during its cycle (say, to check that everything hasn't knotted into a big ball - a recipe for stuff not drying), you forfeit the rest of that cycle. Never before have I come across a public laundry where you can't open and restart the drier as may times as you like. It was particularly inconvenient as all of the machines needed €1 coins, and a second spend on the drier required 2 coins more than we had available.


Mick went and got change from the same bakery where I'd bought these two pastries earlier. They're both really bad photos, but hopefully it shows their enormous sizes. The one on the left was a surprise: I thought it had egg custard on it, but it turned out to be curd cheese.

With the laundry laundered, choices were again before us: to stay in Bad Dürrheim, or to continue on towards Triberg, which was to put another odd why-didn't-you-just-head-there-from-Stuttgart wiggle into our journey, occasioned by now having a guide book and knowing what is around us. Triberg won, but thinking that the parking there may be a bit busy by early afternoon, we aimed instead for a Stellplatz about 10km along the road, positioning us so we could hit Triberg early tomorrow.

Our stay at that first Stellplatz lasted about 2 minutes. There was nothing wrong with it, as an overnight stop, but it didn't stand out as a place to while away an afternoon, and the photos of this place at Nußbach looked much nicer. Onwards we came.

It was only after we arrived that I came to appreciate that we within comfortable walking distance of Triberg. A 10.5km circular route from here to the town, coming back via the falls (Triberg is famous for cuckoo clocks, Black Forest Gateau, and for 'Germany's highest waterfalls' - 163m drop over 7 cascades) was downloaded and at about 2.30pm off we toddled.

Up through the forest behind us, then down the other side, we arrived in the town to find ourselves thwarted: entry to the falls costs €5 per head. We've seen a lot of waterfalls (indeed, in Norway last year it was a rare event if we parked somewhere and couldn't see at least 6 of them) and some truly spectacular ones, so we weren't feeling inclined to pay out €10 for a 0.5km section of our intended walking circuit, just because it contained some cascading water.

The route was a mix of forest tracks and paths, with some open meadows giving us views of the surrounding area.

A viewpoint just before we dropped down to the town

View from the above

After a bit of aimless strolling around the town (lots of tat shops, lots of people) I pored over the map a while and worked out how we were going to re-route to pick up the return leg of our circuit.

Taken somewhere on our return leg

This evening I've perused the guidebook a little more and realise that there's a place to the north of where we are now sitting that I would like to visit. The question is whether it is worth a further backtrack, particularly when considering the complicating factor of the motorhome parking there being in heavy use during the day, so apparently one needs to arrive early or late to get a spot. We're unlikely to want to achieve 'early' tomorrow (we'd need to be away from here by 6.45, I reckon), and if we aim for 'late' there's the question as to what we do with the rest of the day. I'll report back tomorrow on what decision we make.

(Other random factettes about today:
1) There have been two spillages - a bag of mixed nuts went all over the floor; an exploding teabag went all over the cooker.
2) The SatNav has twice today decided that a tiny road running adjacent to the main road was a better choice than the main road, even though in both cases the destination was within a stone's throw of said main road. Unfortunately, the back-up navigator (i.e. me) failed to notice either until a moment too late.)

Monday 25 June - Donaueschingen

Where's Bertie? He remains unmoved, at the Stellplatz at Donaueschingen.
Weather: Overcast, cool start, gradually clearing to a mainly sunny afternoon. Warm in the sunshine, but not out of it.

Something I really enjoy about running on our travels is the absence of boredom, in that I seldom run the same route more than once. Given the lack of repetition, it is perhaps surprising that, until today, I've never managed to get myself lost.

Heading out from Bertie this morning, I paused a couple of miles in to take a photo of an attractive building with a stork's nest on top:

If I hadn't been running I would have composed it better, but by the time I had my phone out and the camera switched on, this was the view before me

Little did I know that I would pass this building a number of times on my return, as I lost my bearings and tried to remember from which way I had come. There was, in fact, a sign post next to the building, pointing the way back to Donaueschingen, but I was inititally (ridiculously!) certain I hadn't come from that direction, so I didn't follow it, but the real problem came from a closure of the cycle way, with a convoluted diversion signed from the direction of my outward route, but not from the direction of my return route. Eventually I had to resort to repeatedly stopping to look at the map on my phone, and I may also have trespassed through someone's garden in trying to find the path that would lead me back in the right direction.

