The Grand Vistas of Innsbruck

So we spend the morning driving out of Switzerland, which takes us through Zurich. We'd thought about going to Zurich, but then thought why, when we hadn't really heard anyone rave about it, why not go to Lucerne which we'd heard is nice and the rest is as they say, history. Skirting Zurich we didn't regret our decision. And after road works sent us off the motorway and through some diversions on clogged up city streets, we couldn't wait for the traffic to clear and get out of Zurich. Finally we were nearly out of Switzerland. Given how close we were, we ducked off the motorway and crossed a river into Lichtenstein.

We found some free parking in Lichtenstein (they probably have to do all they can to encourage people to stop there!) and walked a couple hundred metres to the main street. There wasn't much to look at, and about as many shops to look in. We hunted down a Christmas decoration (I want one from every country on our trip) and then left. Lichtenstein tick.

The rest of the drive was pretty uneventful, cutting through tunnel after tunnel as we cut through the mountains to Innsbruck. Then we turned up where once there used to be a camping ground, and there sadly was no longer. So we turned to the list of campgrounds that Ruth (sat nav) had and came up with Plan B. We turned up at Plan B after just sneaking through a tunnel 3m high. It turns out Betty is less than 3m high. Just. Plan B was expensive for what was a tiny, muddy, crappy little campground. So we came up with Plan C. Plan C lead us on a drive up, up and up, and we thought we were headed for some tiny village halfway up the mountains. Then the road turned left and narrowed into one lane before heading down through a forest and emerging at a campground on a lake just out of the tiny village of Nattersea. The campground looked expensive but we were pleasantly surprised to find it wasn't going to top €30 a night, so we stayed. We must have been a wee way up in the mountains, as it was pretty cold by the time we'd set up camp and had dinner and crawled into bed, using our duvet for the first time in months!

The next morning the sun was out so we walked down through the country lanes from camp, through the local village to the tram station. On our walk we passed fields and fields of corn, so decided to pick a couple of ears on our way back to camp at the end of the day. We got the tram into town and spent a few hours exploring the medieval old town of Innsbruck which was very nice. The mountains surrounding the town to all sides were a stunning backdrop. We saw the famous Golden roof built by an Emperor as a display of wealth. With 2657 gilded roof tiles it certainly achieves its purpose! We climbed the city tower for a couple of euro and had some great views of the town and mountains. We wandered the streets for a bit, trying on mafia style hats and eating gelato. We caught the tram home, after finally finding a stop where the tram we wanted would stop at. We passed by some of the ski jump facilities from the Winter Olympics which have been held in Innsbruck several times.

We walk back through the village and country lanes to camp, coming across a small table that a couple had been having a picnic on earlier in the morning. Ryan stealthily folds up the table and puts in under his wing, continuing on his way nonchalant as. Further up the road we pick ourselves a couple of cobs of corn and head back to camp. By 'borrowing' the table and corn, Ryan has added to his list of 'long term borrows' started in Munich.

Back in camp I have an afternoon nap to recharge the batteries (ah bliss!) while Ryan watches some Only Fools and Horses on the laptop. Then we rotate, and Ryan has a nap while I catch up on keep notes for my blogs. We have a late dinner and watch the sunset from camp, getting ready to hit Italy the next day.

Switzerland. Minus the snow.

LOVELY LUCERNE

From Fussen we complete what has been a pretty big zig-zag from Freiburg to Fussen to Switzerland! In hindsight we should have done Fussen as a day trip from Munich but hindsight is a wonderful thing and until we had a tip to make sure we saw some of the Black Forest it wasn't somewhere we'd planned to go. We back track to the bottom of Lake Constance, and then cut down into Switzerland via Austria. We fly along the motorway in Switzerland with little Lichtenstein to the other side of the road. The mountains are magical and the houses built higher and higher up the foothills seem to play a game of 'if you can build there, then I can build higher.'

