28 May 2009 The purpose of going to Kelheim was to take a 6k boat trip along the river through a pleasant gorge with limestone cliffs. An indication of how fast the river flows is that it took us 40 minutes to get there with the engine churning away and 20 minutes to get back with with very little power used. At the end of the gorge we landed at Kloster Weltenburg, an ancient Benedictine abbey. When we got there the place was humming with several groups of children and a large number of pilgrims on a three day 100k walk [View Full Entry]

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27 May 2009 We cycled along the river into the town. Regensburg was only slightly damaged in the war and therefore has many streets and squares of fine buildings including a large twin spired Dom and the first bridge to span the Danube built between 1135 and 1146. In the afternoon we drove a few miles east to see Walhalla a folly modelled on the Parthenon with sweeping views of the Danube. It was built by King Ludwig 1 in 1842. We again spent the night at a camper stop on the river, this time at Kelheim about 20k west of [View Full Entry]

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26 May 2006 After many days enjoying wonderful scenery in the Black Forest and Bavarian Alps we made a serious visit today to the Nazis’ First Concentration Camp at Dachau built in 1933. The memorial includes the Jourhaus where prisoners entered the camp, the administration building which includes an exhibition and film theatre on the camps history until liberation in April 1945, the bunker used for punishments and a secure prison, two facsimiles of the original 34 barrack blocks, the crematorium, the gas chamber and various religious memorials built since the war. What struck u [View Full Entry]

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24 May 2009 Konigsee was a beautiful lake with high mountains dropping steeply into the water that reminded us of Milford Sound in New Zealand. We caught the first boat of the morning and were surprised to be sharing it with some skiers who we assumed were ski mountaineering. We got off at the first stop, St Bartholoma and walked up a valley for an hour to the foot of Watzmann at 2713m the highest peak in the area. There was supposed to be an ice cave up there but this early in the year it was snowed in. On our [View Full Entry]

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25 May 2009 We finally made it up to the The Eagles Nest today in very sunny weather. You take a bus up the mountain road and then a lift through the mountain to be greeted by magnificent views of the surrounding mountains and lakes. We could see our Konigsbee camp site from the summit. Today was the day we started our drive northwards towards home and we are spending the night in a car park of an interesting town called Wasserburger which is built in the middle of a huge pear drop shaped bend in the River Inn. [View Full Entry]

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23 May 2009 When we woke to a bright sunny morning we realised what a wonderful remote area we had been fortunate enough to find. It was with a heavy heart that we moved off only to stop after about 100 metres to investigate a beautiful little chapel which came into view around the corner. We eventually got going and continued eastwards on stunning mountain roads along the Deutch Alpenstrasse to its end in the far south east corner of Germany at Berchtesgaden, Hitler’s mountain retreat. We had wanted to visit the Eagle’s Nest the mountain top home built by Martin [View Full Entry]

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22 May 2009 We left Oberammergau and drove the few kilometres to Garmisch - Partenkirchen, Germany’s premier ski resort, to enable us to catch the impressive cable car ride from Eibsee to the summit of the Zugspitze, at 2962m Germany’s highest peak. The weather was a bit changeable but we had good views over many of the high Austrian mountains from the summit. Coming down we took a short cable car to the Schneeferner Glacier which appeared still to have skiing available and then a cog railway through a tunnel in the mountain back to Eibsee. Just after we got down [View Full Entry]

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21 May 2009 What we thought was going to be a quiet day turned out to be quite an eventful one on what was a bank holiday in Germany. After catching up with the blog and a few other chores we left the camper stop late morning and went into Fussen to look at the castle there with its painted walls. We then returned to the German Alpine Way but after a few miles the road was closed and we were diverted off with no signs. We eventually found our way back to our next visit which was to Weiskirche, a [View Full Entry]

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20 May 2009 In continuing fine weather we drove 175k east first by the lake and then into the Bavarian Alps along the Deutsche Alpenstrasse giving glorious mountain views and steep bendy roads. We arrived in Fussen in mid afternoon and visited the famous castles of Schloss Hohenschwangau where Ludwig II the 19th century king of Bavaria lived and Schloss Neuschwanstein the fairy tale castle built by Ludwig. We didn’t join the tours of the castle insides but really enjoyed the walking and views in the area. We stayed the night in Fussen. [View Full Entry]

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19 May 2009 A long but great day doing a cycling and ferry tour around lake Constance in perfect weather. We first cycled eastward along the lake to Friedrichsafen where we had local Bodansee fish for lunch. The Zeppelin airships were built in Friedrichsafen and we visited an excellent museum on the subject including a full scale mockup of a section of the Hindenburg. The lake is on the border between Germany and Switzerland and our next step was to catch the ferry across to Romanshorn in Switzerland. We had excellent views of the Swiss mountains lit up by the late [View Full Entry]

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