 Lindau
We arrive at Lindau later than 6 pm and find an ordinary hotel. The
Lake Constance is a main touristic area in Germany, Austria and Suisse,
so it is more expensive sometimes. The weather has changed to wind and
rain and we cannot enter a nice beer garden tonight so dive into the Rössle
instead. We order herring and "Bodenseefelchen". The latter
is a local fish and cannot be translated.
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At all this was not the best day. But we have finished one section of our tour and hopefully can foresee the oncoming events. "The stress has gone" Heidi says and I am sure she got the hills in her mind.
Wednesday, Lindau - Konstanz, 82 km
There are three days left which are not enough to finish the total way around the lake. The first section will be the Swiss shore where we have never been yet. We had a rainy night and now start into a fresh and sunny morning.
In Lindau at the market we buy some cucumbers first and then have a look into the church - urgh, baroque. We then pass the bridge over the lake and enjoy the signed bike path at the southern shore. Soon we pass the border to Austria and try to ignore it. No one bothers.
 Scenery of the Bregenz Festival
There is a sign "To the city" and we follow for we want to go to Bregenz.
But this time we end at Lochau and that is wrong. So back to the
lake and at last we arrive at the railway station of Bregenz. If you choose
the right platform you will find the continuation of the bike path. Instead
to visit the city we tend to run out into the botany.
| At the lake we can admire the remaining sceneries of the Bregenz Festival. May be they were playing Porgy and Bess, the scene shows a ugly ruin of a bridge with a heap of demolished cars that have fallen down. We better enjoy the green around and the view across the "Swabian Sea". |
At the Bregenzer Aach there is a big splash flowing around big boulders. Then we cross the bridge of the New Rhine. This is a dead straight canal enframed by dikes. At the dam we detect bundles of autumn crocusses and wonder if this would be the right season for it.
The nice part of the path begins at the Old Rhine which winds its way
among the lowland forests. The old Rhine is the border between Austria
and Suisse. So at the bridge we cross the border into the third nation
for this morning. We have none of their currency in our pockets reflecting
to the cucumbers from Lindau.
We climb up a lower hill named Rorschacherberg. We cannot find
out, why this hill cannot be bypassed at the seaside - may be there is
a nature-sanctuary. Down at Rohrschach again we find ourselves nearly
at the platforms of the railway station. There is a well known experiment
in the psychological area: the Rorschach Inkblot Test. There will
be put some ink on a sheet of paper, this will be folded and then you find
a certain figure inside the paper. The certain patient is to find out what
this figure could be and the more obscene his phantasy breaks through the
more happy is the consultant (the name of this test comes from its inventor,
the Suiss psychologist H. Rorschach, 1884-1922).
Another strange thing at Rorschach is, that the town is totally truncated
from the seaside by the railway. So one should be happy to have his home
near a level crossing. We continue to Arbon, Frasnacht, Romanshorn.
At Romanshorn you can change to a boat, but we better enjoy the fine weather
and the nice bike path. "This is my world" Heidi says and then I know:
she feels well.
Near Utwill we pass private estates just reaching down to the
water side. We turn to doubt of ourselves as we only are owner of an usual
row house. We reach the village Landschlacht. A fisher comes in
and rises his outboard motor up from the water. The skyline of Konstanz
is already to be seen, a column of smoke is rising to the sky. As we pass
Kreuzlingen we miss to realize that we have crossed the border back to
Germany again. So we find ourselves in front of a railway station. "There
is the tourist bureau" Heidi says. "But we are not at Konstanz yet" I say.
"But there is a sign: University Town Konstanz" she says. So I enter
the office and ask "Is this Konstanz?" "Yes, you are right!"
At the other side of the street many vehicles of the fire brigade are in action, they even have established a catastrophy management. So if we would have planned to reside at the Hotel Halm, this would have been impossible, because this is just aflame (we will talk about this matter later). To find any other hotel we take advantage of a telephone terminal where one can call up the desired accomodation and in no ime we have a reservation at the Hotel Zeppelin. We purchase two nights to have a rest day tomorrow for a bike tour.
 Hotel Zeppelin
Konstanz is a nice town with a pedestrian area and ancient houses. This
applies to the hotel Zeppelin, which has colorful wall paintings. We get
a large and high room with windows to the courtyard so its somewhat dark
in here. And there is some garbage around like cans, paper, butts. One
should think, a proper hotel would be more watchful concerning those things.
| We make a walk around at Konstanz which means studying the menu boxes outside of the restaurants. But be sure, we sit at a cafe as well, and this an old half timbered hause at the harbour, the Conciliar House from 1388. At this place the boats of the "White Fleet" arrive. We laugh at the rushing tourists and count the arriving cyclists. |
As the hunger gets harder we head for a proper restaurant. We end at a small place of the pedestrian area named Obermarkt and the restaurant is Hotel Barbarossa, which is wall-painted too. And at once I am sure, I have spent a night here 15 years ago when I visited a congress at Konstanz. We settle down under a huge parasol though it gets dark already. The service maid is a student from Poland and she enjoys to be here. Aside there waits a car of some mafiosies - as we think. But the truth would be, that someone picks up his girl from a boutique.