Arriving into Lucerne Ryan accidentally switches off the sat nav, but we manage to find our camp without her luckily. We get our first taste of the Swiss's penchant for the rules and nothing but the rules when at camp they show us to our site and tell us which what to park and what side to have our door facing. This is a bit over the top, as more often than not you get to choose your own site and how you park within the site's parameters is up to you. Though, if more campsites dictated which way you had to park on the site, there would be more amusing moments with Italians trying to manoeuvre their campers into position. And on the topic of bad Italian driving, to date we've only seen three Italian caravans. There is a very logical reason for this you know. Caravans are much harder to back into position you see, so Italians stick to campervans instead (and to be fair struggle enough with them anyway!).

We get some clear as mud directions on how to bike into Lucerne from our camp. After going the right way, thinking it was the wrong way and then going the wrong way, we eventually get back on the right track and find the centre of Lucerne. We get out some Francs, get a few necessities from a supermarket and after a wild goose chase following arrows in the main train station to the tourist information 'I' we grab a map of the town. We take a few snaps of the Kapellbrucke (Chapel Bridge), watch the swans for a bit and then cycle home.

We spend the next day seeing the sights of laid back Lucerne. We take more snaps of the bridge, mooch along the river for a bit before heading up to the back of the old town and walking behind the old city walls. We climb one of the wall towers for free and along the top of the wall. When we reach the tower where you are supposed to exit, we snuck up the stairs to climb right to the top of the tower. Halfway up the tower we found out it houses a clock as it struck 1pm. The chime of the bells right next to us both deafened us and made both of us (Ryan will tell you only I jumped!) jump out of our skins. Luckily it was only 1pm!

We cut back down through the town and try and find our way to some lion statue thingy that is marked on our maps. After some help from some friendly locals who spot us looking a bit lost, we come across the strange lion statue at the entrance to a 'natural monument of national importance'. It doesn't really tickle our fancy so we don't go in for a look, instead we carry on wandering the streets and small squares of the old town. We poke our noses in a few souvenir stores and find what must be the world's largest Toblerone! Back in camp that night some GB's have parked up next to us and when they see our GB plates on Betty they come over for a chat which is nice. After 8 weeks on the road, its nice to hold a conversation in English with someone other than ourselves!

BEARS (NOT BEERS!) IN BERN

The next day we cover a couple of kilometres in Bern. Nothing is very far from anywhere else in Switzerland it seems. Turns out there are two streets of the same name in Bern, both next to rivers. But we've ended up on the one without a campground! We have some men in an industrial complex look at us a little strangely as we pull in and set about turning around to get out of there. We've reset the sat nav and are pulling out when some angry little Swiss man decides to chase us, yelling in a less than welcoming manner. Clearly we've broken some rule. Uhoh. He does not look like he is coming over to say 'are you lost, where are you trying to get to?' Oh no, what it looks like he is saying is probably more along the lines of 'hey, you can't park here, what do you think you're doing here!' Duh, we know we're not meant to be here, we figured that out when instead of a camping ground we found road works and a loading zone in an industrial yard. We haven't turned up here on purpose to make our life harder you idiot, and get a daily dose of Swiss anger!

So we carry on driving off with him still yelling and chasing behind.

After a less than smooth journey to the other side of Bern (not a big place luckily!) which is made tricky by the Swiss having playing with all their roads and poor Ruth (sat nav in case you'd forgotten!) not having the foggiest where she was, we find our camp. We strike some friendly, and shock horror, funny Swiss owners at the camp who advise us that we can either walk alongside the river into the town centre or put our clothes in a plastic bag and float down the river to town which is much faster! Before heading into town (by foot, not floating) we dismantle our windscreen wipers as the camp has a problem with squirrels nibbling them!

We walk along the river for about 20 minutes, feeling quite overdressed in our shorts and t-shirts, with everyone else passing us by in togs! There are masses of people floating down the river too, which Ryan is eyeing up for later. We eventually veer away from the river and catch a cable car up into the old town. The Parliament building of Bern is beautiful and the old streets are nice. Right the way along the main street of the old town there are shops a couple of steps up above the footpath and double doors right on the footpath leading to shops down under the pavement.

