German Avenue Road, 22 September

Although we still have two more and three  more nights to go, they will basically just be "driving days", to get us home. 

We have finished the Avenue Road, from its start on Rügen Island, in the Baltic, I it's end on Riechenau Island, in the Bodensee (Lake Constance). 1,255 miles in all, plus the 800-odd miles to get to Lauterbach and, I assume, another 800 miles to get home. But it was the Avenue Road we wanted to follow, and follow it we did. I'd like to last the states we went in, but can't find a map of them! From the north-east to the south-west of the country, beautiful little towns, towns which were once border towns but are now as central as you can get. We've travelled past vast fields - former collective farms - and past vineyards and, today, apple orchards. We've seen how little villages celebrate the start of the wine harvest and drunk several bottles of "Federweißer", the young wine of the country dry has to be kept cool and upright, and you mustn't tighten the lid of the bottles!

Today was the last day of the Road, and we started with a walk round Riedlingen, then visited a Rewe for a Last Shop in Germany (the supermarkets are closed on Sundays), and a DM as I've fallen in love with their own brand moisturiser!  Then we followed the Road all the way, including across the ferry to Konstanz, and have found a lovely secluded place to park up for the night. The SW has, of course, gone for a walk!

German Avenue Road, 21 September

We were not sure this morning whether it had rained in the night or whether it was falling leaves. In fact it turned out to be sycamore seeds which fell down from the roof on to the windscreen wipers every time we moved off for a while.

The Swan Whisperer went for a short run this morning, and then got breakfast. This was a mistake (not his cooking - the poached eggs were perfect!) as he forgot to tell me we had run out of eggs so when I went shopping at the local Rewe I didn't buy any! So we stopped there and I made him get them, before we headed to Tübingen, and then on to Schloß Lichtenstein, where we had lunch, and finally down the Avenue Road to Riedlingen where we are spending our penultimate night in Germany. Tomorrow we will be on the Bodensee, then two long days driving and home on Tuesday morning. It has been a lovely trip.

German Avenue Road, 20 September

I was really disappointed to discover that the town of Neustadt an der Weinstraße, despite its lovely name, was not a pretty town at all! There were a couple of churches near the aire, which we went to have a look at and a bakery which I bought rolls, and then a Rewe, Lidl and Ali which I went to the latter of.

One look at the proposed route today convinced me that if we were to go on the Avenue Road at all, it would only be for a token distance. We still stayed on minor roads, mostly the Weinstraße, and stopped just outside Landau in die Pfalz for lunch and just outside Gaggenau for a cup of tea, passing through Karlsrühe en route.  It was a lovely drive especially as we are on the edge of the Black Forest here.

I had planned for us to stay outside a hotel which let one park up for free if you had a meal there, but the car park was full and there didn't seem to be anywhere reserved for motor homes so we came back into town and have parked up in the municipal aire which is free and has services. It seems very nice.

German Avenue Road, 19 September

Only a short drive today. We were woken up, as threatened, in the wee small hours by the grape harvesters - mechanical, these days, not students - going out and fully-laden trailers reappearing. But we went back to sleep and even though the Swan Whisperer went for a run, we were away by 10:00. The drive was partly down the Alleestraße and partly down the Weinstraße (do they overlap?) first going slightly all round the houses and having to reset the Sat-nav at one stage as it had defaulted to a route we didn't want! 

We wanted to stop in Bad Durkheim for lunch, but it was a bit of a bust as we had just missed the wine fair but the big car park was still full of vans. Then the restaurant which had had Federweißer a couple of years ago didn't have it and the food wasn't very good. Oh well. 

Now we are at Neustadt an der Weinstraße, within spitting distance of an Aldi and a Rewe and the SW has gone to explore, but we don't know whether it is a nice place or not.

German Avenue Road, 18 September

This morning we were rather alarmed to see that almost every other motor home had left the site by about 10:00, and wondered whether the owners wanted it cleared, but there was still one other machine there, so we went into Limburg and had a lovely walk through this very pretty town, including a visit to Woolworth's, which shocked us by having Christmas decorations already for sale - it isn't even October!

Back at the van, another machine came in and, after all I said yesterday they were English, although I gather they lived in Penang, and were headed to Brisbane after their European trip!

We decided to abandon the Alleestraße after only a token stretch in favour of driving along the Rhein, and that was lovely. It is still very hot - even overnight and this morning it wasn't exactly cold - and we enjoyed a ferry crossing at St Gaur. I thought I had mis-set the sat nav when we got here, just outside Bad Kreuznach, but just as we were about to go sadly away, we saw the signpost telling us where to go. We are in the yard of a vineyard and have been warned that the grapes will be brought in at an unearthly hour of the morning because of the heat!

German Avenue Road, 17 September

The SW went for a run this morning, and then after breakfast I went to the Norma across the road to shop and then did a scrap of washing, as he said his running shirt needed it, and he didn't have quite enough pants to finish the holiday. And the forecast is for it to be very hot over the next few days, I also washed the one light pair of trousers I have that don't  need ironing, in case it is still too hot for jeans by the weekend. Mind you, it's bitterly cold in the early mornings, and I am thankful for my bed jacket while I am drinking my tea, and for my bathrobe to dress under when I have had my shower. We haven't yet switched the heating on first thing, but it's been close!

I really haven't felt up to much exercise today, so we drive through Fulda, and I took a couple of photos out of the window, and then we had a very complicated drive to Limburg an der Lahn, trying to stay on the avenue route, which the SW calls the "Alley Way" ("Alleenstraße", you see), but not really succeeding. Despite an ice-cream break mid-afternoon, we were both tired when we got here. And the place I thought I'd found us to stay turned out to be outside a motorhome dealers outside of town - wonderful c you were just passing through, but no good for this sort of trip. However, we knew we'd seen signs for an aire, and duly found it on Park4Night, so now we are parked beside a tributary of the Lahn, not far from the town. The SW, who has been for a walk, says it is wonderful and he reckons the reason it's not in the guide books is that the Germans want to keep it for themselves!  Not that we've actually seen any other British tourists since Hamburg, and few of any nationality other than German! This will change, of course, as we get further south.

German Avenue Road, 16 September

Another lazy Sunday morning. We decided to go to the automobile museum, which was just across the road from where we had parked, and it was very interesting, telling the story of the motor industry in Eisenach from its earliest beginnings right through to the modern Opels made in an out-of-town factory. They decided, I think, that the factory of which the museum is the only bit that remains could not be made state-of-the-art post-reunification, so they tore it down and started again.

But while it existed, the factory built all sorts of cars. The most interesting, of course, were the little 2-stroke Wartburgs, built during the DDR years (you can always tell a former East German town as they have those very splendid "Ampelmänner" on their traffic lights.

Anyway after leaving the factory we used the services we had found last night and then  headed on, leaving Thuringia for Hesse and the town of Fulda where we are parked up opposite a Norma, which will be useful for the morning. Except what we really need is more Federweißer, dvd the discounters tend not to sell it. Never mind, there is always beer!