Beautiful Bavaria

Italy was just a whistle stop this trip. We stayed overnight in Brescia. It was another Aire this one on the grounds of Cassini Maggia, an old hostel. The building was beautiful in stone and timber. 

We left early and headed east for Lake Garda where we turned north near Verona and started the long climb up and over the Brenner Pass. Austria went by in a blink and we skirted Innsbruck and climbed over the the Zirlerberg Pass into Bavaria, winding down into the Isar valley. This is the river that flows through Munich. 

We spent the night in Garmisch-Partenkirchen with a bunch of wankers, literally. It was another Aire in the Wank Car Park. From here you can get the Wankbahn up to the top of the Wank or sit and relax in the Wank Haus. The view from our spot was spectacular. Towering over G-P like a silent white sentry is the Zugspitzes, Germany's tallest mountain. The twin towns are beautifully preserved Bavarian alpine history. The phrase picture postcard is bandied about to describe even average places but here the phrase is no mere cliché it is a living breathing postcard.

The trip from here to Munich was a real adventure. The five kilometre long road tunnel north of Garmish was closed and we had to detour over hills and dales and along valleys and over streams and through villages with main roads narrower than a Newtown backstreet. It was grim but no fairy tale. We finally reached Thalkirchen on the Isar, a souther suburb of Munich. It was here last year we discovered the kids surfing the standing wave created by the spillway next the camping ground. The kids were still there ripping and shredding but they had to give way to the river rafts. It's holiday season here and the rafts full of boozy patrons and live bands were floating down the river, down the spillways and ending their thirty mile booze cruise right next to the camping ground. We took some great movies and will upload them when we can onto FB. 

We rode into town this trip, a 15k round trip and we did it twice. The second time was around 20 as we cycled through the English Garden, the world's larges city park. It's here at the entrance to the gardens that the more famous standing wave is situated. It's larger but the atmosphere here is nowhere near that of Thalkirchen. It's just a wave for the big guys, no grassy bank with picnickers, sunbathers, campers, rafts or young girls and guys patiently taking it in turns to rip, crash and return. Although it was a bigger and better wave I was underwhelmed after seeing Thalkirchen. The return trip was through town and across the river by the Deutsches Museum. The cycleways here are outstanding, not just Munich but everywhere we have been. This is an outstanding city and another one that has integrated it's historical past within a modern framework without detracting from either.

We left Munich and headed up the Romantic Road, now a non romantic motorway for most of its length. We stopped at Rothenberg on the Tauber, another complete Medieval Walled City and another Aire just across the road from the southern entrance to the city. Now this is the romance we were looking for. Every Grimm Fairy Tale could have been set here. You can imagine Hansel & Gretel living over there, Repunzal's tower just around the corner and I expect to hear 'Hi Ho Hi Ho its off to work we go” echoing down the winding alleys. This is another living picture postcard. Nothing with a stamp on it could compare to this place in real life. Definitely coming back here. With heavy hearts we close the book on this fairy tale city but left a bookmark at the Rothenberg page. 

Our next stop was Wurzberg at the northern end of the Romantic Road. We stayed in a Aire in the city, a huge carpark on the banks of the River Main. It was a little crowded but we had a spot right on the bank looking out over the river and the town on the other side. This is a working river and part of the Rhine-Main-Danube system. Through a series of locks along these three rivers you can travel from Rotterdam to the Black Sea then through the Bosphorus to the Mediterranean. We sat and watched the incredibly long river boats slowly pass by before heading off into town. A short walk along the river is the Alter Brucke (the old bridge) the pedestrian entrance to the city. The bridge is beautifully preserved with statues of saints set on pedestals at intervals across its length, stoney stares overlooking the human bridge traffic passing by. The city has not however maintained its heritage architecture and there are many modern building mixed among the old. 

The next day we climbed winding road and pathway up to Wurzberg castle. We walked through the gardens full of colourful flowers and there is even a tranquil Japanese garden. There were so many winding pathways and steep connecting stairs it felt like we were in a game of Snakes & Ladders. We finally reached the top and entered the castle through a huge curved tunnel. Only two of the four gates remain, huge wooden doors mounted in a wrought iron frame and set in their original pivots. The portcullis is gone but this place had some serious defences in its day. The view from the walls is panoramic as it looks down over the city, the river, the vine covered hills behind and the valley stretching away in the distance. It would be worth taking a photograph except for the white monsters on the hilltops, wind turbines lined up on the ridges like ominous triffids. 

We left Wurzberg and headed west along the Autobahn. We passed Frankfurt and headed to Mainz and the little campground on the river where we stayed last year. It's beautiful set among the trees on an little island on the northern bank of the River Main. We can look out over the river and see the city on the opposite bank. Just outside the fence the bike track follows the river and now and then another river cruiser taking lazy tourists to the Danube or Rhine motors by. This place has a special meaning for me because it was here, using Caxton's invention that Gutenberg printed the first bible. It was here from this Reformation heartland that the stranglehold the Roman Catholic Church had on knowledge was broken and literacy became available to a wider world. The monasteries with their scriveners, copyists, illuminators, translators and secret libraries were to become obsolete. A thousand years of imposed illiteracy destroyed by a printing press - It felt good to know that in my own minuscule way I was a part of it. Their only secrets left were the making of beer and liqueurs and even that would would pass to newly literate.

We rode into town and wandered along the riverfront where there was a beerfest happening. The atmosphere was great then we walked uptown and sat in the main square and did our usual thing while eating icecream sundaes (hope Brett doesn't read this bit). The town is very pretty but the whole city center is being renovated and many of the buildings have scaffolding up for the workmen to refurbish the stonework. We left the next morning – today and headed for Rudesheim another of our favorite place on the Rhine. This post is coming to you from there. We are sitting outside at McCafe sipping coffee and contemplating our next stops. We only have just over a week before we are back in London. It seems like yesterday we were setting off. We have to go the Mosel awaits.