You may spot that around the 2 and 5 mile markers is where my route finding went awry.

Perusal of the newly acquired guide book and maps, to come up with an idea as to where to head next, took up a chunk of the rest of the morning, at which point we were still torn between staying or leaving today. After lunch we headed into town, mainly to use the wifi again to do some domestic admin and to download some maps and walking routes for the next three places I intend us to visit.

Wandering around the town before we headed back, I caved on the second pass of the ice-cream shop that I had resisted yesterday:

An enormous sundae of strawberries, ice-cream, sorbet and cream. Note the two spoons; I wasn't piggish enough to eat the whole thing myself.

Late afternoon entertainment came in the form of a new arrival at the Stellplatz who huffed, sighed and waved his arms around at how badly people were parked. After initially parking where we had originally been, he then decided he could fit into the space next to us, reversed (with some force) into a tree, repaired the damage to his bike rack with some gaffa tape, found he couldn't get a satellite signal there, moved to abandon his van in the middle of the roadway instead, found his electricity cable wouldn't reach from there, so moved again, then again. His shenanigans distracted us wholly from the crossword over which we had been labouring.

This evening a different set of neighbours has popped around to do a comparison between Bertie and their van (a Hymer B504, which is very similar to Bertie, and the model we very nearly bought before deciding the B444 was the way forward for us). In amongst chat of vans, the UK, Brexit and the joys of touring Germany, they've recommended another place we need to visit, so I'll be needing to get the map out again.

Sunday 24 June - Donaueschingen

Where's Bertie? He's still at the same Stellplatz as yesterday.
Weather: Sunny intervals and pleasantly warm when in the sun.

We found a bar and watched the Germany v Sweden World Cup match last night. It was a subdued affair, far removed from the scene we would have expected for the equivalent game in a UK pub, with only a handful of people watching and only slight reactions being made to what was going on on screen. I say 'we' watched, but in reality, Mick watched and I looked up occasionally from my sock knitting. My coolness knows no bounds: knitting in a bar on a Saturday night...

Germany's winning goal was excitingly snatched 10 seconds before the end of the 5 minutes of added time. A cause for celebration, for sure, but from the tooting of horns, letting off of fireworks and shouting going on in the town for the next hour or so you would have thought they'd just won the entire tournament, rather than achieving their first win from their two games played to date.

Today also had a football focus, in that it was England's second match of the tournament. We returned to the same bar as last night and were the only customers for most of the match, as we sat in front of the muted TV. Whilst it would have been nice to have heard the reactions of the crowd, we didn't miss out by not being able to hear the German commentary. Again, when I say 'we' watched, I mean that I looked up occasionally, but also spent a profitable chunk of time using the free wifi provided by the tourist office, which happened to be next door. Amongst other things, I now finally have a couple of guidebooks to Germany downloaded, having completely failed to think of the benefits of such resources before we left home.

With the football having concluded with the right result (6-1 to England against Panama), we returned to Bertie via an indirect route taking in the key sights of the town and the local parkland on the way.

The Hansel Fountain, depicting a figure from the Donaueschingen carnival celebration. Next to this was a popular ice cream shop selling enormous sundaes. My resolve not to over-indulge may not have held, had the queue been shorter.

Another fountain that took my fancy. The figures of musicians at the far end have mobile joints, so presumably the fountain has (or had) a feature where the water pressure is used to make them 'play' their instruments.

The source of the Danube, 678m above sea level and 2840km from the sea.

The temple that marks the point where the infant Danube joins the much bigger Brigach river. Hold on, said we - why is the source of the Danube not the source of this bigger river, which clearly originates further away from the river's final end at the Black Sea?

