Germany

Castles in the Rain



15th June

This morning it was pissing down, maybe it rains all the time in the Alps. We head for Fussen and the first stop for us on the Romantic Road, we are taking this route as I want to visit family who live in Cologne, and a more direct route as we head into Holland, so taking in this tourist road we kill two birds with one stone. The Romantic Road or “Romantische Straße” was devised to create tourism in the 1950’s and is now Germany’s biggest tourist attraction.

Fussen is a typical Bavarian town on the border with Austria, the peaks of the Alps are all around,  it has quaint buildings and an old castle, the first of a few we will see on this road. Finding a place to park in Fussen was difficult as most of the car parks we saw were underground with a 2m height restriction, we ended up parking in a badge holders bay, and took a chance that the wardens were not as hot as in Kensington.
No ticket or clamp when we got back it was off to see Neuschwanstein Castle and the Royal Castle Hohenschwangau a few km up the road in Schwangau, the cost to park the van there 8.50, and both these castles are within walking distance of each other, however the walk up the steep hills to both are tiring.

Hohenschwangau

 

Some info I picked up on the various signs around the castles.

 

The Royal Castle Hohenschwangau was erected by King Maximilian II as a summer residence on the ruins of a fortress built by the knights of Schwangau in the 12th century, and was the parental home of King Ludwig I.

Neuschwansten

Neuschwansten castle dates back to 1363, the castle got damaged by war several times and was only saved from complete destruction in 1820, in 1832 it was bought by the Bavarian Prince Maximilian who got it remodelled in neo gothic style by the famous artist and architect Domenico Quaglio.

80 miles 1hr 45min

 

Castles over for the day, we headed further up the road to the historic town of Schongau our stop for the night beside the river Lech, 47.808979 10.898310 5€p/n with usual services. When we arrived it was still raining, so a walk into the town would have to wait till tomorrow, fingers crossed for a dry day.



16th June


An early start, 8pm and we were walking about the town of Schongau, some old buildings of interest, and a well preserved perimeter wall, lying on the Roman road from Augsberg to Italy. We are not visiting all 34 towns and cities on this 400 odd km road, but cherry picking what we feel to be the best.

Every German town has a Rathaus "Town Hall"

 

 

Telephone kiosk turned into a library

So next up was Landsberg am Lech, a medieval old town with history dating back 850 years. 48.055351 10.873750 4€ for 4hrs or 7€ per day.

The entrance to Landsberg

 

The square in Landsberg

 

 And who drinks in a café like this?

 

 

Then it was onto Augsburg founded in 8 BC by the Romans, and one of Germany’s oldest cities, it has museums, art galleries, monuments and art treasures from all periods, a fantastic place. 48.369629 10.877790 1€ per hr or 8€ per day

Augbergs Rathaus

 

 

 

Some great music was made in this studio

The house the Mozart lived in

 



Next up was our stop for the night at Donauworth, we are following the Romantische Straße brown signs instead of the direct routes which are mainly motorways, following these takes us through the different landscape of Bavaria, and many small towns and hamlets.

72 miles 2hrs

 

Uncle Ludwig

 

Donauworth is another fine example, a town with fugger houses and stately buildings, the site is on a large car park besides where the Wornitz joins the Danube, with reserved motorhome spaces for 15, these were full on arrival and it appeared some of them where full timing there, as Sam was looking for a free space she saw one of the occupants a man dressed in women’s clothing? There was also two caravans parked in the bays, and one motorhome was in the picture on the camper contact site, obviously not moved in years. We decided to park at the far end of the car park and was joined later by two other vans. 48.714920 10.779030 free with a Relais point.
























17th June


We visited Harburg Castle in the morning 48.783810 10.686650 3€ entrance fee. Formally belonging to the Staufen dynasty and never captured it overlooks the Danube.

Harburg Castle

 

Houses within the castle

After a coffee and strudel it was on to Nordlingen.

