Day 28: to Tuttlingen (60; 1612)

I suppose I should have known that crossing from the Rhine to the Danube would involve some hills, it being a major European watershed and all. And indeed  that doing it through the middle of a hot day would be hard work. But the thing about this trip is: if I thought about all the potential problems I would never have started!

My traitorous map also deserves some blame here. It allegedly marks any hill over 5% with arrows. The morning had a few of these but no more than expected. Though due to some kind yet misplaced unsolicited directions (from a post lady and then from some farm workers) I ended up taking those hills on rather busier roads than expected, and hence a bit faster than usual.

The unexpected part however was that immediately post-lunch there was a 10k section that was entirely uphill. Now I would possibly be willing to believe it wasn't all 5% (though frankly, 10k of 4.99% would also have nearly killed me). But the way down after the top was 15% according to the road signs. And none of it was arrowed on my map.

Anyway, I made it but really not in good style. The views along the top were magnificent. But I and a loaded Horace are REALLY not made for hill-climbing.

Ok, rant over.

When we got down, we hit the Danube! Which is tiny and sluggish here. I had planned to go further but the next camping is about 30k, the day is hot, and the Capulets are abroad. Ok, not that last one. But Tuttlingen has all the things I need tonight including a free municipal camping ground.

Last night was a strangely cold night between roasting days. Accuweather at one point was suggesting nighttime temperatures down to 7 deg and daytime up to 32. In fact it 'only' reached about 25 today but nonetheless I feel somewhat like I'm camping in a desert climate suddenly.

It was very hard to tear myself away from the Bodensee this morning, it is so beautiful and peaceful, though I'm sure it will get less so as the Whitsun holiday weekend starts tonight. The first 10k of the day was following lovely small paths close to the shore and I stopped for morning coffee on the lakeside at Radolfzell just so I could watch the water a bit longer before heading inland.

Inland of course also turned out to be beautiful, with a lot of market gardening and hay-cutting going on (one with a stork stalking along behind the mower).

I must have drunk about four litres of water today, but none of it seems to have made it through to my kidneys. So now I'm trying an iced cappuccino instead. And then maybe a few beers. 

Day 27: to Hornstaad, Germany (79km; 1552)

Completely the opposite of yesterday: today has been plain sailing under a sunny sky, and I've felt totally blessed.

After a stormy night it's been sunny and breezy, the paths well-marked, the natives friendly, and I have successfully muddled through in German where required. Oh and it's been seriously beautiful country. Lots of hills though, as the path has deviated a lot from the Rhine itself. In fact looking at a map I have now officially said goodbye to the Rhine. She has treated me well!

As I left the campsite this morning someone mentioned some waterfalls so I had a look on the map and made sure to go that way. Well the Rheinfalls at Neuhasen were just amazing! 'Europe's largest waterfall' -perhaps in volume rather than height, it was a bit like Niagra but somewhat less commercial and in somewhat better taste. Being a weekday it was not heaving and was a lovely, unexpected treat.

The way out however was a 15% climb. Just sayin'...

The Swiss-German border round here is ridiculous, I must have crossed it ten times today. It concerned me only in that I still don't have any Swiss francs, so needed to know which side I'm on before buying anything! Usually I could tell by the registration plates of parked cars, and by the flags in people's gardens (some use for this weird habit!). The Germany-to-Switzerland customs controls are heavily patronised because, as Uschi explained to me, the Swiss get tax back on German purchases at the border.

Tonight I am on Lake Constance, or the Bodensee as the Germans call it. In fact I'm on a sub-lake, but it still seems to count. This is big holiday territory and the campsite is large and commercial (though I have a whole tent section to myself). Staying on it gives you access to a private 'beach', which is mostly park, but has also provided a super calzone dinner with a view. Following Ed's lead I decided to swim instead of shower and it was really quite pleasant, temperature-wise (17 deg according to a notice). It is shallow for a long way out though so I was probably in toastier-than-that water as a result.

Over the 1500k mark, I am about half way to Budapest now. I hesitate to write this, fearing bike breakage or other major disaster: but I feel like I am in a good rhythm. I am really enjoying both the moving on and, surprisingly, the peace and privacy that camping gives. 

Day 26: to Waldshut, Germany (73k; 1473)

Something of a challenging day. Started grumpy after a caffeine-driven poor night's sleep, and sad to say goodbye to Uschi and her home comforts. Got grumpier as I repeatedly got lost all morning in Basel and the villages east of there, with google maps having apparently given up the ghost on me. Then around noon the rain started...

But then after grumbling to myself for a while, suddenly I came round the corner and there was a great view of the Rhine looking all mysterious in the gloom and a group of about thirty cyclists come past, all saying hello, and then I found I was grinning from ear to ear.

 

Other good parts: surprisingly pretty old towns (Bavaria!) and a section through a nature reserve where there were swans, ducks, and the ubiquitous funny-looking geese (Chinese says Katy) nesting all over the cycle path. Not sure about the whole 'swans can break a man's arm' thing but I bet they could get through Horace's Kevlar tyres, if anything can.