We carry on, down, down, down the main street to the river once more. We don't cross the bridge because on the other side of the Aare River there are bear pits. Yes bears in concrete pits. Bears have been the entertainment here since 1857, held in cramped concrete pits and we didn't particularly want to see them.

So we wander back through the town, seeing Einstein's apartment and the Ogre fountain where the ogre is eating small children (one of the sights of Bern). We wander through a fruit and vege market, post some postcards and watch a group of old men play a game of life sized chess in a park. It's a lovely hot day and heaps of kids are cooling off by running through the jets of water fountains that spurt up in the square in front of the Parliament.

We stroll back along the river to camp, where Ryan promptly swaps to his togs. I'm sitting the river swimming out as the current is very swift and strong and it's recommended only experienced swimmers go down the river, and experienced I am not. I head down the river for 10 minutes to a footbridge across it to capture Ryan's river swim on camera. Soon enough he comes into view, the river carrying him along so fast I can only get a couple of quick pics of him. He gives a quick wave and a grin as he's swept down river and out of sight. I sit in the sun reading, waiting for him to finish his swim and walk back upstream. He turns up soon enough having loved his swim, but now being all tuckered out. We head back to camp for a quiet evening before our drive to Innsbruck tomorrow.

Zig-zagging across the remainder of Germany

SURPRISING STUTTGART VIA SOME VINO IN WURZBURG

After a sleep-in to sleep off the beers from the festival the night before, we leave Bamberg behind and head over to Stuttgart. On the way we stop off for a couple of hours in pretty Wurzburg, which until it was destroyed in just 17 minutes near the end of the war, was 1300 years old. On our travels around Germany we've come across small town after small village that was just obliterated at the end of the war for the sake of destroying the German morale. Many of these towns were (and after much re-building/repair) still are, full of so much history and are just so beautiful. Our towns back home have nothing on these!

Anyway, we arrive into the beautifully rebuilt town, with Ruth directing us to the centre of town. What we did the other day when we made stops in little towns was we parked in parking areas specifically set for campers near the old town centres (Germany is marvellously set up for caravanning/camping in this way!) which were never more than 5 minutes walk from the old town, and meant we didn't end up driving right into the thick of things. Unfortunately it didn't quite pan out the same in Wurzburg. We didn't see any parking areas for campers, so before we knew it we were right in the centre of town! Luckily we happened across some parking spots and there was one free. It was almost long enough for Betty and almost was good enough for us!

We crossed the street and turned the corner to find ourselves on the main street, we couldn't have parked more in the centre of town if we tried! We eventually managed to get our bearings and find the Residenz where we wandered the pretty gardens for a bit. The Residenz has the world's largest ceiling fresco! There were heaps of bridal couples getting pictures taken in the gardens; it's obviously the place in Wurzburg to have your pictures taken. From the Residenz we head back to the main street. We stop for a great hulking piece of hot schnitzel in a fresh bread bun (me) and a piece of hot roast pork in another bun (Ryan). Both are out of this world delicious! We head to a bridge in town where we get great views of the town's medieval fortress and the wine vine covered hills surrounding it. It's rumoured that the great white wines produced locally never leave the region, so naturally we find a store where we can grab a bottle on our way back down the main street. We also make a second stop at the butcher serving the hot meats in bread and get a couple of slices of the German speciality meat Leberkaese, a type of plain meatloaf sliced thick into a bread bun. We grab a couple of beers from the supermarket and hit the road to Stuttgart.

We arrive into Stuttgart and despite Ryan having an off moment with the sat nav we manage to find our campsite. We head out for a walk and end up at the Mercedes museum which is just down the road from the camp. The museum hours are finished for the day, but the showroom is open so we head in and sit in some pretty pricey cars. Some are a cool €150,000. Petty change huh.