A sculpture of lightning, outside the Art Museum, which was closed by the time we passed by.

I'm now going to go off on a bit of a tangent, but it is relevant to what came next...

When I was in my youth, the act of going around a pub or nightclub and taking drinks that had been left by others was known as 'minesweeping'. I don't believe I ever took part in that activity, but I do now do effectively the same thing with electricity at motorhome parking areas. In Germany it is common for motorhome Stellplätze to have coin operated electicity points, priced at either 50c or €1 per kWh. It's also very common for Germans to use those electric points. Having established that running Bertie on gas is cheaper than running him on electricity at even 50c per kWh, we don't usually choose to pay for electricity unless there's something for which we specifically need mains power. However, when someone has left credit on the meter, that credit is going to be used by someone else, and I figure that someone may as well be me. So, when this morning there was an exodus and we moved Bertie into a proper space, from his position squeezed onto the verge at the margin of the parking, I checked out the credit situation, scoring 1.7kWh.

Arriving back from our football & sightseeing outing, we noticed that our neighbour two down, who had also been plugged in, had left. Checking the plug points again, I saw that we were down to 0.6kWh, whereas the recent departee had left a whopping 3.9kWh. Score again! That should see us through to when we leave tomorrow.

I'll finish with three semi-random asides:
1) After seeing mainly only German vans since arriving in the country, it's a multicultural gathering here tonight. In the row of six vans in which we are sitting, there are six different nationalities.
2) We learnt from the Run Director at yesterday's ParkRun that different regions of Germany have their own school term dates. Accordingly, the neighbouring region to here started their holidays last Friday, where as this region doesn't break up for another four weeks. ('Region' isn't the term she used, but I'm having a failure of memory.)
3) We also learnt yesterday that it is an offense in Germany, when using on-street parking, to park against the flow of traffic. Happily we also learnt this from the Run Director, rather than from a financially painful experience of breaching that law!

Saturday 23 June - Stuttgart and Donaueschingen, via Böblingen

Where's Bertie? He's squeezed into a Stellplatz just outside of the town of Donaueschingen (exact location: 47.947451, 8.51218).
Weather: Mainly sunny, but still much cooler than a few days ago.

Last night's car park may not have looked ideal, either on paper or in reality, but it turned out to be the most peaceful place we have stayed yet this trip. An excellent night's sleep was had, until the alarm rudely awoke us just before 7am, so that we could relocate ourselves back to the ParkRun location.

The ParkRun at Stuttgart has only been going for 8 weeks, and today's Run Director explained the reason for the hilly course: they had requested permission to use the park in the middle of Stuttgart, but the authorities had declined not just the request, but any discussion as to what ParkRun was. They did, however, give permission for a lumpy woodland park on the edge of the city - which was a good location for us.

Joining 36 locals and tourists alike (England, Wales and Ireland were all represented today; at least two of the Brits had flown in purely to take part in a foreign ParkRun), I had an enjoyable run and was surprised as I queued to have my barcode scanned to have a lady ask me if I had been in Mannheim last weekend. Considering that I had a different outfit on today, and a hat (but no sunglasses), I was taken aback that she had recognised me.

My intention had been to go straight from the run to a laundrette, but instead we joined other runners for breakfast at a cafe a few km drive away. I wish I'd taken a photo of our breakfasts, which comprised a huge basket of various breads and croissant, a plate of ham and cheese and a couple of platters of butter and jam. That dealt with my hunger nicely!

The SatNav (and an inattentive navigator) took us very close to the centre of Stuttgart on our way to the laundrette and when we finally got there we could see as we drove past that it was busy, so when we couldn't find anywhere within half a mile to park, we abandonned our effort and cursed the distance and time the aborted mission had cost us (I say, as if we had anything more productive to be doing!).

Needing to make a quick decision as to where to go, I reset the SatNav for the motorhome Stellplatz at the town of Böblingen, only about 15km away. We did reach it, but doing so involved us having to go past some 'road closed' barriers, and mount a pavement to get around a railway-track-laying machine that was partly blocking the road at a level crossing. I felt reasonably confident that no work would take place over the weekend, but having established that the Stellplatz was at the end of a dead-end, and not wanting to risk being stuck there for an unknown period, we only stayed long enough to have coffee, decide where to go next and to use the free service point.

