The Fourth Bridge - 5 August 2009

The reason we had detoured some little distance out of our way to be near Erfurt was so we could “collect the set”; but more of that later. On the way between our campsite and Erfurt we made another small detour to visit Weimar; probably not for the same reason that all the German tourists were visiting. We went because it is a UNESCO World Heritage listed town, although why we are not sure. It is famous for being home to Goethe, Shiller, Liszt, Bach, Strauss, Nietzsche and others and of course for giving its name to the short-lived Weimar Republic.

Although a pleasant enough spot for a coffee stop we had seen better towns on this trip that would seem more worthy of a UNESCO listing so we moved on to Erfurt, once again frustrated in our initial attempts by road closures.

Erfurt is home of the Kramerbrucke; a bridge lined on both sides with shops that gives no indication as you approach that you are anywhere other than on a normal city street. There are four bridges in the world with shops on both sides and today we collected the set as we crossed the last of the four. (Rialto, Venice; Ponte Vecchio, Florence; and Pulteney Bridge, Bath are the other three.) Kramerbrucke may not be the most well known but it is most appealing.

Although we had really come just for the bridge, we spend a pleasant few hours exploring this delightful centre that has survived in its current state mainly because it was behind the Iron Curtain when the rest of the world was in “tear down and modernise” mode.

However, we had now strayed a considerable distance from our intended path so it was back on the autobahns for a dash down to the Rhine Valley and our next campsite, just outside of Koblenz. When not slowed for the all-too-frequent road improvement works, the German autobahns are a real pleasure to drive: slower drivers understand about moving to the slow lanes rather than hogging the centre or fast lane as they do in the UK and when there are no limits posted, anything goes.

Cruising at around 100mph there are still many cars that pass you as though you are standing still and you have to be ever watchful when pulling out to pass as these vehicles fill your rear view mirror at an alarming rate.

Continental summer was at its best with shade temperatures in excess of 30C so we stopped off at Weilburg, on a bend in the River Lahn, for a refreshing Iced Coffee before completing the final leg to our delightful campsite, on the banks of the River Lahn, just before it feeds into the Rhine.

Wurzburg & Bamberg - 4 August 2009

Our campsite had been chosen to afford easy access to Wurzburg in the morning and so we had no trouble getting parking directly in front of the Bishop's Residence, a UNESCO World Heritage listed building.

As seemed to be the way with these chaps, the Prince Bishop had indulged himself in a totally over the top Baroque extravaganza. The plaster-work was amazing and it is distressing to realise that it was mostly destroyed in an Allied bombing raid and has had to be lovingly and painstakingly restored to the fabulous state it is in today.

We were particularly impressed with the Green Lacquer Room. This has green lacquer applied over silver foil which gives it a glow. It also has opposing mirrors on all four walls, compared to just two walls in most of the other rooms. Consequently, one can stand in the centre of the room, on an amazing work of inlaid flooring, and see one's reflection disappearing off in all four directions.

You get to see a good number of rooms for the admission fee and by being early seemed to have most of the rooms to ourselves. The gardens are also worth a visit but not quite on the scale of some of the other royal residences and palaces we have visited.

Leaving the Bishop's Residence we wandered around the old town before ending up at the second oldest bridge in Germany, Alte Mainbrucke, which gave great views up to the Fortress Marienburg on the hill.

Back in the car we sped across to Bamberg to look at another UNESCO World Heritage site, this time the entire old town. There are a couple of islands and a number of old bridges to add interest to the walk around the old town centre. The Dom is interesting in that it is double ended, with a Choir at both ends, built some centuries apart in totally different styles.

Having had our fill of Bamberg it was back in the car for another dash along the autobahns to our next campsite near Erfurt.

The Romantic Road II - 3 August 2009

We had not gone 100m from our hotel when we found our intended route blocked by road works. This turned out to be a portent for the day as we encountered seven barricades across our path through the day. Thankfully, after a few “in one hundred metres make a U-turn” suggestions the sat-nav finally found a way around most of them. Two were across bridges barring our way into towns that we had diverted to see (in one case about 20km) but we did not bother to find another way across the river.

Our first stop was at the epicentre of a meteor strike a few aeons ago; Nordlingen. This basically circular town, in the centre of the largest meteor crater on earth (25km diameter), is the only one left in Germany with a complete circuit town wall walk; of which we complete about a half before cutting back across the centre of town to check out the church, the largest building on earth made of Suveite, a stone created by the meteor impact.

Back on the Romantic road we headed north through Wallerstein to Dinkelsbuhl, an easily accessible, relatively tourist free, extremely attractive town, for a coffee and a rather better Black Forest Gateau.

A must-stop destination on the Romantic Road is Rothenburg ob der Tauber. The old town hall tower is worth the climb and the €2 cost for the views from the top. The access was definitely designed for a solitary bell polisher rather than the many tourists who were vying for use of the narrow steep stairs.


Also worth the €2 entry was the St Jacob's Church to see the 500 year old wooden carved altar. This magnificent piece, carved by the “Michelangelo of German wood carvers” was made to hold a piece of rock crystal which contains a scrap of fabric “miraculously stained in the form of a cross by a drop of spilt communion wine.”

Another notable sight is a picture of St Peter wearing spectacles painted on the High Altar at the front of the church.

