Remembrance Holiday, 7 November

This morning, after breakfast, we both went for walks in different directions - the Swan Whisperer walked or ran round the playing-fields and I went to the grandly-named Black Forest Shopping Centre, and spent a very happy time wandering round a huge Muller and an even huger Rewe. I was terribly restrained in the Muller and only bought some 4711 shower gel; I stopped myself from buying any more socks (they did have some lovely ones) or a really nice rucksack.... Or indeed, a Christmas present for my daughter and/or sister.

When we got back to the van it was time to head on to Donaueschingen, whereupon we had lunch and then set off to find the source of the Danube. This is a spring in the grounds of the Schloß, with seats all round it reminding me of the Pool of Bethesda!

However other places also lay claim to being the source of the Danube, and the SW wanted to visit one at a place called Martinskapelle, about 35 km away. So we headed on, right up into the mountains, and there was a car park and a pub called the Donauquelle, but no phone service, and as I really didn't want to be out of touch for so long, we came sadly away. We didn't really want to go all the way back to Donaueschingen, but the first place we thought we might be able to stop at turned out to be a building site.

But a couple of miles down the road I saw a sign for motorhome parking, so we followed it, and here we are by a children's playground in some random town which I think is called Vöhrenbach. We are at altitude - 799 metres - but my lungs are ok; not sure how they would have liked Martinskapelle which was a good 450 metres higher.