Ten km from my destination the rain became much harder, and I checked in to a campsite with a bunch of other cyclists who were trying to escape the rain and get rooms (there were none left). Thumbs up for having a tent. This is a very organised site right on the river, which seems narrow and surprisingly fast-flowing here. Despite arriving mid-afternoon they sorted me out with a cracking lasagne type thing (which I ordered fairly blind, having worked out 'pasta' and 'mince' in the description). The site also has a bar and a 'sitting room' for campers so despite the rain I have hopes for a comfortable evening.

Due to a badly-timed cappuccino I missed a dry window and instead ended up pitching my tent in the rain for the first time, and with an audience looking on. Well readers, I am delight to report I absolutely rocked it. A small victory, but an important one today.

Spending this much time alone with yourself is odd, like a solitary retreat. It's interesting to note how one's moods come and go pretty much regardless of external stimuli. My basic strategy for survival is that everything seems better after a coffee (before 6pm) or a beer (after 3pm). Just now I've had both.

Day 25: in Basel

Lovely hot day in Basel and I really enjoyed catching up with Uschi and her lovely kids (Daniel 8 & Anna 6). Daniel was a baby last time I met him! Uschi fed me lots of coffee and cake and raclette (yum), we got cherries from a farm shop, picked up the kids from the Basel International School (one to consider, A&D) and took them to after school horse riding etc. An interesting insight into Swiss life. 

Fact of the day - Switzerland seems to suffer no modern parenting anxiety and kids are expected to be able to take themselves unsupervised to school by the time they start (age 6).

Day 24: to Basel, Switzerland (73k; 1400)

I spent the night piling on more clothes and the early morning taking them off again as the sun heated up my tent.

Monday morning is market morning in Neuf-Brisach. I had a croissant and baguette from the campsite, but headed into town afterwards for a coffee and a look round. Very impressive place.

I spoke to two cyclists who had come up from Basel yesterday, they confirmed the Rhine-side path is more of the high, unpaved, exposed kind. Instead I opted for the French route across farmland and little villages. Mid morning there was a long stretch through an old forest. I was tempted to stop by the sign for a 'remarkable tree!' - well, it was just a tree and not remarkable at all. (Reminded of cycling instructions from Estonia - 'turn right; after 30km there is a large rock..').

I hit the canal du Rhone au Rhin again, this time larger and navigable again. I stopped for lunch at a picnic spot by the canal, at which point it started spitting. After sitting it out for a while I realised it wasn't getting any worse, and it was pretty much stationary, whereas I was going to cycle ahead of it. Confirmed when half an hour later some fishermen saw my waterproofs and asked me where the rain was!

I came into the 'petit carmargue de Alsace' - a bit of nice wetland with bird hides and other inexplicable things including a to-scale model of the solar system spread along several km of bike path.

The final stage into Basel was a bit of a nightmare. I was totally lost in the Novartis site (funnily enough this has happened to me before, but usually with a suit on..). Realised I was cycling straight through a customs point. Then back through another one. Crossed a huge intersection with a police car just behind me and no idea what the cycle signs mean. Then the cycle lane turned into a tram track, with a tyre-width trough in the middle of it. Nil points, Switzerland, nil points.

Eventually made it into the old town, realised I had only two Swiss francs, not enough for a coffee. So instead headed straight out towards my ex-Psychiatry friend Uschi's house in Therwil, a southern suburb, this time along more officially designated cycle routes.

Uschi's husband works for Roche and they moved out here a year ago and are enjoying the Swiss life. Specifically they have a gorgeous house on a hillside and I write to you from a very sunny terrace... I hadn't seen her for maybe 6 years so lovely to reconnect with an old friend. That's what this year is all about!

Day 22: to Strasbourg (78k; 1245 total)

The convent was really a remarkable place to stay. I think it had contained monks (I think in French, like Spanish, the words convent and monastery don't necessarily refer to the sex of the inhabitants). Anyway, it was built on a large Roman site, recently excavated but fenced off at present. And it had a very sweet graveyard containing some padres and frères, as well as a dozen German soldiers buried there in one week in 1944. The graves were being recycled, with the most recent burials (2012) on top of the older ones (1912). It was a gorgeous sunny evening yesterday and I wandered around the gardens and woodland tracks and thought the landscape probably hadn't changed a great deal since the Romans did the same.

When I checked out this morning I was given a Mozart CD. Apparently the convent's current incarnation is as a centre for the promotion of music.

I left in a great mood on the most glorious morning, sunny and breezy. Had a quick cafe and croissant in Sarrebourg and then set off across country, past an enormous war cemetery. Google maps cycle routes (**in beta, use caution**) sent me down some cracking dirt tracks so the first 10k was quite slow. Horace handles them fine but I can't help fretting that it ups the wear and tear on him, the panniers, racks etc.

Finally I hit a beautiful paved path along a canal. There's a headwind but it's really beautiful, almost like a gorge with the canal half way up and a road way down below me. I see absolutely no-one for a while and am thinking 'this is the life'. Then I see the eight foot metal gate barring my path. Oh bugger.