Walking back to camp we hear a voice over a loudspeaker and lots of cheering, yelling and a strange banging noise. We detour to investigate. At the entrance we're told its €5 for entry. We have a chuckle and pay up before walking through to the athletics track around the field. There's a small grand stand and some of the crowd are up in it, but there's also a fair few people lined up along the side of the field, kind of like a school game back home. Finding it a little strange to believe what we're seeing so we take some photos to prove that it wasn't a dream.

Now you could be forgiven for thinking this was a trans-Tasman battle of some sort, being played on the other side of the world. But no, it was the local hero's Stuttgart resplendent in their Wallaby reminiscent gold, and villainous Hannover in AB emulating black.

Come half time we have a wander round and find piles of merchandise for sale, dominated by AB's gear, including 2011 world cup t-shirts with Tana Umaga on them, t-shirts with the actions and words for ka mate ka mate, 2003 world cup t-shirts (they seem to be hard to shift) and more. It was on our wanders amongst the merchandise that we spot the guy cutting the oranges for the halftime break. I kid you not. Here's the picture to prove it.

Things got exciting in the second half. The home team took the lead. Then they lost it. Then they had a fight with the opposing team. Times two. Then they had a fight amongst their own team. Just the once luckily.

The rugby was average at best (I don't think we need lose sleep over a challenge from Germany come 2011), the ref was worse. The beer was cold. The frites were hot. The crowd was loving it. Oh yea, that strange banging noise we heard that attracted us to see what was going on. It was the crowd at the bottom of the stands banging feet and hands against the hoarding. Homestead Stadium styles.

The following morning we managed to spend around 4 hours going through the surprisingly enthralling Mercedes museum. The museum with its history of the development of the motorcar by Benz (duh) and Daimler and the history of Mercedes and Benz was interesting. The classic models were pretty cool. The museum was really well done, enjoyable even for girls! We arrived intending to spend two nights in Stuttgart, but have decided instead to cut and go, and cram in some time in the Black Forest instead as we've been loving the smaller towns. So after finishing up at the museum we hit the road early in the afternoon to head down through the Black Forest to Freiburg.

THE BLACK FOREST EN-ROUTE TO FREIBURG

The Black Forest is actually less black and less foresty than you'd think. Names can be deceiving like that I guess. There were a lot of dark, tall pines about, but equally there was a lot of rolling green farmland. We jump onto the famous B500 Schwarzwald Strasse (forest road), the route through the heart of it and see massive farm houses, with barns on the bottom floor. Farmy smells waft into Betty, farm smells my nose had forgotten.

Mid afternoon we pull into Schiltach, the prettiest town in the Black Forest. Two shallow rivers run through the town, bubbling over rocky bottoms, ideal for paddling in on a hot day, precisely what I did! We wander through the town which is largely deserted being a Sunday afternoon. The buildings are different to those we struck in Bavaria, here they're a different style, and are half timbered, all at different angles on the hilly cobbled lanes through town. We come across a bakery that's open (very unusual for a Sunday, when nothing is normally open!) so we head in for a piece of Black Forest cake, a delicious chocolate and cherry concoction that we eat perched on a stone wall by the river. Back in Betty I crack open a beer which has stayed cold in her fridge, oh life is tough, and Ryan continues the drive to Freiburg.

We pass through Triberg which has the world's largest cuckoo clock, house sized in fact. Being surrounded by cuckoo clocks kind of freaks me out, so we don't' stop. We pull into Freiburg and find our camp no worries, it's a lovely wee camp with friendly owners. The following morning we have a massive sleep-in. We've decided just to have a look in Freiburg and then head to Fussen and spend two nights there before having another decent drive to somewhere in Switzerland. So we head into town, but not before doing a grocery shop at a massive Lidl we spot on our way to the centre. I think our grocery shops are best described as erratic. Our last proper shop was probably in Salzburg, 10 days ago!

