Blogs from Lake Constance, Baden-Württemberg, Germany, Europe

In my time living in Baden-Wuerttemberg, I have been lucky enough to travel around to most of the region and discover a new part of Germany. However, I had never been in the Black Forest or to the Bodensee(Lake Constance) both of which I had heard were beautiful. I was luckily enough to be offered the chance to take a day trip to both, by none other than a local Schwarzwalder, Bruno. Bruno grew up in the Black Forest and therefore was the perfect guide for my first trip to the region. (not to mention he speaks Schwaebisch - a dialect of German that is extremely difficult to understand). Our day began in Karlsruhe around 9 am in a car with 4 German window flags attached. Yes I said 4. Bruno was quite proud of his ... read more

(June 16th through June 18th 2006) June 16 We left Mönchengladbach early on Friday morning. We had decided to go somewhere that was small and had beautiful views. Our travel guide barely mentioned Constance, so we decided to take a chance. The train ride was wonderful, though we had no seats. We changed trains twice, and the views were great. Eight hours later, we arrived mid-afternoon into Constance. It was grey, and the train station was a bit run down, and we weren't feeling that great. As soon as we walked out the city jumped out and we knew we were going to enjoy the town. We walked north on Konzilstrasse two blocks and walked into the tourist office. They informed us that all but one hostel were full, and it was quite a trek, but ... read more

I have yet to go to the upper town....most probably cause it is 160 steps to go up there, but yesterday I noticed a bus near the boat landing that goes up the hill and has a stop right across the street from the entrance gate to the upper old town. And only costs 50 cents!!!!!! Also today is the start of a 3 day Renaissance market so I'm glad I waited. Turns out that I got up there a couple hours before they started charging 5 Euros to get in....so all the better. By 2 PM, all the kiosks and booths were ready with arts, crafts, linens, clothes, toys, all sorts of food and a huge pig on a rotating spit. All of the folks working the market were in period costumes. I even found ... read more

Today, I decided to take the boat 3 stops to Friedrickshafen to visit the Zeppelin Museum. After the typical German hotel breakfast of cold cuts, cheese, a hard boiled egg, yogurht, juice and coffee I walked down the sea promenade for the 10:02 boat. The lake was a bit foggy, but an hour later, I was in Fried. and the museum was directly across the street from the boat dock. Having paid a small admission, I first came across a great history of the Zeppelins (including the USA efforts) then walked up some aircraft type stairs and found myself in a full size replica of a corridor with cabins on both sides which were uppers and lowers with a sink (definately no shower and I couldn't figure where they might have a commode). Down another corridor ... read more

Pile Dwellings of Unteruhldingen: The first two reconstructed pile dwelling houses of Unteruhlingen on Lake Constance are from the year 1922 and can be found close to the exit of the pile dwelling open air museum. In the course of the decades more replications of Stone Age pile dwelling houses were built. The open air museum consists of two different settlements: One is a reconstruction of a Neolithic Age settlement and the other one of the Bronze Age. Together the 20 buildings span the time period from 4000 - 858 BC. To go from one settlement to the other there are nice wooden walkways available. The houses were raised on stilts over the soil of Lake Constance. The original purpose of that type of dwelling was to protect the inhabitants from marauders. Though there definitely lived ... read more