When the meal is finished we finally have to look after this ominous fire at Hotel Halm near the railway station. We go there and find a scene still busy. They throw the interior of the burnt housings from the roof down on the road. We observe a little glow in the wooden beams of the roof and feel responsible to give a hint to a policeman on this fact. But he only states: "The fire guard keeps everything under control!" A neighbour tells that under the roof of the house besides the hotel some dubious individuals had their housings and in revenge of a quitting have lighted the house. Two are arrested, two are searched for.
The next morning the newspapers tell the whole story. There was no fire at the hotel Halm, but the smoke ran out of the air condition there and so they got aware of the fire. But one million for damage has emerged and we have been at Konstanz at this memorable day.
Thursday, Mainau – Überlingen – Meersburg, 30 km
As I told before we will have a rest day and this is a cycle tour without the baggage. We want to ride to the Überlinger See with the isle of Mainau and other sightseeings. We take the swimming clothes with us, but better would have been some warm sweatsuits. To reach for the isle of Mainau you can follow the signs or do as we do and follow a track near the shore. We finally end in a park and the only way to continue is a narrow revolving gate. It would be OK for a baby carriage, but a bicycle does not fit through the opening. You must find out the right angles to cant the bikes diagonally or decide to dissassemble the equipment.
Somehow we reach the ferry pier towards Meersburg and so get to civilised terrain again. The park site in front of the island is everything than a lonely place as well. We purchase the entrance fee, not quite cheap - and with a brochure at hand you can choose your way to the roses or dahlias, the largest house of butterflies in Germany, a guide through the castle etc. We watch two Grey Parrots and then walk along an alley of notable redwood trees. At some trunks you can count the annual rings if you have the time for it.
 Castle on the Isle of Mainau  Grey Parrots |
 Ueberlingen
We take shelter at the tourist
office at Überlingen for a while, then we head - guess where - to
the church named Stadtpfarrkirche St. Nikolaus. This time there
is no baroque but gotic style and we get embarrassed.
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 Birnau
Though it does not stop raining we start for the return and are glad
to have a tail wind. We hit on the next sensation and this is the Pilgrims
Church Birnau. This is built on the top of hill - though a small one. And now
hear the discussion arising about this matter:
| "Baroque again, is it really urgent to go up there?"
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We don't ride or go, we push up there. But it's worth the effort, for the church is warm inside and the rain does not come through the roof. May be we look somewhat strange in our rain coats at this honourable place (baroque). Outside at the ballustrade there is a thankful inscription to the Maker of this beautiful landscape. Imagine this without the swifting mists full of drizzle.
 Meersburg
Past the last 8 km to Meersburg we are soaked. I go for a quick photo
of the castle on top of a vineyard and Heidi buys a bar of chocolate. We
shiver until the boat to Konstanz comes up, we shiver on the boat and we
shiver on the way back to the hotel. After we had our shower bath, the
rain outside gets more and more heavy.
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In the evening we enter a Greek restaurant around the corner. The salad comes up and Heidi looks for some dressing. There is flacon with a red juice, may be vinegar. The salad tastes somewhat strange afterwards. Some time later the waiter comes with his lighter and illuminates the red flacon. So this was an oil for lamps instead of a dressing. And to reassure the reader: this time there was no strike-through-period.
As a reward the rain stops in the evening and the buildings and church towers glow in the sunset.
Friday, Konstanz - Singen (Hohentwiel), 53 km
Let us discuss the last section of the tour. To reach the next railway station to get finally back to our car by train we must ride from Konstanz to Singen. Again there is a multiple choice question where to go. Look at the map and you will find out the various routes. We decide to go on the Suisse side at the southern shore of the lake. Today we go west and therefore suffer from a headwind.
 Ermatingen 
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At Ermatingen, opposite to the isle of Reichenau, we have a rest. The isle of Reichenau is famous of it's vegetable agriculture. But we have found a field of carrots as well and take advantage of this at the rest. A worker comes up and starts to wash out a nearby gully until he gives us the advice to change the bench. A kind guy!
The village of Ermatingen looks nice with half timbered houses. The last town at the lake is Stein am Rhein. This is a beautiful little town and we just miss it as we pass the junction. As we see the town at our backside we return and climb over an adventurous hike trail. Finally we cross the bridge and enter the dollhouse city. Most of the houses are wall painted, and we admire the scene until we leave the city through a wall gate.
We are going north meanwhile and dark clouds come up. We just reach a petrol station before the rain begins. A Suisse cycle girl speaks to us in her dialect and we don't understand a single word. So she changes to "normal" language and we find out, that she lost 30 other companions going for Schaffhausen. But we didn't see this group on our way. As the rain slows down she asks, if we as experienced "velo-riders" would advise to continue the ride now. We do the same and soon arrive at Singen.
At the railway station we purchase the tickets for the return journey tomorrow. Than we push and press through the crowds of the present city festival. At the tourist center we get our accomodation: Singener Weinstube.
In the afternoon we have a walk down to a small river named Aach. As we look from a bridge into the water a sudden realization strikes me. "Do you know what kind of waters we just see?" I ask Heidi. She has no idea. "So these waters come from the Danube" I declare. Nearby there is one of the greatest Karst spring of Europe, where the waters of the Danube are running underground and appear to form the river Aach. And we remember our memorable adventure two years ago at the Danube sink.
 Back at Wuerzburg |
This is the end of a 10 day cycle tour which had so many impressions, that we think we had gone for months.
