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Published: August 6th 2008
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Hello!
I've joined together Germany and Switzerland for this blog as we're running out of time to write them!
We left Amsterdam on a day train so that we could see the view and because it wasn't quite as far to our next destination, Koblenz in Germany. We were trying to get to the black forest and there isn't an easy route across so we decided that a stop off in Koblenz by the River Rhine would be nice.
Koblenz
In Koblenz we had a little look round with our bags trying to find the youth hostel (which is on a hilltop in a fortress accessed in summer by seat lift) - we were actually trying to find the ferry across the river to save us a 1.5km walk but shall we say that signposting and making things easy for tourists isn't really the German approach? It has a nice old town but we didn't really have time that evening to find it, as we discovered that by arriving after 6pm pretty much everything was closing.. including the ferry across the river and then the seat lift to the fortress.... Hmmm. We managed to get the ferry,
yippee! But not the seat lift, and the last bus had left for the fortress at about 4pm... So in shall we say less than generous spirits (I have to say I'm speaking more for myself here, it was hot, raining, and the backpack was heavy!) we headed up the stairs and steep road to the hilltop.
And what awaited us was an absolutely fantastic view over the town and the confluence of the Rhine and the Mosel (you can take a look at the hostel on this site http://www.hihostels.com/dba/hostel022324.en.htm). The building itself was also fantastic, staying in a castle on a hilltop, bliss reallly! Or it would have been had we booked that youth hostel... Unfortunately we'd booked a room in Mainz..... Luckily for us they did have room in dorms for us and by that point I was ready to sleep anywhere!
The next day was far better, the old town was lovely and we then headed off to Freiburg in the black forest - booking ourselves into a nice hotel with the cash we'd saved using a youth hostel.
Travelling to Freiburg was very scenic as the train ran along the rhine valley past
Koblenz - The view from the seat lift
Ross took this, I didn't fancy it with a rucksack to carry as well as gripping to the seat... beautiful castles.
Freiburg
We really enjoyed staying in Freiburg, the old town was even nicer than in Koblenz. Each street had a little strem running down it in a little channel, great in the warm weather for children and adults alike to sit with their feet in!
We made our way out on the second day to a ski resort just outside the town. We went up the hill by cable car (definitely the right way to go!) and then walked down through the forest. It was very hot but the views were brilliant, particularly from clearings and the cable car.
Konstanz/Zurich
After our stay in the forest we decided that lakes and mountains should be next and hopped on a train to Zurich via Basel. We actually wanted to take a look at lake Konstanz/Bodensee on the Swiss/German border and so after dropping our bags off in Zurich we headed back on the train out to the small town of Konstanz. After negotiating our way from the swiss to German side of the train station through passport control (it was very odd, the only time we had to show our passports was getting to
Switzerland, presumably as they're not part of the EU) we set off to find the lake.
The weather was fantastic and the lake looked beautiful shimmering in the sunshine. There were lots of boats out sailing and Ross took the opportunity to do some more outdoor swimming. The lake is huge, you can charter yachts to sail round it for a holiday. The atmosphere by the lake was definitely that of a beach resort, helped out by a junior sailing class which was holding it's national championships.
Keen to continue exploring Zurich we headed back after a few hours of sunning ourselves and drinking cold drinks.
Zurich is a lovely looking city and very vibrant, after Germany you definitely noticed the more relaxed outlook with streets full of colourful and noisy restaurant and bar fronts. With a full day to explore before our night train we decided to be a bit cultural and go along to an art gallery. The gallery we visited (the Kunsthaus) had some lovely impressionist paintings, I'm a bit of a Monet fan and I was in heaven, especially with a lovely painting of Dieppe and two huge canvasses of the lily pond.
Overall we preferred the gallery in Copenhagan but this one had good variety (there was a lot of very random modern art.... and selections of 'classics' which generally weren't really to our taste but looked very comprehensive).
We needed a cool down after finding the lakefront and so hired a pedalo and went for a swim (including me this time!!! I'm not a huge fan of swimming outdoors....). It was absolutely fantastic, the water was lovely, freezing cold and aquamarine! I could have stayed there for a long time but losing feeling to my toes in the cold water was a hint to get out!
After a very relaxing afternoon it was time to head off to our next destination - Prague... This was a very long night train and we splashed out on a lovely two berth cabin. Luxury!
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