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!