Dave posting;

Wednesday 3rd April 2018

Woke to the sound of gentle rain drops and rustling leaves in Ribeauville, our plans to climb the hill to Château de Saint-Ulrich quickly dissipated, we decided to get dressed and have breakfast on the road after we have driven for a short while.

40 minutes later we crossed the border on the D424 road in to Germany near Emmendingen. We stopped in a resting place and ate breakfast, switched the van Mifi on click here for our mifi blog,  and researched sites and places to stay near Konstanz, Bodensee, we have been to Lindau at the southern end before in 2008 on our motorbike so we thought we would like to go the northern end near Konstanz.

I also wanted to buy an Umwelt Plakette, a green emission zone sticker, you need one for your vehicle to be able to drive in to some German city zoned areas, it’s like the London Low Emission Zone. I tried to buy one online before leaving the UK but I was declined so I thought I’d chance it and try to buy one from any of the 300+ TUV SUD stations in Germany, I found one about 16 kms away, good news, let’s go there and sort that out and we can then relax as we drive through Germany without fear of being caught out or driving into a zone without realising.

Got to the TUV station, after presenting my V5 log book and an inspection under the van I was told we can’t have one because pogo is too old and doesn’t meet the emission standards, oh, that’s a blow but its not the end of the world.

Whilst I was in the TUV station Cathy has found a place to stay at Radolfzell, north end of Bodensee Lake which is actually Untsee,  I put the coordinates in and guess what the Sat Nav asked me if I wanted to avoid the environmental zones! What a great Sat Nav this is! That makes our lives more relaxed whilst driving in Germany.

Should prevent a problem later on!

Route planned avoiding environmental zones and off we go, on our journey we see the Alps, they look fantastic, very far away but the scale and size makes them stand out all grey, dark and moody, rough jagged edges and snow capped peaks, we tried to take a photo but it doesn’t do the views we had any justice. I could have stopped and looked at them for hours, to me they are so beautiful!

The Alps

Got to our place at Radolfzell at 3.30pm, and it started to rain hard we’d missed lunch so we ate a meal and read a for a little while and listened to music and waited. The rain stopped and we went for a walk down to the shoreline and the sun started to break out even though it was 7.30pm creating fantastic light and sunset, it was then that I discovered my camera battery was flat so I had to use my iPhone camera.

This area near the lake looks like it would be a super place for families in warmer weather, lots of water based activities, cycle and walking paths that go for miles around the water along with cafes, coffee shops, bars, hotels and restaurants. There are two marinas plus lots of bird life, we saw a heron quite close by until it flew off to “safety”. This is a really interesting place and well worth a visit in our opinion.

Walked along the shoreline for quite a while and back through town its evening now about 8.p.m  and we spotted an Aldi and Cathy has run out of porridge! it’s a staple for her and tea bags, essential items bought we were paying at the checkout and picking our shopping up when I noticed that Cathy still had a box of tea bags under her arm that we hadn’t paid for, good job I noticed it otherwise we might have been in the Gefangnis! or Jail as we know it.

Tree of the day! we’ve seen some unusual trees on our journey so far, the ones in France which seemed to line every road I nicknamed Brussels sprout trees, if any one knows what they’re called let us know and these above here in Germany are amazing! they look like they’ve been wrapped in fabric.

We had a relaxing evening with The Bank rolling Sausage and cheese, olives, red wine, music and chatting about our adventures so far, we agreed that we were both enjoying life in a motorhome.

Dave