Advertisement
Published: June 26th 2017
Edit Blog Post
Konstanz is a strange place with a smidgen of the town on the south side of the Rhine and the rest on the north side, all part of Germany. We set off this morning shortly after 9am on a perfect day with a gentle breeze. We knew we had to get back to the other side of the Rhine to where we hired the bikes but finding the correct trail wasn't straight forward and we had to ask for help from a local to get back onto the trail proper. From thereon it was a matter of following the large green arrow which didn't always occur exactly at a bend so there was the odd time we went down the wrong way before turning back.
We knew that we had all day until 4pm to do 56 kms so we took our time with lots of stops. Our first extra mileage was to Reichenau Island which is accessed by a tree lined causeway from the mainland, through a wetland of rushes and eventually onto the island which is now used for market gardening because of the climate and soils. It is only 4.3km long and also has a famous monastery
on it.
Back on the mainland our trail took us through villages, along the lakeside, past many camping and swimming areas, through marshes, through market gardens and through cropping land. Radolfzell was the main town along the way but we didn't call in and kept to the lakeside out and around the Hori peninsula to Moos where we had a long relaxing lunch. This part seems to have a lot of parkland and hills which we went up and over. Our first lot of hills were a gentle incline uphill over distance which wasn't too bad. However, closer to our destination we had to climb a couple of steep hills which I had to push the bike up. The bikes are not light so even doing that wasn't easy. At 31 degrees, by this time I was hot and bothered and over heating - shades of the Danube Trail with high temperatures.
It was bliss to arrive in Stein am Rhein back in Switzerland where we have a well appointed hotel called the Chlosterhof with Air Conditioning. Yay! A nice cool bath and lots of water to drink soon had the body temperature back to normal.
The
Stein am Rhein
Note the wonderful paintings on the buildings hotel is right on the edge of the Old Town so we were able to have a thorough explore through the streets. Last time we visited the streets were crammed with tourists. This time it was deserted and we had an unemcumbered view of all the buildings and streets. This town is an absolute gem and crowned the most beautiful town in Switzerland. It has well preserved buildings and houses decorated with paintings of scenes and people. Many of the houses are half timbered houses dating back to the 14 hundreds. We had dinner outside in the street with great views of the town before heading back to our cool hotel. I should also note that being back in Switzerland, even briefly, our dinner cost twice as much as last night.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.075s; Tpl: 0.017s; cc: 13; qc: 29; dbt: 0.0255s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb