Shires in the Sun - 16 August 2009

We joined the Bedford MG Group for their inaugural Pilgrim's Run. This took in many villages in the shires north west of Bedford. The run overlapped another tour in our AA book, so we combined the two, to make a full day out.

None of the villages would win prizes as “most picturesque in class” but, nevertheless, provided a pleasant backdrop for a relaxing drive on a very lovely summer's day.

At the end of the run, we returned to Willington, to visit the largest dovecot to survive in the UK, which along with the stables are all that remain of the property of Sir John Gostwick, a member of Henry 8th's Court, and now comprise the only two National Trust properties in Bedfordshire.

Crooked lanes and crooked chimney - 15 August 2009

No alpine passes, no autobahns; it was back to gentle slopes and winding country lanes as we meandered around Hertfordshire today. From Redbourn on the old Roman Watling St and climbed to the dizzy heights of the Dunstable Downs before dropping down to Lilley. From there we set off on a 5-mile walk through the grain fields that seemed to stretch on and on in all directions.

This was the first time that one walk had taken us through wheat, barley and oats. Part of the walk used the Ickfield Way, Britain's oldest road, first used in neolithic times so predating the Roman Watling St by quite a margin.

The Crooked Chimney Pub was a novel place to stop for a meal and from there we were able to take a short walk along a public footpath through the grounds of a stately home opposite.

And back to where we started - 9 August 2009

The camp site had no shop and nor did the local village which meant we could not let the tent dry while we ate breakfast, so we were on the road bright and early crossing from Germany into Luxemburg, stopping at the first motorway services as the fuel is cheaper in Luxemburg. Clearly this is well known as every motorway services we saw in Luxemburg was jam packed full of vehicles.
Refueled in both body and vehicle we crossed Luxemburg and into Belgium for the long run back towards Calais.

To break the tedium we stopped in Brugge for a short time to renew our acquaintance with this delightful city. We had last visited in October 2002 and were very taken with it, so this stop was to see whether our intitial impression was still valid after 7 more years of exposure to European cities; it was.

We had been told that Oostende was worth a visit and since it is basically on the road between Brugge and Calais we made another stop there. It appears to have been faily comprehensively flattened in the war and rebuilt in a most hideous fashion. It has all the worst features of British seaside resorts without any redeeming features that we could find apart from some patches of decent sand. Definitely not worth a repeat visit in a few year's time.

Then on to Calais; a ferry, and the run home from Dover. We were a little early at the ferry, and the ferry was running a little late. This gave us time to use the last of the Eurpoean sunshine to dry the wet tent and ground sheet on top of the open car, much to the amusement of our conservative neighbours.

Up the Mosel - 8 August 2009

The snorer in the next tent woke us early so we decided to make an early start to the day so got up and headed for the showers. We had not walked more than 20m from our tent when we felt the beginning of a totally different sort of shower; so it was a mad dash back to the tent to get it down and packed away as soon as, and as dry as, possible.

Our next intended stop was a picture-postcard village on the banks of the Mosel, called Beilstein. We enjoyed a coffee in a dry cafe while waiting for the rain to pass and then wandered around the town which would look much more attractive in the sun, than in a foggy mist.

We swapped from bank to bank, following the Mosel upstream and stopped off again at Zell for another wander and coffee before heading further upstream to Trier. Although a Cetlic settlement for 1300 years before the Romans arrived, it was Constantine who really put it on the map. He made Trier the capital of the Western Roman Empire and built a massive Basilica and huge bath complex.

The symbol of the town is the Porta Nigra which is the most impressive Roman fortification in Germany and has survived only because a pious Greek recluse lived here and a monastery in his honour was founded there along with a church. The huge structure is held together without mortar, using iron pegs to join the stones.

Constantine's Basilica is the largest intact Roman structure outside of Rome and is really very impressive. What remains of Constantine's bath complex is also amazing and it is a pity that more of it has not survived the ravages of time and scavengers.

Further still up the Mosel we found a very humble camp site with the bare minimum of facilities, not the most impressive last memory of German camping. By contrast, our last German meal was very memorable. In the little village by the camp site was a Guest house that also had a restaurant. Given the number of cars outside it was clearly popular with the locals; we soon found out why.

We enjoyed a wonderful meal with a non-tourist price tag and the wine even came from the restaurant proprietors own vineyard/winery.

Down the Rhine - 7 August 2009

Rudesheim was described in one guide book as “a nostalgia trip for geriatric tourists” and really only has one “cute” street to its name; and a very cute, narrow, street it is; but it really is not worth making a detour to see compared to many of the other lovely towns we have seen on this trip.

Nevertheless we paid our tourist homage and left behind some tourist Euros for our morning coffee; then left to head down the north bank of the Rhine.

Our first stop was at Marksburg Castle, one of the three authentic medieval castles in the area; most of the others dotted along this section of the Rhine have suffered romantic “modern” 18-19th C updates. Marksburg is presented and furnished as it would have been 500 years ago, and you are allowed to take photographs inside, which is most unusual; and it was as we were taking one of the photographs that the time and date of 12:34:56 7/8/9 passed quietly by.

The Castle tours are only in German but we had a guide book with the salient features described for us so we were not too disadvantaged, apart from the fact that the German tour guide was cracking a lot more jokes than our English guide book, judging by the reactions of her audience.

Leaving the Rhine at Koblenz we changed river valleys to the Mosel and headed off upstream to the next castle that was tucked away, seemingly, in the middle of nowhere, but apparently on an ancient trade route. It is well worth making the detour to find Burg Eltz as it is in a choice position situated on a rocky promontory in a wooded valley with a river running around three sides.

The castle has been in the same family for 800 years or 33 generations and way back, when the family split into three branches they decided to build the castle with three family dwellings in a roughly triangular fashion on the top of the rock and live in a communal fashion. The castle was very progressive with “en-suite” bathrooms in ¼ of the 80 rooms, many of them flushed with rain water. They had glass in the windows when glass was still very expensive and so on; they lived very comfortably for the times and remained unconquered for most of their history.

The climb back from Burg Eltz to the car park was rather wearying on such a warm afternoon so after dropping back down to the banks of the Mosel we stopped at Cochem for a wander around and some much needed refreshment. Cochem is an overly touristy town so we crossed the Mosel and pulled into a campsite on the bank of the Mosel at Bruttig-Fankel.

On the Rhine - 6 August 2009

Leaving our picturesque, but rather noisy, campsite we set off up the Rhine to St Goar to catch a Rhine river boat cruise. But, having looked at the timetable, we decided we would fit more into the day if we drove further upstream to Bacharach and caught the boat from there.


We had time to explore a little of Bacharach before the boat sailed taking us on a leisurely look at what is reputed to be the best part of the Rhine. The schedule allowed us either an hour-twenty or two hours-twenty before a return sailing.

We climbed the hill behind St Goar to the Burg Rheinfels, a romantic ruin on the skyline. Once a huge and powerful citadel it is now a ruin providing wonderful views over the Rhine. We finished the castle and realised that we had 20 minutes to get back to the wharf or we would have to fill in another hour. We made it, just – even managing to buy a drink on the way back through the main street.

After a pleasant, relaxing, return boat trip we spent a little more time finishing off our exploration of Bacharach before driving on to find the first bridge back across the Rhine and then headed back up the other side to Rudesheim where we found our next campsite on the banks of the Rhine.

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.