We find a park just outside the old town and walk in. The old town is walled with a number of different gates for entry. Inside the streets are cobbled and the town is pretty enough, though not as pretty as what we've seen recently. Bamberg has spoiled us. There is however a good vibe on the streets of the town, with lots of young people about due to Freiburg being a University town. If I was going to move to Germany it's one of the places I could see myself living. There and Bamberg. Between the streets and the footpaths there are tiny medieval canals running along. We wander the streets for a bit before heading to the market square with the 700 year old cathedral. There's a neat little market set up in the square, selling heaps of old fashioned toys amongst other stuff, like yoyo's, spinning tops and marbles. I can't resist the thought of our kids playing marbles so pick some out and buy a set.

We decide it's time to hit the road so we get going. We travel along the southern edge of the Black Forest, before travelling down the side of Lake Constance which was a beautiful drive with views of the lake and vineyards alongside. We have lunch in a scenic rest area above the lake and carry on. As we get into farmland closer to Fussen we again find ourselves wondering where all the animals are. They must be about somewhere because we've seen farmers making a lot of winter feed; every paddock seems to be hay or baleage. Driving through one little village where the main street was shops and houses and down the side streets you could see barns and piles of compost and straw we find the answer. A barn door is wide open and inside we see cows lined up down each side. Poor buggers, wouldn't they rather be out in a paddock!? Closer to Fussen we see the beginnings of the Alps appear, making a stunning backdrop to the farmland.

We arrive on a lake just 5km out from Fussen and after pulling into one campsite where a child with no English greeted us and couldn't produce any parents to help us check in, we carried on driving to find the campsite in our camping book. A few kilometres up the road we find it and ask to stay two nights. They send us out with a map of the campsite to decide between three sites on offer to us. We pick the one just up from the lake and as I head back to reception to tell them which site we want, Ryan gets Betty and parks her on the site to start setting up. Back in reception they hand me maps of the area, camp site garbage bags, and generally inundate me with information on what is available in camp - pool, games room, movie room (in German)) and so on. Then they hit me with it, it's a bit of a whammy. The cost per night is a whopping €37 and that doesn't include electricity! Feck. That's quite a stretch above what we've been paying lately in Germany, and well above our most expensive sites to date (Rotterdam €30 and not worth it, Slovenia €30 and worth it).

So to make the most of our money we decide to head straight for the indoor heated pool for a swim, followed by the longest showers we can stand (fair to say we emerged pretty well pruny and wrinkled!) and worry about feeding ourselves some dinner later in the night.

FAIRYTALE CASTLES IN FUSSEN

The following day we get up and bike about 10km from camp through Fussen Village to the two castles of King Ludwig II. We then nail the 40 minute hike up to Neuschwantein castle in about 15 minutes and then sit in the sun waiting for the next English tour to start. We are the only non-Americans in our group! We get to go through a handful of the rooms, in fact the only rooms which were completed before the King (who was broke, but insisting on finishing the castle) was woken one night, told he had been certified as loony and promptly taken away to a discrete location by a lake where the following day both he and his psychiatrist were found drowned in the lake in mysterious circumstances.

We cycle back to Fussen stopping along the way to listen to the bells of a small cow herd (okay so half a dozen cows is hardly a herd in NZ terms!). Yup, they all had bells around their necks, was kind of cute.

In Fussen we locked our bikes and went for a wander up the main street. It was quite pretty, but didn't top anything we'd seen on the northern stretch of the Romantic Road. On our way back down the street, I tried on a traditional Bavarian dirndl (dress with blouse underneath and apron over the top). The shop had signs everywhere banning photos but as the assistant was adjusting my dress Ryan managed to get a sneaky photo!

We headed back to camp via a stop at the supermarket for some beers and spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing in camp. Had another swim in the indoor pool, which was all very straight laced, no bombs or staples (okay maybe a few), then it was into the showers for another long hot shower to make the most of our last night at our expensive accommodation!