 

 19 miles
 

Nordlingen is at the middle of the romantic road, and has the only completely preserved and fully accessible town wall that encapsulates the historic town.

We took a walk around the wall, it’s over 1.7km and took us 50min to walk around, taking in the sites en-route. The town itself is busy with many museums and old buildings of note, we stopped at a beer garden and sampled beer from a local micro brewery.

 

 

 A bronze of the town

 

Rathaus

 

The stellplatz as they are called here in Germany, is a 5min walk 48.855251 10.483450 3€ per day with two EHU stations, paid on a meter which is very common on all the sites we have visited to date, along with the machine to purchase your ticket for the camping to be displayed on your window. We met an Irish couple and a Scottish couple that were also doing the romantic road and chatted briefly with them, and later on three other vans with British plates arrived, it was a sunny day the first we have had, the chairs came out and we sat till late enjoying a few cold ones.



18th June


First stop Wallerstein 5km up the road, it was raining hard so after a quick look we headed to Dinkelsbuhl.

Wallerstein

Dinkelsbuhl a lovely town set in the countryside with well preserved city walls with towers and gateways and old burgher houses. 49.06400 10.32681 free.

 Dinkelsbuhl

 

Schillingsfurst was the next stop about 45km further, we had planned to stop at the town of Feuchtwangen but could not find a place to park up, the rain was not abating so we kicked it into touch and drove on. Again on arrival at Schillingsfurst 49.290197 10.262187 free, it was still tamping down, and a 8€ p/p walk around the castle was shelved over a coffee and a sandwich in the van, as the heavens opened up.

 A miserable day to visit Schillingsfurst

 

It was now onto Rothenburg o.d Tauber 15km further on. Rothenburg was a fantastic city, it had a Xmas feel to the place with its many toy shops selling wooden traditional toys, every house in the Old Town is a sight in itself, not to mention the many gateways, towers and museums, the town clock with window shutters that opened at 15min intervals showing mannequins drinking from steins, ensured a crowd of Japs cameras at the ready.

 

You can walk around part of the city wall

 

 

Waiting for the shutters on the town clock to open

The signs in the shops were in three languages German, English and Japanese, it was here we tried Schneeballen “Snowball” a local cake made from shortcrust pastry, I can only imagine what this place is like with it’s Xmas market in December, paradise for children with an innocent imagination. 49.370522 10.183220 2€ per hr or 10€ per day.

Our last stop for the day was at Rottingen chosen in 1953 as the First European Town of Germany, a captivating town with historical town centre, surrounded by a medieval city wall with fortified towers. 49.507179 9.970180 5€ plus 2€ for 24hr EHU. It has a particularly interesting 2km sundial walk with 25 unique timepieces, we found 22 of them 3 were on the outskirts of the town, for the life of me I couldn’t see how many of them worked,  but each piece was a work of art.

A view over the Tauber to the Stellplatz

 

 

 

Three of the many sundials doted around the town

 

 

 

19th June



The last day of the Romantische Straße, out of the six places still left we plan to cram in three of them, first up Bad Mergentheim, fine half timbered houses and Baroque palaces are grouped around the old town hall 49.492031 9.791980 5€ per day, although we opted to park in Lidl’s car park for free

Bad Mergentheim

 

Stop two was at a tongue twister Tauberbishofsheim, one of the oldest towns in the Tauber valley, the stellplatz is at 49.6261 9.665750 but again we stopped in a Lidl car park for free.

 Max as popular as ever, we have had requests from Japanese, Moroccan and Portuguese to take a picture of him along this trip, he his a little attention seeker. 

 

Tauberbishofsheim

 

The last place we are visiting is the historic city of Wurzburg and in my opinion the best city we have come across on this whole trip, I could write a book on this place, its bridge lined with Baroque statues of Saints spanning the river Main, the spires of the cathedral and churches on the skyline, it has history jumping out at you on every street corner. The city has great shopping areas with restaurants and bars galore, and Sam treated herself to some clothes in the sale, we paid 3€ at the park which enables you to stop overnight 49.797103 9.923062, it was crowded with vans but there was room for many more, we could happily have stayed here the night, but we wanted to break up a long journey to Cologne.

