Day 53 and 54 - Hanging at Hagnau, then up the lake to Lindau
Steve, I feel your pain
The camping was out on the edge of Hagnau am Bodensee. After totally cooling off by sitting out on the beach in the dark to watch the fireworks across the lake, we had what was probably the coolest night we have had in 2 months. Very comfortable, actually. It was nice to sleep in without the tent becoming too hot. During the day we did 23 km of fiddling about, I made a trip back down to Meersburg, looking for something for us to eat, and then in the late afternoon we went up the lake to the next town of Immenstaad. A perfect day for those sailing as well as all the tourists and locals out for the weekend.
The Bodensee radweg which runs all around the lake does not dip into every town and its waterfront along the way. This makes sense, of course, but we found that we weren't seeing much of the lake as we followed the radweg. So we just went out exploring a little from our campsite and found the next little town of Immenstaad to be delightful. Lots of tourists, or very touristic as Achim would have put it, but a real gem.
We pull into Immenstaad, which is off the radweg and the first thing that catches our eye is this great playground ship
Man I watched this boat go right past the dock and ate my heart out. This pic was taken while he was still quite far away. Look at Switzerland and the alps in the background
The tour boat is ready to leave. We watched it leave but it didn't set the sail. I don't think it would sail upwind very well if at all, and the wind is coming straight at us off the lake, so I think it would motor out to the other side of the lake and then sail back downwind
We got some eis and sat on a bench eating it as it started to get dusky, so we headed back to camp even before finishing the cup of gelato that we each had. It was a very enjoyable evening and overnight it was very comfortable again, not quite as cool as the night before.
So this morning we got up and broke camp and headed back east up the lake toward Friedrichshofen where we needed to find a place that would print a couple of documents for us, then we could sign them and get them scanned so we could send them back to our mortgage broker.
The first thing we noticed as we came into Friedrichshofen (for the second time) was the number of painted zeppelin things all over town.
We hunted around a bit looking for the tourist information and decided it would be better to find some breakfast instead and we could get the hotspot booted up and look for stuff from there. We found a konditorei that did a breakfast menu and so sat down to a nice meal. But when the waitress asked what we wanted to drink, Erika told her hot chocolate, which was fine, but when we told her I wanted cold milk, she practically laughed out loud. Still, they brought me some cold milk, but now I understand Steve's quest for a decent sized cup of coffee...
Marvin PaxmanTo Steve Miller/GrampiesIt was good, and enough to make us sandwiches for later. Erika was working on a really nice bowl of porridge. Reply to this comment 5 years ago
We asked the waitress about a place to do printing and copying and she gave us directions to the area of the bahnhof. We didn't find it right away but did find a post office and they gave us better instructions for the same place which we found. We were able to do the print, sign, scan thing for just under 3 euros, so we were happy and headed out of town going east up the lake.
As we left the city, we were in lots of orchards. We were not seeing much of the lake as the land was all privately owned.
When we did come to a village on the lake, the wind was blowing hard off the lake and it really smelled quite bad. We are not sure what is going on that makes the wind coming off the lake so stinky, but there is a hundred meters or more of muddy water along these shores before the lake becomes blue
Eventually the rain caught up with us and I didn't take much for pictures. I don't want the camera to get too wet like it did 4 years ago on the Mosel.
We pedaled through a lot of rain getting into Lindau. Lots of cyclists on the radweg. Most of them were seeking shelter under trees or awnings, but not us! There were a few who were as wet as us, but it wasn't cold so really not so bad. It did leave us in a quandary as to where to stay since we had been planning on trying to find a campsite that was a few kms up and out of town away from the lake. We finally pulled into a conditorei as the rain eased up and dried up a bit while booting up the hotspot and searching google. We found exactly where the campground was but decided to head to the little touristic island where there was an information place and see what they could help us find. So we are comfortably in a hotel (not on the island, way too expensive) that is just a km or two from the bridge on to the island. We will be able to explore some tomorrow, even though it is supposed to rain for sure.
It was starting to rain again, but I snapped a couple of shots while on the island, just to whet our appetites.