Donaueschingen (you should hear our SatNav's mangling of that name, particularly when 'Mitte' is added to the end, denoting that we should follow the signs for the town centre) was the next place I chose, through no scientific, or even informed, means. A 115km drive, almost entirely on Autobahn, ensued.

The bigger Stellplätze often seem to be busier than the smaller ones (I have a couple of theories as to why) and we arrived here to find this one full (although if everyone parked more tidily, at least 2 or 3 more would fit). We didn't drive off, however, but decided to shoehorn Bertie onto a worn-out verge in a position we adjudged would still allow the motorhome behind us enough room to exit.

Mick has walked into town since we arrived. I've turned a heel and picked up stitches for a gusset (I'm knitting the second trainer sock). In a little while we will walk back into town again and maybe see a bit of tonight's Germany game.

No photos today. I've not taken a single snap.

Friday 22 June - Stuttgart

Where's Bertie? He's in a small public car park, sitting between the University of Stuttgart and an industrial area (exact location: 48.74914, 9.10729).
Weather: Sunny start, soon clouding over, much cooler than of late.

No run this morning, but I did walk one round of the same circuit that I'd run twice yesterday. It was a lovely morning for it...

...but whereas for the last few days it has been warm enough to be out in a singlet at 7am, this morning I was wearing a fleece and a windshirt over my t-shirt, and I didn't overheat.

Bertie is in this shot, in the location where he spent the last two nights. I'm not sure that the white arrow I've drawn to highlight his location shows much better than Bertie himself.

Yet another supermarket visit preceeded our exit from Güglingen then, having stowed our shopping, we set about deciding where to go today. The contenders were a nice sounding free Stellplatz about an hour away from Stuttgart, a €10 Stellplatz in the car park of the palace at Ludwigsburg about half an hour from Stuttgart, or this car park by the university in Stuttgart. The only reason this one won was because the whole reason for visiting the city was for its ParkRun in the morning, and by staying here tonight we could go and recce the course.

We found the ParkRun location without a problem and as we set out on foot I commented that, as it's a two-lap course, we only needed to walk 1.5 miles today in order to see it all. Mathematically it was a fine theory. What I hadn't bargained on was one bit of the track I'd downloaded from the ParkRun website not tallying with the tracks on the ground. We ended up walking 4.2 miles before we were convinced we had found the right route. We just hope that it is run clockwise, otherwise it may not look very familiar to us in the morning!

The route as downloaded to GoogleMaps from the ParkRun website.

What we walked in trying to make sense of the published route, which, for the second time in two weeks, is definitely wrong. The Strava App came to our aid in resolving the issue.

The car park in which we had left Bertie was full by the time we returned, and we wasted no time in freeing up a space and moving a few km down the road to where we are now sitting. A small public car park, in a sea of other car parks, on the edge of the University and of an industrial area, doesn't sound particularly nice, and in all honesty, we wouldn't have chosen it if it wasn't for wanting to position ourselves for tomorrow morning. However, with plenty of trees around (and a whole forest of paths and tracks just 150m or so away, through which I ventured this afternoon), and with almost no passing traffic, it doesn't seem to be a bad place.

Thursday 21 June - Güglingen

Where's Bertie? He's precisely where he was yesterday, at the Stellplatz at Güglingen.
Weather: Gradually clouding over and becoming cooler until late afternoon, when it started clearing again.

We took our stroll around the town late last evening, then returned to Bertie and re-opened all of his windows, plus his door, hoping that his interior might cool down a bit by bedtime. At 10.30pm, when we retired for the night, leaving just two of the skylights open, it was still 27 degrees.

Today was cooler, helped by a strong breeze, although running was still a sticky affair. I seriously considered a swim when I got back, thinking mainly of how long I could justify spending in a mains-fed shower either end of a swim, but in the end I decided that a run, a swim, then a walk might be a bit more activity than was strictly necessary.