Some 'gentlemen' on the other side of it just give me a Gallic shrug and suggest I turn around. Instead I find a tiny set of steps leading down to the road below. Well, most of the way down... I unpack Horace and in several trips we make it the fifty or so feet down without incident. Phew.

After that the day passes quite peacefully, with the exception of a bump-induced flying-off of my handlebar bag- this happens fairly often, but this time my iphone went for a dramatic tumble - and survived!

In total I did 60 or so k straight along the canal which crosses from Lorraine to Alsace and eventually loops into the top of Strasbourg. Part of Eurovelo 5 (London to Rome) it was all extremely pleasant, loads of cyclists, and one guy in a pedal-powered white rocket who stopped to ask me the way. As usual, whenever anyone hears my halting French they start talking to me in rapid German!

I had no expectations of Strasbourg but it's actually lovely. I guess I thought it would be all modern but the centre is old and beautiful and the cathedral just blew me away. I think I have a new favourite cathedral - a hotly contended category this year!

It also has a genuine camping shop that sold me some more gas. This has been a massive saga: we thought we had found some about a week ago but it turned out to be the wrong top and have failed in about twenty shops since.

Early evening I found myself outside a cinema that helpfully had English films showing, so I popped into the first one that was on. Enjoyable but very strange story about a woman who agrees to drive three insane women home across the prairie from Dakota to Iowa. Apart from anything else the heroine kills herself part way through. Put me in quite an odd mood for a Saturday night!

----

The perfect canal - before blockage...

Plan B: you can just see the road shining at the bottom 

Today looked pretty French...

The strangest cycle-machine yet

Strasbourg touristing, including watching a 'celebration of European Celts' -- ever more bagpipes!

Day 23: to Neuf-Brisach (82k;1327 total)

The first day of summer has brought out the pilgrims, lizards, and dragonflies.

Well maybe just 'cos it's a hot and sunny Sunday, rather than because it's the first of June.

The way out of Strasbourg was, you guessed it, a canal - this one I think the canal du Rhine au Rhone (or vice versa). It got progressively smaller and more verdant until it was considerably less navigable than the river Cam. As a result it was also rather lacking in refreshment stops. After 40k, in desperation, I headed off the river and into the very definitely closed town of Sundhouse. Luckily there was one Sunday-opening restaurant and it was excellent, rustling me up an Orangina and a delicious French ploughmans equivalent while the slightly inbred-looking locals tried not to gawp at me. Apparently there was a festival this weekend, it was Zumba party night tonight. Hmm...

Post lunch I thought: sod this canal, and headed across country into Germany for a little more time with the Rhine. It too looks rather more peaceful (and narrow) here, in part because some of its might is taken off by hydro schemes on the grand canal de Alsace, which runs in between the dinky canal and the Rhine proper.

I spent a rather hot afternoon dodging lounging lizards on the path and dragonflies, and trying to keep my mouth shut and my hat brim down against the frequent swarms of tiny flies. They're not biters, just swarmers, but my tendency to open-mouthed gawping and/or heavy breathing while cycling is a problem! It definitely looks drier and hotter now I am finally heading due south, and I'm glad to say I'm back in stork country once more.

Early in the day I was caught up by a nice mid-40s lady on a bike who cycled and chatted alongside me for a while. She was cycling to her boyfriend's house up the canal, and told me that she'd run Edinburgh half marathon with her previous boyfriend and another race in Connemara with the boyfriend before that. (..and she wanted to know why I didn't have a boyfriend with me!).

In the afternoon I overtook three middle aged German gents carrying shells and heading for Santiago. They hadn't been going very long and looked slightly shocked to be randomly hailed by me. I can't help thinking they've got a tough road ahead as they will be walking into ever-hotter weather. I can't really compute how far it could be from here to Santiago but it has to be 3 or 4 months... It cheered me to see them (and started me singing a dreadful Evici song which was our camino theme tune). Coincidentally a guy at the next table from me at breakfast this morning was wearing a camino t-shirt. He was one of the EuroCelts that I saw parading yesterday.

I eventually made it into Brisach, which is underlined on my map, indicating it as a 'picturesque town'. I guess I should have learnt by now not to approach such places on sunny Sundays! It was teeming, possibly with a festival but maybe just regular tourist-density. I eventually made it through the hordes and back over the river crossing to France. Amusingly the no-mans land just before the border contained - as well as the standard petrol station - a McDs, a strip joint, a bakery, and a casino. Not sure why Germans feel they need to stock up on those particular things before hitting France; it strikes me they're things France has an abundance of!

Back in cycle-friendly but cycle-path-casual France I headed for Neuf-Brisach, the 'newer' cousin. It's actually a 17th century fortified town built in an octagon surrounded by enormous star-shaped ramparts (a UNESCO site of course). So I am continuing my sleeping-in-heritage-sites tour by camping at a lovely site that I think may be just inside the ramparts. For 7 euros including free showers and a friendly owner, what a bargain.

I was planning on going out exploring this evening but instead have (FINALLY!) done washing, eaten noodles, and am now considering lazing around watching the world go by instead. Perhaps the ramparts can keep till after my fresh croissant tomorrow.