 

Our tour of the Romantic Road was over, it was enjoyable but pretty much same’ish and touristy, as you went on from place to place, we saw some lovely towns and cities, which we probably may never have seen if we had used my other plan, and headed to the Munich beer halls and North!
So late in the afternoon we headed for Aschaffenburg about 50 miles and an hour up the road, I get our first taste of the Autobahn on the E42, cars whizz by at incredible speed, no speed limit, I'm happy plodding along at 60 mph. We got to Aschaffenburg and at the festplatz 49.970970 9.138630 there was a barrier across, there was a fair going on for some local festival, unable to stop or pull over and driving around aimlessly with no contingency plan in place, all the while the satnav is telling me to turn around at the next opportunity, eventually I found a spot and pulled in.
There are many places in CC but most of them the wrong way, the nearest reasonable one in the direction we are going is 55 miles away, so we set off. Picking up the motorway again it starts lashing down, and getting darker by the minute, I have not put my beam deflectors on as I never drive in the dark, I am getting flashed by everyone so have no alternative but to drive with my side lights on, fortunately after skirting Frankfurt it lightened up, eventually pulling into the campsite at about 7.30pm. We learned something today after 7 months on the road, have a back up plan in place in the event we can’t get onto a site!

152 miles 3hrs 40min

 

We have left Bavaria and are now in the region of Hesse at a place called Weilrod, in the mountains somewhere 50.310755 8.426564 10€ for us and the van 1€ for Max, EHU on a meter. We are shattered and it’s way past beer o’clock, we fashion a meal together and settle in for the night.



20th June


The reason we are heading to Cologne is to visit my relatives, my auntie Anita “my mother’s sister” and uncle Gerd, and my cousin Andreas and his wife Heike, my Auntie is in hospital at present for 3 weeks having physiotherapy, and the plan is to go to Cologne and stop at a campsite there on the Rhine, meet up with Andreas for a few drinks, then on Sunday he will pick up my uncle and I, and take us to the hospital to visit my aunt, Plan A
This morning I receive a message that Andreas has been taken ill and diagnosed with thrombosis and a lung embolism, he is not sure if he has to stay in hospital, but one thing for definite is that he has to rest. We take stock of the unfortunate news and I decide to head to Eckinhagen about 45 miles from Cologne, to the hospital and visit my Auntie alone.
Along the way we stopped at a town called Braunfels, where we saw another castle perched high on the mountain.

Braunfels Castle

 

74 miles 1hr 15min

 

We find that there are two places to stay in Eckinhagen and drove to the first, 50.986591 7.693540 free, once again there is some festival going on with a fair set up, so we drive a few km to the other at a car park aside a sports hall 50.993082 7.693178 free no services.
Shortly after arriving I checked my phone and I have a message from Andreas that he has to stay in hospital overnight, but Gerd will pick him up and drive to the campsite and pick me up at 12.30 on Sunday, then drive to Eckinhagen and we visit my aunt then drop me back later, Plan B.
I got in touch and told him that I had kicked Cologne into touch and was at Eckinhagen, and only 1.5km from the hospital and I could either meet them there or they could pick me up from here, Plan C.
There was some nice walks for Max, we then settled in for the evening, and a shandy or two.



21st June


Andreas and Gerd are picking me up at 1.30 – 2.00, they arrived and when realising Sam would not be going because of Max, they would bring my aunt to the van, as she wanted to see Sam again, the fresh air and a walk would do her good also, Plan D
Gerd went to pick Anita up, and we had a coffee and a good chat outside the van when they came back, luckily it wasn't raining, we took a walk and although my aunt is frail, she was able to walk up a hill, and some parts unassisted without having to hold on to myself and Heike.
It was great to spend a few hours with my German relatives and especially seeing my aunt, fingers crossed for her bless, we plan to revisit Cologne and have that beer with Andreas soon.

