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.

Saturday 14 July - Tuttlingen

Where's Bertie? He's at the Stellplatz in the town of Tuttingen (exact location: 47.98549, 8.81490).
Weather: Mainly sunny. Warm again.

Good news: Mick is back running again! It was his second tentative outing, on his return from injury, this morning and whilst he reports being troubled by paranoia about his calf (it's a repeat problem that has been going on for years), so far it has held out. I ran at the same time, but not with him, as I was too fast. It's not often that I can say that!

Dripping sweat over Bertie (it was not a shaded route, as we ran along the open plain alongside the Danube), we then stuck around at last night's parking spot only long enough to have a quick wash and put everything away, before making tracks a whole 14km along the road to our next stop.

After weeks of having our movements dictated by being in towns for key World Cup matches*, today was the final time that we were to move with that sole purpose. Knowing that the Stellplatz here is popular, and with it being a Saturday (the busiest day at any town Stellplatz) we maximised our chances of getting a spot by arriving at the time that the previous night's occupants usually start to leave (between 9 &10am).

We arrived to find the Stellplatz to be missing, because the area had been commandeered for an outside screen, showing World Cup matches. Happily the adjacent car park is huge so we wouldn't have struggled to park anyway, but upon looking around we found that a section of car slots had been specifically signed as the temporary motorhome area. It was unfortunate that, of all the places they could have chosen for the relocation, they selected slots under low trees. A small bit of pruning was required.

Whilst the presence of the Big Screen just along the car park was a comfort (it's a nerve-wracking thing, arriving in a town with no knowledge as to whether any establishment will be showing the matches, particularly with Germany long-since eliminated), I didn't much fancy the backless benches (or standing), with no shade from the sun. So, we went on a recce to find somewhere indoors, in the process seeing what the town was like. The most striking thing is that we are parked within 50m of the Danube, and along its bank lies some manicured parkland, through which runs the Danube cycle path, and a footpath. The town isn't unattractive either, although it did strike us that the two main businesses on the pedestrianised main street are bakeries-cum-cafes and mobile phone shops.

Our quest for a football-showing bar was only achieved when we resorted to a search for 'Irish Pub' on Google Maps. We returned there in time for kick-off this afternoon and it was so busy that we could have taken a different seat for every minute of the match (it was a big place!) and not have bothered a soul. We were the only people in there. I imagine it will be a bit busier tomorrow when we return for the Final.

We're around 10km downstream from where the Danube runs underground and, as you can see, it's a big river. As for the inverted pyramid of pigs: I have no idea!

^{(*We do have a TV in Bertie. What we're lacking is an effective aerial. This isn't usually a problem, as we generally only use it for watching DVDs, but we are going to have to come up with a solution to the lack of TV signal, as unmissable sporting events come around every couple of years.)}

Friday 13 July - by Immendingen

Where's Bertie? He's still in the same car park as last night.
Weather: Lots of sunshine and quite warm.

There's an information panel that sits in between the car park and the cafe/play park/bivouac site, that describes a 13km walking circuit and we thought we could do worse today than following it.

As well as wiggling through the forest a lot, it visits three points of interest, the first of which is a disused quarry (quarried for the basalt between the start of the 20th century and 1979)...

...where we paused for elevenses:

The picnic tables are substantial structures around here. When we looked closely at the surrounding ground we realised that it sits amid a sea of discarded cigarette ends.

The picnic tables and benches then came thick and fast, often at viewpoints, until we came to the second point of interest - which wasn't actually interesting at all. It was a sink hole, but not a very big one, and so covered in undergrowth that it was nothing remarkable. We would have strode straight past if it hadn't been for the information sign there.

Much more wiggling through the forest ensued, whilst Mick recapped what has been going on in Game of Thrones*, which brought us to the final point of interest: the Donausinkungstelle, but, of course, we already saw that yesterday.

As I sit here and type this, the car park is full and overflowing. It was over half full when we arrived yesterday too, so it's definitely a popular place. It was, therefore, surprising that until we got back to within 1km of Bertie, we saw only two other people during the entire walk. Within the final 0.5km we saw at least a couple of dozen.

It wasn't an overly energetic outing (13km, 300m ascent), but I've used it as an excuse to spend the rest of the afternoon sitting down. As well as the usual daily afternoon activities (eating melon, doing the crossword, reading), the heel in my final ankle sock (the fourth from this ball of yarn) has been turned, ripped back and turned again, but I've still not managed an exact pattern match on this one. Hopefully, if I find myself shoeless whilst wearing them, people won't be inspecting my feet too closely, as it's not a big enough deal for me to rip back and try again.

^{(*Mick has long been a fan of Game of Thrones, having read the books before the TV series started. It's not my cup of tea at all, but as he was watching Series 7 during our trip in March, I started getting interested in a couple of the characters, so having vaguely watched Series 7, I've now started right at the beginning and we're now half way through Series 3. However, it being not really my cup of tea (that and the fact that I'm always doing something with yarn at the same time), I don't always grasp what is going on. Quite how Mick remembers so many details, I have no idea. When I read a book, even if I really enjoy it, the detail usually drops out of my head the instant I finish it, and I'm not much better with films.)}

Thursday 12 July - by Immendingen

Where's Bertie? He's in a car park by the River Donau (or Danube, if you prefer), just outside of Immendingen (exact location: 47.93190, 8.74868).
Weather: A sunny start with some clouds building later, but still with plenty of sunny intervals.

A couple of cloudy days with cooler temperatures lulled me into indulging in a lie-in this morning, after our late night last night, on the basis that it would be fine to run later in the morning. Thus at gone 10.30am, I set off along the cycle track ... under a clear blue sky. The next 45 minutes were sweatily spent.

We would have been earlier away from Donaueschingen, except that I couldn't possibly go anywhere until I'd found out the ending of Stephen King's The Outsider. That spanned lunchtime (Mick obliged with keeping me fed whilst I was so busily occupied...) and, conveniently, it delayed us almost exactly the amount of time required to use up the last of the left-over electricity.

(I forgot to mention in my last post that yesterday was bizarrely busy at the Stellplatz. Tuesday night it hadn't been full, but last night van after van after van arrived to find not a space to spare. We even moved over to allow an extra one in next to us (we'd parked sensibly on Tuesday, then our neighbours changed on Wednesday and suddenly we looked like the ones who had parked right in the middle of two spaces. Today, as we left, it was about a quarter empty.)

Today's destination nearly didn't happen. First the SatNav tried to take us via a 'vehicles prohibited' road, causing us to have to turn around only about 200m away from our destination. The next way the SatNav tried got narrow enough for us to pull over and for me to go for a recce on foot. I found the car park, but there was a 3m high bridge on the way and although we would theoretically fit under it, I thought it a bit close for comfort, particularly when you take the radio aerial (which is flexible, to a degree) into account. Not wanting to arrive in our next town stop, only 10km along the road, (where we intend to watch the weekend's football) until at least tomorrow, it was a relief when our third approach worked.

The main draw of this car park, except for the general forest walking, is the Donausinkungstelle - the location where the River Danube suddenly disappears below ground in summer (this is limestone country):

On the left the Danube, then, abruptly, a dry river bed.

If my reading of this is correct, the Danube runs underground from this point for, on average, around 155 days per year.

After walking up to the next car park, we could have returned to the 'sink place' by walking along the river bed, but we chose to cross at the stepping stones and follow the cycle route on the other side of the river for our return.

Bertie is out of shot on the left, so our view out of his front window is this wheat, with the trees beyond masking the nearby road and railway line.