Outside we enjoyed a pleasant stroll around the town before setting off to find towns that were barred to us by road works. We did manage to call through Creglingen and Rottingen before finding our camp site for the night, just beyond Wurzburg.

The Romantic Road I - 2 August 2009

Forsaking our country idyll and its tuneless bovine chorus we headed back to Fussen and the castles. There is a wonderful view to be had overlooking Neuschwanstein Castle but the guide book told us it was a 2-hour round trip from Marienbrucke and the driving instructions for the day we were here previously said it was a full day's drive so we did not attempt to fit the two-hour walk into that day. As it turned out, we were misled on both counts. It was not a full day's drive and we made it up to the view, took our photos and were back to the bridge in 50 minutes this morning.

Unfortunately we did not start from the bridge, we had to make the climb from the village once again and because we did not want to pay the high car-park charges we parked a little way out of the village making the whole trip car to view and return in two hours of energetic walking.


While that view was “energetic” the next was restful and contemplative as we stopped at the Wieskirche. This World Heritage site is a riot of Baroque decoration gone totally over the top.


A statue of Christ supposedly wept in 1765 and the humble little chapel that held the statue could not cope with the crowds of pilgrims that flocked to see the statue so the church fathers commissioned a new, larger church; the building of which coincided with the height of the Baroque fashion. It is absolutely amazingly astonishingly astounding.

These two sites lie at the southern end of the Romantic Road and it was this that we followed for the rest of the day; stopping at Landsberg am Lech, Freidberg, Augsberg and Donauworth of which Freidberg was not worth the detour. Other towns at the southern end of the Romantic Road were just drive-bys.

Of the ones we stopped at, Lansdsberg am Lech was the nicest although they all would have looked better in the sunlight rather than in the intermittent rain.

The Black Forest - 1 August 2009

This morning we bade farewell to our companions for the last week on the car tour and and set off on our own to explore Germany. After crossing the Rhine back into Germany we took the autobahn to Baden-Baden to find the beginning of the Black Forest High Road as all the guide books, and some of our fellow drivers from last week, highly recommended it.

The first stop was Mummelsee, a tiny lake at the top of a pass, again recommended in the guide books but we thought it a highly over-rated, tacky tourist stop-off so we drove a little further down the hill to the next cafe as we thought we had better sample the local Black Forest gateau; it was, frankly, disappointing; we have had bettter in Auckland.

It was not long until we arrived in Freudenstadt, the end of the Black Forest High Road; we were totally under-whelmed by the drive, there are many better forest drives in NZ, bur I guess these things are all relevant to one's previous experiences.

But, getting off the tourist route, things did get better. The next stop was at a stunningly beautiful town, Shiltach. The old half-timbered buildings in the centre of this medieval town, nestled in a valley, were at their best in the glorious sunshine.


Schramberg, our next stop, was not worth the detour so we pressed on to Rottweil, which definitely was worth a detour. Home of the Rottweiller dog; the old town centre is a pleasure to walk around.

Then it was time to hit the autobahn for a high speed run down to Bodensee on the Swiss/German/Austrian border to visit Meersburg. Meersburg is built up the cliffs from the lake shore and has a lower town, an upper town, several castles and squillions of tourists arriving by car, ferry, lake steamers and possibly even by zeppelin, as there was one flying overhead. There are two zeppelin museums nearby and also the Dornier museum so clearly aviation has played a large part in the recent history of the area.

But, it was time to find a campsite for the night. Optimistically, we tried a few dotted along the lake shore but they were all full so we set our sights further afield and headed out into the countryside. Quite how far out we had not bargained for! The road became not much more that a private driveway and when we finally arrived at Reidholz, the only sound was the the cow-bells tolling (all night). We discovered that we had arrived on the night of the annual village feast so during the evening we were serenaded by Bavarian music until the wee small hours.

Stelvio Tour, Day 7 - 31 July 2009

Today the route took us out of Switzerland and briefly into Germany, to have a small taste of the Black Forest, before entering France.

We choose to take a diversion to Strasburg, before arriving at our hotel in Colmar.

Strasburg has a beautiful old centre, with a large cathedral, and two squares. But best of all is Petit France, which is an area of waterways, and picturesque old half timbered buildings.

Colmar is like a miniature size Strasburg, and its picturesque area is called Petit Venice.

Stelvio Tour, Day 6 - 30 July 2009

After two days of solid mountains passes, Thursday was scheduled as a rest day. We took advantage of this to leave the MG at the hotel, and joined others in the party on a circular tour, taking in the best of the area. The first leg of out tour was a boat service to Lucerne. It made many scheduled stops at tiny villages around the lake, and almost two hours later, arrived in Lucerne.

The main feature of Lucerne is their two old bridges, the most attractive being the 14th century Chapel Bridge. After admiring these, and having a delicious lunch, we climbed the wall fortifications and two towers in the walls.

Time for stage two of the tour, the local bus to the cable car terminus. From here, there are three stages of cable car. After stage two, most of the group choose to take a diversion, and go tobogganing down the mountain side. The toboggans run in a chute, and at the bottom, the driver, plus toboggan, are towed backwards to the top.

The final cable car ride, took us to the top of the mountain, but unlike the previous two days, we were in the cloud, and unable to see the apparantly marvellous views. But the best was yet to come, from the top we decended in the steepest cog railway in the world. It is an amazing 35 minute ride, with gradients that get to 48%, and a brilliant way to end the fun day.