Day 42: Bad Waldsee to Wangen: Grus Gott! We really are here.

August 29, 2013

We saw so much today that it's going to take a bit to get the story up. If you are reading this, it means that stuff that follows (if any) is just under construction...actually, only captions for the photos are missing now. From the text you can probably figure out most of them, but some will still be a puzzle. For example there is a photo that has a house with a half balcony with flowers and the other half is windows with flowers. Then there is a house later on with all balcony with flowers. Why did I take and include these shots? Because it shows the transition in styles from northern Bavaria to Switzerland and Austria. Well, that explains one thing, but more captions will be needed for lots of other photos!

Our neighbours in the Bad Waldsee parking lot

Any doubt that we had arrived in Bavaria, the land of half timbered houses, flowers, bakeries, painted rathauses, and rolling hills, was erased today. Was it ever! The bare 50km we managed to cover produced 178 photos, 58 of which are reproduced here. It will take a bit of patience for me to explain them, and patience for you to look at them, but maybe you will be able to experience a bit of what it is like to be here.

It was just 5 minutes from our parking lot home to the middle of Bad Waldsee old town. The Bad part of the name comes from the thermal springs here, with lots of health spas associated. The See, or lake, part comes from the lovely little lake that the town is on. But the first thing for us was the rathaus square and nearby streets of half timber and/or frescoed buildings.

Actually, the first thing was the first bakery, since we did not cook breakfast in the parking lot. About 10 euros bought us four great "danishes", two sandwiches, and a large coffee. About the sandwiches - brotchen with ham and cheese and lettuce and tomato - it was Dodie as usual who first mentioned the obvious, that I had missed. I just naturally assumed it a lucky break that "lunch" had already been made and as always, happened to be waiting for us to buy at 7 a.m. The fact of course is that in Germany they eat these lunch foods for breakfast. Duh!

The other first thing, having slept in a parking lot, was the desirability of finding a toilet. Bakery I did not have one. Solution? Move on down a half block to bakery II. Of course, it's onlty polite to buy something - lie another coffee and two more danish. You can never have too many, right?

On into the main streets, and here is what we saw:

Bad Waldsee old city - the rathaus and an adjacent building

The "spital" church. Spital, I believe, refers to a travellers' hostel and gives the words hospital and hospitality.

Bad Waldsee old city - another street scene

When finally we brought ourselves to leave, we were glad that Dodie spotted our route sign, right on the middle of the square.

Dodie found this, our bike route sign, in the middle of the street. She was the hero until we followed it and found it pointed in the wrong direction!

Pwerversely, this only gave us a tour of the lake side - the bloody sign had been installed backwards! Once we figured this out, we successfully made our way to the next sign, which after 30 minutes of spinning in circles, we can prove was also a misdirection. Irf we were not so dizzy, we would go to the council and demand they clean up that act!

It's a lovely lake, but off route for us. Darn sign!

Finally we were underway. We knew that our maps showed no camping until we would reach Bodensee, about 90 km away, but we were confident it would be no problem. Oh, except that Dodie's rear tire was soft - 30 psi. I pumped it to 75 and promised it some attention "soon".

The main thing about the route was what had made such an impression on us last year in Bavaria - rolling greens, villages visible across the valley, with all the same rust coloured tile roofs and iconic church with onion like dome, houses with cascading red flowers, flowers everywhere generally, and bakeries in any sizable town.

One other thing, that we have seen throughout the trip but never mentioned until now, is posters for small travelling entertainments. Here it's circuses, but elsewhere it hs been monster trucks, tribute bands, or US car shows. As we move from town to town, we see the posters of the same entertainments, indicating on which days they will be in town.The town and landscapes are fascinating to us, but for locals an occasional monster truck outing must be a welcome change!

Travelling events like this are found all across our route in Germany

Green green land - and it's not even Spring

Hillside town and church - a typical sight today

There were roadside fruit trees, as in Saxony. Of course, most trees belong to somebody. I defined roadside as meaning I could pick the fruit from the road.

The route descended into a large gully, with this mill at the bottom. Later, of course, we had to climb out.

The missing link - a house with 1/2 flowered windows and 1/2 flowered balcony!

In Bavaria, generally, there are flowers everywhere.

As we viewed the green expanses, I commented that even here could be appropriate Julie Andrews (Sound of Music) territory, except the hills were not steep and mountains are needed for background. Dodie insisted that we were on hills, something I pooh poohed. So Dodie has requested the inclusion of the following photo, qas objective evidence to support her case. Don't you hate smart alec statisticians!

Actually, no matter how you define a hill, we struggled mightily to finally reach Wolfegg. We had done precious few km, but were beat. We stopped at the tables of a cafe bakery that was closed for the lunch hour (go figure!)to eat our sandwiches from "breakfast". Here a man, strangely dressed in heavy cross necklace and what appeared to be a lady's dress, asked us some usual questions, but also blessed us in wishing a good journey. Not sure if he was a pilgrim, or ?, but we will take any blessings that are on offer.

