Beautiful Bavaria

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Our departure from Luxembourg takes us out through the Luxembourg area of the Moselle but our plan Is to get to Germany and find a site to stay for a few days, when I say site, let’s quantify that! We clearly need somewhere to sleep at night and in the UK that in the main would be in a campsite. Well in Europe they are far more accommodating of Motorhomes and set up specific Parking areas and most you can sleep in for either little or no money exchanging hands! France, Spain and Portugal are great at this and that is why it is such a popular destination for Brit’s and many other nationalities. We love these Aires they are in great locations and we always ensure we spend money in the village as a way of paying back! But we are now in Germany and they are called Stellplatz and they are neither as prevalent or as pretty!

So on the Moselle we are persistent in wanting a nice riverside location and after a couple of failed attempts. Trittenheim comes up trumps, not only does it give a lovely view of the river and vines ,it’s a massive pleasure to find that we are surrounded by Walnut Trees. Due to the slightly windy evenings the trees are dropping bountiful nuts for all of us to collect, well except that nearly everyone is after them and it’s a rush to get out with your bag first before they are all gone! The weather is holding fine for us and we are determined to get our bikes out and cycle to a winery as recommended by friend's – Google says 32mins, that’ll be easy!! Well needless to say some 12miles and some 4hrs we are back at Harvey, I have survived but Graeme has been pulling Poppy and trailer, some additional 25kg and oh we managed to go over the hill on the way back. Graeme says it was a great decent, I wouldn’t know I had my eyes shut and my brakes on!! Oh and the best bit we forgot our wallet so couldn’t even buy the wine we had gone for!! A walk above the river and amongst the vines gives a great vantage point of all the farmers getting in their harvest, we have arrived right at the start of picking, mainly by hand due to the slopes, we also understand all vines will be cleared in some 3 weeks and yielding the maximum yield for each farmer. A night in the campsite high on the plateau is our last view of The Moselle, oh and not before we drove back to The winery to pick up those important bottles!

The castle route in Germany does what it says on the tin! A short stop at Bad Wimpen gives us and enchanting prelude to what we will find on our next stop and another route The Romantic Road. In the case of the Romantic Rd, it was a desperate attempt to rebuild a tourism industry in the post-war times and the idea of the formal ‘route’ was created in 1950 not long after the creation of the Federal Republic of Germany,and at the end of the military administered occupation.

Rothenburg ob der Tauber (on the Tauber River) takes us both by surprise, it is delightful, even aside this must be one of the most visited German towns. A great Aire just outside the city walls allows us easy access to Germany's best reserved walled town, you can imagine livestock being tendered within the walls, today it’s barns are Hotels and it’s livestock are tourists!?! A return at night gives us a quieter town to stroll with some beautiful lighting illuminating some of the stars of the town our visit concludes to a typical Bavarian Eatery with traditional fayre, Rothenburg you have been the star of the show! Our journey continued down the Romantic Road in a southerly direction past more of the highlighted villages, but our draw was to get past Munich as the weather was set to diteriate.

Just past Munich is a sight of special memories to Graeme, so of course we had to make a stop, Augsburg the 1972 Munich canoe slalom course. So some 40yrs, when he was a lad, he had great fun in taking to this course, but sadly for him it was devoid of water and to be fair it looked a little tired!! but as his friend who was with him on this course said ‘so we’re they!?!?’

Our last two nights were spent at a real magnet for German visitors, Lake Chiem, a great place for a relaxing weekend, even we need to take some down time! And notably the Island in the middle ‘men’s island is home to the King Ludwig of Bavaria’s museum, a very interesting character from the Bavarian History and one I think would make interesting reading, but that’s for another day, rains forecast for the next two days so well find a place to stay and do some trip planning.

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[Jeff Cox]

Bad Wimpen building is like a building across a river in Ambleside Lake District