We left Eckinhagen and travelled to a place called Soest in the North Rhine Westphalia region 51.575062 8.114780 it was motorway all the way, and it rained off and on for most of the journey.

80 miles 1hr 30min

 

The site is owned by City Motel a self service type, book online and print your ticket out. its 8€ a night with metered EHU, we paid for 2 nights, then noticed later on a sign if you stay 3 days it’s 20€ and if you stay a week 40€, knowing that we would have stayed another day, it also has good showers and wifi.
First impression of the place is good, a town with character, it has a multitude of historical buildings, and the many medieval churches, and some of the old buildings are built from a greenish sandstone unique to this area.

Pay attention to signs as you drive in!

After we set up we noticed some sort of festival taking place in a large marquee just outside the hotel, we wandered over and there was a stall outside selling beer, and a stall selling Bratwurst in a bun, and a larger bar inside. We asked if it was ok to have a beer and were welcomed.

A few of my new drinking buddies having a few sherbet's.

The festival is a Schutzenfest and there are many different paramilitary uniforms being worn by the participants, it has been on for three days and today is the last day, the beer and schnapps is cheap, and quite a few of the folk look the worse for wear, it didn't take me long to integrate and soon the different flavoured schnapps and beer were going down a treat, sadly at about 9pm the party was ending and we headed back to the van to carry on, we have no driving tomorrow, the Romantic Road was 5 days of solid driving we need a break.



22nd June


Well golly gosh it rained all night and it has been raining off and on all day, the weather has been damp to say the least in Germany, one nice day in Nordlingen in the last 9 days. A break in the rain saw us hurry into the town to check it out, it managed to stay dry till we had finished, the rain also gave me a chance to do this blog.

 

 

I don't think a plumb bob was used on this building

23rd June



A late start for us, and a change of plan. We read last night while looking for a place to stop, that to enter Munster you need an emissions sticker,  you can get fined 40€ if you don't have one and at 12.50€ to get one we feel it's not worth the hassle for one city.
Munster looked like a great city, and one we will visit some other day, so we head up to a little town called Riesenbeck, not far from the Dutch border.

83 miles 1hr 25min

The stellplatz is free EHU on meter 52.256390 7.633160 it is beside a canal, and a short walk into the town.

Gone are the clear blue sky's we have become used to, back to reality and the drab weather we call summer.

The canal is busy with long barges going past both ways frequently, a stroll into the town for some bits at Aldi, we come across Saigon Wok, Chinese tonight it is.

 There are quite a few metal sculptures in the town

Last day in Germany Max

I took a picture of the menu so we could go back to the van and translate it

 

 

650 odd miles 10 days

Stayed at 9 places , visited many more

 

Well Auf Wiedersehen Germany, I can honestly say we've enjoyed it, even if the weather has been poor, tomorrow we will be in the Netherlands, we are planning to visit Amsterdam for a few days, a favourite city of ours, we missed Koningsdag “Kings Day” this year, a first in many years, we then plan to visit the home of Swansea’s sister club Dan Haag, The Hague, then into Belgium for a few days and onto Ypres and the Menin Gate, then it will be France for a day or so and home.

This will probably be the last blog until France or when we are back in England, I will do a summary of the trip, with a breakdown of costs, mileage etc. Sam has left fair and honest reviews on all the sites we have visited, on Camper Contact and Camping Car Info for anyone that uses these two great web sites, at times especially of late it’s been hard getting the blog out with internet problems and the Google Microsoft issue, I have tried to tell it as it is warts and all, and have appreciated those who took the time to leave comments, it was nice to know people were following it. I honestly say though, if you have enjoyed the blog and a motorhome owner, or maybe not yet, and feel tempted in anyway that this is something you’d like to do, do it now while you have the chance, tomorrow may never arrive. Thanks Baz for the kick up the arse.