Also at the cafe was a bicycle help station. Judging from the bike skelton that marked the spot, this was from our school of bike repair.

We finally got driven off by wasps. It's the time of year when they are most active.

The bike repair station, with a past patient, no doubt.

What we got driven to was the schloss and main church -St Katharina - of Wolfegg.

This churh dates from the 1300's, I think, and many walls seemed extremely old indeed. Inset in the walls were statues, of knight - like figures. I noted that given their wide girths, their armor makers would have spent time letting out the seams, so to speak. Look at the one below, the guy's poor lion seems really worried about their chances in the next battle.

The worried lion. This is at least 400 years old.

Inside the church was the full mind boggling blow you away excess that we have come to know and love in Catholic churches. Here are just a few of our shots. How about that book reading calf! Anyway, it sure makes the Dresden Lutheran Frauenkirche look conservative.

A close look reveals many inexplicable details

The church was completely covering in this stuff

Back on the road againwe continued through the pleasant but rather taxing landscape, Dodie's tire seemed soft again, and in fact it had returned to 30 psi. Pumping it revealed hissing, through a small slit in the tread. We chose sone shade and went through the mess making that a flat in the rear of as loaded bike entails. A man happened along, and this turned out to be Bart Bakker. Bart is from Friesland, |Netherlands, but has just moved to Spain. Bart saw Netherlands as a dour place, compared to Spain. He said the Dutch economy was going down the drain, dragged down my economic pessimism. Bart and his wife, both musicians, had found it was time to leave.

Many many barns and houses here are covered with solar panels

Aha, the first house with full, flowered balconies

Dodie is way down one of those non-existent hills

Kislegg, the town we shortcutted past and that tourist information in Wangen tried to send us back to.

Our first view of the mountains. Now we have a better case for this being Julie Andrews worthy.

A slit in the bottom of Dodie's tire allowed a tiny pebble to work in. Next time, it's no more Green Guard tires.

Bart Bakker from Friesland - now lives in Spain!

Laurie, you may think Montana is a zoo but we think it's a circus.

Traffic intensified as we approached Wangen. It was clear that with the hills and flat, and church to look at in Woolfegg, we were not going to reach Bodensee today, On the other hand, we knew of no camping near Wangen. We entered the old town through one of three ancient gates, and immdiately the noise of the new town died away. Here was the most amazing assembly of beautiful old buildings, with cafes and bakeries galore. We found the tourist information, and I wheeled my bike in. The young woman behind the counter objected to this, a sign of unhelpfulness to come. I asked if she could find us a place to stay, and she said the entire town was 100 percent booked. As to what we might find or could do at the caravan site we had spotted online she said camping there was "illegal". She said she maybe could find a room at Kislegg, and seemed put off when we protested that that was two hours Backwards for us.

At this stage, evening was coming and we had no food on board, little water, and nowhere to go. Dodie pretty musch had had it. After a day of struggling with hills and bad knees, she now refused to go find the grocery, saying we would get lost. And she refused to go eat among the cafes, saying they would take too long. She was probably right on both counts But we headed towards the cafes anyway, thinking to find water. With water we could wild camp somewhere out of town, and we did have a bit of dry spaghetti, and even two Baby Bell tiny cheeses.

Among the cafes and beautiful buildings I spied a beautiful hotel. Well hell, let's see what they say. The conversation with the lady behind the desk was all in German, and therefore may have lacked nuance, since I speak like a one year old. Still, there seemed to be no problem about a room or place to store the bikes. There would be breakfast tomorrow, and we would pay later. The cost was 98 euros. I came back out to Dodie with a key in my hand. The hero!

Supper in front of the hotel was superbly flavourful. I think cream and butter have a lot to do with it. My dish was called the Swabian trio - not sure what was in there anymore, but it was great, as was Dodie's schnitzel. We avoided drinks, as we have seen that these are dramatically overpriced in Germany, to match the unavailability of free table water. However we blew our savings on dessert, strudel for me of course, and a stange island of "something" floating in a sea of rhubarb "something" soup. I'll have to get Dodie to fill in here about what that actually was. She liked it, I know.

In this old, old building we rather expected our room to be tiny, with a toilet down the hall. Wrong. The halls here are wide and luxurious, and our room is very large with granite topped desk, shower, flat screen tv, etc. Best of all, our window opens to the magical street of frescoed buildings.

So, our credit card tooik us from vagrants searching for water to freshly showered aritocrats. And about that water - its complementary sparkling mineral water by Siebers. The bottle says since 1428, but right now, it's party time for the thirsty cyclists!

Our hotel. Our room is near the top on the left!

It's party time! Only cyclists could think you can party on water.

Today's ride: 51 km (32 miles)
Total: 2,710 km (1,683 miles)

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