Leaving France and the cheese behind, we hopped over the border into the south of Germany near Freiburg. First to the Bodensee, better known to most Brits as Lake Constance (not sure why we English feel the need to rename places in our own language, when the locals have allocated a perfectly good name already, but let’s not digress…) to visit our German friends Klaus and Jasmine who run a restaurant near Lindau: the fabulous Strandhaus. It was good to catch up with them and hear about their plans; Jasmine is the manager and sommelier, whilst Klaus is a ‘celebrity chef’ in Germany with his own TV cookery series specialising in amazing grill food. They don’t need any advert from us (they are mostly booked-out anyway) but we love going there and couldn’t miss the opportunity to give it a mention here.
From Lindau it’s just a few kilometres into Austria and the spectacular Alps – it’s all so wonderfully ‘Sound of Music’ – Julie Andrews and the Von Trapps could have popped out of the forest at any time 🙂 ! As the Austrian motorway tolls are ridiculously high for poor Cuthbert , we avoided the autobahn and made our way on the smaller roads over the mountains. This was an excellent opportunity to test properly Cuthbert’s new electro-retarder braking system: it worked brilliantly, even on the long 16% descent from Seefeld towards Innsbruck – this all bodes very well for tackling the Andes in the New Year!
The small roads across the Alps can be slow going…. in fact very slow in places, but sooooo worth it for the views…. Wowser! You just don’t get the opportunity to take in these kind of stupendous vistas when you blast down the fast-lane of the autobahn. We spent a few days in the lovely Zillertal/Gerolspass area where apparently ‘The Hills are Alive’!
Moving on to some more of ‘My Favourite Things’ … our friends Max and Uli, near Linz. Max is one of our oldest friends and the brave chap who first introduced us over 20 years ago! We had a lovely time going out with them exploring the northern foothills of the Alps, all very beautiful but no sounds of yodelling or any ‘Lonely Goatherds’ 🙂
After Linz we wanted to head south into Italy, but the best route avoiding the pesky, exorbitant autobahn truck-fees, is to go west to Munich before heading south. En-route around the ring-road, we passed by the Dachau memorial site and popped in for a visit. The gruesome history of this place is well known but we wondered whether it is still supported by the younger generation. No need to worry about any lack of attendance here; quite the opposite in fact. But for us there was something disappointing about the whole experience… maybe the overcrowding and happy-chatter noise, or the lack of respect for the significance and solemnity of the venue. It’s hard to put a finger on it exactly, but we felt something missing from Dachau… the ‘something’ which should generate in visitors a quiet sadness and respect, the ‘something’ which was present at the memorials to the Normandy beach landings that we visited a few weeks ago.
Anyway… moving swiftly on to something a bit more uplifting… southwards and back to the hills at Garmisch where we found the incongruously named but very scenic Wank Mountain… (we kid you not… check it out on Wikipedia if you don’t believe us 🙂 ). This is still very much ‘Sound of Music‘ country, but we doubt that the name of this particular peak would feature in Mother Abbess’s crusade to ‘Climb Every Mountain’!
Moving even more swiftly on, we did a quick skip south through central Austria and into the Alps of northern Italy. Our chosen route was westwards over the Stelvios Pass, but unfortunately someone had rather inconsiderately closed the road on the other side down into Bormio. Undeterred, we wanted to see the views from the top anyway so we put Cuthbert through his paces climbing the 48 hair-pin bends – yes… the ones made known to motor-heads by Mr. Clarkson and chums the (famously former) presenters of the popular BBC TV motoring programme, Top Gear. We knew from our mountain drives in Lesotho a few months ago that Cuthbert would do an awesome job taking us up the Pass and negotiating all the steep, tight turns, but we really had to take off our proverbial hat to the numerous cyclists undertaking the arduous climb on two wheels – “Jolly well done chaps!” Had they worked harder at school they might have been able to afford an engine for their bike 🙂 !
Our time in the ‘Sound of Music’ Alps was finely followed by the great Italian hospitality of the Marinoni-Richardsons in Bergamo (many congratulations to Patti and Dave who are expecting Bambino No.1 🙂 ) and a stunning drive north over the Mont Cenis Pass to Val D’Isere. We have visited the area many times on winter holidays, but the chair-lifts all look at bit ghostly at the moment, quite different without the benefit of a coating of snow and a pair of skis 🙁
The Channel Ferry – off into the sunset!
Finally, it’s time to head north back to UK for final family visits before we head to South America. On the way back north we had a short stay to catch up with Julie’s Uncle Roger and Lynda on holiday by Lake Annecy. As we were now back in France, the cheese obviously had to feature again: a fine Raclette and bottle of Pinot Noir with them to round off our Euro-tour.
We’ve had a lovely summer catching up with all our Euro-friends and we’re not sure when we’ll next be back to see them all again, but we are now itching with impatience to get going on Cuthbert’s next Big Adventure! Watch this space for the next instalment when we’ll be setting sail for Montevideo!