So, after a bit of laundry (running gear was getting a bit ripe again...), a spot of breakfast and a modicum of faffing, we set off to walk the 10km circuit I'd downloaded from wikiloc.com yesterday.

That took us through a large variety of fruit and cereal crops (including lots of apples, blackcurrants and huge quantities of grapes), but it was all on tarmac. There was hardly any traffic (off the top of my head, two motorbikes and one tractor passed us), as despite the tarmac, most of these 'roads' were really farm tracks.

That's one serious picnic area! We grabbed the table in the shade for our coffee and cake, and repeatedly had to fish bits of tree/blossom out of our cups.

The elevenses view was mainly over vines

When the route became indirect in its latter stages, we cut short, as we couldn't see that the final distance was going to show us anything we hadn't already seen - plus we were ready for our lunch by then. Having started/ended at Bertie, and with a detour through the town on our way back looking for a milk-selling shop, we still managed to exceed the advertised 10km.

Our expectation, as we sat down for our late lunch, was that, at any moment, the car park would start to fill up around us, exactly as it had yesterday. It didn't, but it wasn't until I went to sit outside an hour or so later that I realised quite how much cooler it had become. Whereas yesterday at 5pm there were around 200 cars here, today there were 8.

The only other news of the day is that I finished my first roll-top trainer sock, which I've been knitting to fill a gap in my packing (or maybe I've just not looked in the right place for the missing pair of ankle socks?). Why go to a shop and buy socks, when you happen to have sock yarn and needles with you?

The second of the pair has now been cast on. I wonder how good a pattern match I will achieve? (note: it is self-patterning yarn, so obtaining a match is 'just' a matter of casting on in the right place and knitting the same number of rows at the same tension.)

Wednesday 20 June - Güglingen

Where's Bertie? He's at a Stellplatz in Güglingen. Water is available at 10c per 8-10 litres, waste is free. (Exact location: 49.06454, 8.99466)
Weather: Cloudless and hot.

With a few exceptions, when other things get in the way, I write the day's blog post either just before or just after tea. Tonight I'm writing it just before (it's 1745 as I start) and there's not yet been much activity to write about.

My day started with a run. One of the things I like about Germany is the number of off-road bike paths all over the place, which give easy no-navigation-required places to run. This morning I only had to go twenty seconds down the road before I picked up such a path which I then followed for 2 miles before turning and running back. The only downsides of this particular path were the lack of shade and the fact that it went past the sewage works.

The crop fields gave pleasant surroundings for my run, but didn't provide any shade.

It was 22 degrees out by the time I got back at 9am (*really* must work on those early starts!) and after a (cold) shower and a very quick one-item shopping trip, I bagsied the driver's seat and out of town we rolled.

A small and winding road brought us the 15km to Güglingen and as we drove into the huge car park, which housed about 5 cars at the time, I pondered out loud what might be nearby to require such a large capacity. A quick wander told me that the only thing obviously near was the town's outdoor swimming pool.

Usually we try to park so that Bertie's solar panel is in the sunshine. Today we parked as far in the shade as we could and, as the sun moved, we contemplated moving to park crossways to the slots. It's an ignorant thing to do, and not something I would usually contemplate (and indeed, not something we did today, because it is just wrong), but as I said "It's not like there's any pressure on this amount of parking!".

Fastforward a few hours, and at 2pm the schools let out. By 4pm parents were home from work. By 4.30pm there was not a single space left in the car park and the access road had become the overspill parking. I've took a walk around and on a rough calculation reckoned there were over 200 cars here. There was audibly much enjoyment going on at the pool. There is just now starting to be a bit of an exodus.

Meanwhile, we have been mainly sitting outside in whatever shade we can find, variously reading, knitting and crosswording. I did download a 10km walking route just after we arrived but have no inclination to go and walk it in 30 degree heat and unbroken sunshine. Instead we will have tea and, when it starts to cool down a little, will go for a short stroll around the town.