Tuesday, October 15th
After walking the streets early to take some photos of the town we were on our way to Rudesheim.
Rudeshiem, another cobblestoned town on the Rhine with lots of tourists. Found a parking spot right off, which is usually a challenge, and set off to buy a few necessities including an electric teapot. No luck. But we did wonder into the shops along the river and decided to take a ninety minute “castle” cruise. Sat in a cafe and shared a lunch while we waited. The cruise really didn’t amount to much although we did see two castles whose names we have no idea as the cruise tour was in German. We did catch the name of the Mice Tower. It clouded up and got pretty windy so we were glad it ended when it did. Got back to the car and found a parking ticket on the window.
Headed south to Worms where we planned to spend the night. No rooms available so on to Speyer farther south. No rooms there either. Not good. We then headed for Baden Baden and the sky opened up. Terrible drive. Driving at night in the rain with the GPS leading us astray down two long closed roads. Diane suspects road work, Phil, flooding. Optimist vs pessimist. Called and found a vacancy at the Hotel Tannenhof in Baden Baden. After the GPS had us going in circles on a dark hilltop in the rain telling us to turn left where the was no road just a drop, we switched to the iPhone. Found it around 9:00 pm. Still raining.
That night we decided to discontinue using the recommendations from our book “Back Roads Germany’.
Wednesday, October 16th
Today we heading for the Black Forest town of Triberg. Home of the world’s largest cuckoo clock, and how the scenery is changing to lush forests with mountains in the distance. Arrived around one in the afternoon. Very touristy and up hilly. Walked uphill as far as we cared to and stopped for lunch, afterwards heading back down hill. Stopped in a number of shops including a couple of clock shops. Found a locally made cuckoo clock and having it shipped home. We then stopped back at a store we visited earlier for some necessities but didn’t want to drag uphill, but no luck finding a better map.
Left Trier around 4:00 pm without a parking ticket and kinda surprised since you can only park for an hour. We just accepted that we’d probably get another one but that we’d likely live through it.
Called ahead and found a place to stay tonight in Donaueschingen and only about an hour away making for an early evening. I won’t even try to pronounce the town’s name. Along the way Diane remembers that we forgot to see the world’s largest cuckoo clock.
We’re staying at the Hotel Concorde at the flugplatz. After arriving we determined that flugplatz means air strip which we can view outside our window.
Small but nice room. Two chairs, a must, WiFi that works and we snuck in our new electric teapot. Had a nice dinner at the hotel restaurant then settled in to work on the blog.
Thursday, October17th
Our goal today is Lindau, a city located near the borders of Switzerland and Austria. Phil checks to see if we can drive in both countries, but no, we left our International Drivers licenses in our storage locker.Switzerland will honor our US driver’s license, but Austria requires the International one. So we check the suspected route and it seems we will not go into Austria. So we type Lindau into the gps, choose Lindau and push start and we’re off! We reach Switzerland and one of three armed guards approaches our car and asked if we had anything to declare. Phil replied no. Then the guard asked where were we going and Phil replied Lindau. He waves us through.
We travelled much further than we thought we should have and when the town of Lindau appeared it was nowhere near water. So we checked the iPhone to see that we were way far away from the island city of Lindau that we thought we were headed for. So we re-route, this time typing in Lindau, Germany. A bit frustrating as we should already be in Lindau.
Phil pulls in a gas station to add some fuel to the tank. Since it is quite more expensive here only gets a little. Here’s the catch, he pays with a 50 euro and gets back 35 in Swiss francs! Darn! Since we’re not going to be Switzerland long, he decides to fill up after all which just leaves him with a handful of change.
Getting hungry, we stop for lunch in a nice restaurant/coffee shop in Uzwil, Switzerland. Diane pays with her Visa card and Phil leaves all of his Swiss francs as the tip.
We got to Lindau late that afternoon and found a gasthaus to stay at near the city of Lindau. As it was a frustrating day, we ate in our room. Diane went down and bought two beers and brought them up to the room. The guy charged her for the beers and she left a euro tip. Later when she looked at her receipt noticed that the bartender had already added 50 euro to her tab.
Sadly, the beer was tasteless and the WiFi not so fast. We read until sleepy.