Day 43:Wangen (Germany) to Rhein Spitz (Switzerland): ... and with a wave to Austria
Work in progress still - with some raw uploaded photos so captions to follow.
Our hotel put out a really fine breakfast buffet, with great quality, selection, and quantity. Then they handed me the keys to the parking garage. All this, since last night, was before seeing any identification or payment. I appreciate this type of trust.
Soon we were back on the wonderful street, full of quality cheese, fruits, etc. and ready to go. From Wangen there are several routes to the Bodensee, and it can be a bit confusing. We abandoned our original plan and shot for Lindau, a little further east around the lake. Even doing this there were a few bike route choices. We initially followed the "Way of the Frog" as I called it, then the "Blue Wheel" bicycle symbol, and finally we just shot into town on the bike path beside a main road.
The altstadt of Lindau is on an island, just a little offshore and linked by two short bridges. Just before hopping over we found a sporting goods store, and it yielded what I had expected could only be found in REI - a small size folding silicon mug. One of the luxuries offered on my bike is hot coffee service. But when you drink straight from the flip open thermos lip, you can burn your own lip. So a mug is best. My regular folding mug lives in the kitchen bag, so clearly I needed one in the handlebar bag.
Our glee at finding this rare item turned to a little less glee when we found that unlike the REI version, this thing can not easily be collapsed/refolded. In fact, it was a real bug. Fortunately our next stop was a post office, for yet another mail back of souvenirs. (Sorry Marius/Sandra, is the post office making you come down to pick up each one?) That allowed me 20 minutes outside to fool with the thing, and after trying ten or so methods, I got one that worked. Needless to say the "do it right" committee would not have accepted the method called "just squish it into the bag"!
Over the bridge, then, and we were immediately cast in to tourist heaven/magnificent old town/cafe central. After we got past the "my grandma got me this tee shirt in Lindau" type shops, we arrived in the first hyper attractive square. With a church, fountain, cafes, and frescoed building, we at first took thisnto be the main rathaus square. No way, the building was "just" a museum. A people filled beautiful street lead deeper into wonderland. However, we just parked in the shade by the museum and ate our lunch. There, we answered some UQs, including from a lady from Greece, who also wanted a photo of the bikes (not us, apparently) We took the opportunityto ask some UQs about Greece, so that was fair.
We are torn. We clearly can not look at every altstadt we pass between here and Amsterdam, though in fact, we want to!, This time we turned our back on the rest of Lindau, and headed for Bregenz.
Spinning eastward around the lake, we shared the radweg with scores of day cyclists. This is what we have called "bunny weg" - bike path that is dead flat and suported by ice cream shops every km. We love it.
All along the shore here it is swimmable, and lots of people were enjoying a beach scene. We slid past Bregenz, which looks like a pretty major place. However we never left the beach to go see. Our maps showed us lots of altstadt stuff, just "over there ", but we had done so few kms, we decided to sail on past. Scratch altstadt #2. What are these Grampies doing? Next they will start bypassing bakeries. Is nothing sacred?
Beyond Bregenz, on the way to Rorsach, we paused at an unsigned intersection to puzzle about how to turn. Magically, as often happens, a road angel popped up. His name was Bernie, and he lives near here. Not only could he point us in the right direction, but he said since we were going his way, he would be our guide. So, for about 10 km, we followed Bernie. In fact, we followed him right into his driveway! Actually, he invited us for a cup of coffee.
Bernien had to been to Canada a few times, and knew our area. So we had fun mentioning placesnwe all have been. It is a priviledge as a tourist to talk to and get to know a real local. Thanks for giving us those couple of hours, Bernie,
The Rhine runs into the lake here, coming down from its source about 150 km south in the Alps. It formed a delta, and today there are two water courses, the engineered (new) Rhine, and the original or Altes Rhine. The old Rhine forms the border between Austria and Switzerland. We crossed it on a small bridge, and then cycled beside it to where it enters the Bodensee. This is the Rhein Spitz, and it's where, at a yacht club campground, we have pitched our tent.
The breakfast buffet at Hotel Moren Post was super - this is just a part of it.
I must be the only person in Germany (who is not an official of some sort) that is wearing a yellow safety vest. So when I snapped this photo of for me a dream van, the owner got nervous and promised to move it right away!
But a man spontaneously directed us to what he said was the best bakery in town. Grampies must look hungry, even when they are not. Still, we bought two quark tasche (cheese danish) just for the hell of it.
