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Category Archives: Germany
Homeward Bound
It seemed like only yesterday that we left the UK but our time away was coming to an end. We needed to start heading west from Würzburg on Friday, April 26. We had one last palace on our list to visit first and that was Heidelberg Schloss (Schloss is palace and Burg is castle). It was pretty tricky driving through the narrow streets up to the palace and we could see why people parked in the city and caught the funicular! We managed to get into the car park (P4N#161562) and walked down to the palace. We both thought that it would be less of a ruin than it was so we walked around the gardens and took in the views but didn’t bother to pay to go into the courtyard. It might have been that we were ‘castled’ out as well.
The Romantic Road
It was wonderful to wake up to the view of Hohenzollern castle above us on Wednesday, April 24. We were the only ones in the car park and it started snowing (just for a change)! We had booked to go on the first tour of the day at 10.00 so there were very few people with us on the shuttle bus up the steep climb to the entrance. The castle dates back to 1267 and became the seat of the Kings of Prussia. It was pretty cold at the top but with great views across the countryside.
The Amazing Black Forest
As we didn’t have a Swiss vignette, we kept to the minor roads as we headed north from Vaduz, Liechtenstein back towards the SW of Germany. The Swiss roads were quiet on a Saturday afternoon (April 20) and it was lovely to gently make our way towards the German town of Konstanz. The town sits on the southern side of Bodensee (Lake Constance) despite the rest of that part of the lake still being in Switzerland. We had originally thought we would stay there overnight but we didn’t like the look of the place so we caught a ferry across the lake from Konstanz to Meersburg. What a difference!
Continue readingA detour to Liechtenstein
Once we made the decision to drive to Liechtenstein (a country in its own right since 1719) after lunch at Kristall Thermal Baths at Schwangau, we made good progress but had to be careful that we didn’t accidentally get sent onto any Swiss motorways as we didn’t have a vignette. 40CHF (Swiss Francs) seemed a hefty cost for basically using a couple of motorways. Our vignette for Austria still had a day left (thanks W&S) so we were okay for that part of the journey. We crossed from Germany into Austria and Switzerland to get to Liechtenstein. The weather was pretty atrocious with snow, hail and rain. We headed towards Vaduz, never knew that was the name of the capital, and stopped at the Royal Winery on the way in for a quick tasting before purchasing a case of very nice rosè.
Painted houses and a painted castle
We left Dachau on Thursday afternoon, April 18, around 15.30 in a somewhat somber mood. We headed south west towards Füssen, still in Bavaria, close to the border with Austria. On the way, we went to see the village of Oberammergau up in the Alps where the Passion Plays are performed every ten years. Jo’s parents went there in 1990 so she was keen to see what it was like. The weather was still a mix of rain, sleet and snow but thankfully it stopped whilst we walked around the village with its painted houses. We had parked up near the centre so only had a 10 minute walk into the centre (P4N#417898).
Idyll and atrocities
It had rained most of Tuesday night at Konigssee (King’s Lake) and started snowing around 08.00 on Wednesday, April 17 so, of course, we decided to do a boat trip along the lake to St Bartholomew’s Church. The whole area is a National Park so you can’t actually drive around the lake so taking the boat there was the only option. It was a lovely trip in a heated boat (thank goodness!) and the church itself was well worth the trip.
Thick fingers
Apologies to our subscribers but thick fingers meant the draft blog was posted rather than the finished article! If you click on this link it should take you to the latest, finished post.
Sound of Music and mountain passes
We left Lake Bled around 10.20 on Monday, April 15 to make our way north to Austria and Germany whilst Wendy and Stuart headed east to Hungary. We wanted to do some more mountain passes so first up was the Vršič Pass that goes up to 1600m with 50 hairpin bends that are numbered with a gradient of 14%. We did 25 of them before having lunch at the top and then headed back down so we did 50 in total! Onwards towards Austria but on the back roads as our Slovenian vignette had run out and at €32 we didn’t want to renew just for a few hours. Consequently, we then needed to go up the Wurzen Pass to enter Austria and that had a 18% descent. All was well although I suspect that the brake liners are a bit thinner now!
Dora The Explorer 