Blog 2.2 - South Through Germany

Thursday 6th April 2023.

Day 10 already. Flippin' 'eck. (Not Deutsches Eck; we bypassed that along with the rest of Koblenz a couple of days ago).

Having spent a very peaceful (and warm, thanks to having a decent 16a hook-up) night on the Wohnmobile Stellplatz at Hirschhorn, we needed to make a decision. Do we stay another night, or strike out towards the top(ish) end of the Romantische Strasse?

As it happens, sleeping in until nearly 10am made our minds up, and besides, we fancied a walk up to the schloss, high on its bluff overlooking the town and the Neckar.

It's quite a slog up a steep cobbled street, and poor Admin had left her inhaler back at the van, so it was slightly more tricky than it perhaps should have been.

We huffed and puffed, and eventually made it, and it was open! Well, I say 'open', but really there's not much to see apart from the outside of the 13th century keep and the several later extensions.

Not even a place to get a well-deserved coffee, sadly.

Look how many croaked on the way up to the Schloss. I didn’t think it was that bad

Still, the upside is the fantastic views around the oxbow curling around 'new' Hirschhorn towards the north, and the rest of the river and town to the south. We could almost, but not quite due to a strategically placed tree or two, see the van in its repose adjacent to Hirschhorn FC's pitch.

It looked quite lonely as evidently everyone else had moved on by this point.

It's there, just to the left of that spire and behind the trees. Honest

Having sated our viewing desires we took the steps down on the river side of the schloss; long and winding, but probably the better route on balance.

We soon found ourselves on the same road where we'd enjoyed drinks at a café the previous afternoon, so it seemed only fair to stop outside the one almost next door, and partake of coffees and delicious tiramisu in the late sun.

The coffee and cake thing can get quite habit-forming in Germany. We may have to make cutbacks!

The other problem, and it seems odd to us in this day and age, is that seemingly so few establishments take plastic. We've become so used to not carrying cash, especially since the pandemic, that it's quite shocking that we are having to drain our folding reserves rather rapidly.

Must find a Hole in the Wall!

And we must stir ourselves reasonably early tomorrow morning and hit the road.

Good Friday: On to the Romantic Road

It's a good job we thought to do a bit of shopping in the small but surprisingly well-stocked supermarket in Hirschhorn yesterday. Germany isn't like the UK, where you can guarantee there will be several shops open on holidays. I applaud that policy though, along with closing on Sundays. People need a rest, and there are six other days in the week for heaven's sake.

It looks like there will be limited opening tomorrow, then pretty much blanket closing on Easter Sunday and Monday, but that's fine. We're all set. Enjoy your break folks.

We started out relatively early today - or tried to - but were slightly thwarted by a warning symbol and message on the dash exhorting us to 'get power steering checked'. It wasn't there when we parked up, so what's happened in the intervening hours is anyone's guess.

Initially I assumed it might be low fluid, which would be disappointing as I'd just had the first service done at Research Fiat Professional. However, after a fruitless search for a reservoir or filler cap, and a bit of Googling, the realization dawned that the Ducato Series 8 had electric power assisted steering! News to me...

Trying to contact the dealer for advice also proved fruitless (Good Friday. Great timing), so after a lot of humming and hawing, and explorative slow figure-of-eights around the stellplatz, we decided to risk it.

What's the worst case? The steering goes heavy? At least we're unlikely to overheat a pump, as there isn't one.

The day's planned route was to take us over slow switchbacks along the Neckar, the Main, and the Tauber, to our eventual destination of Tauberbischofsheim near the northern end of die Romantische Straße.

That being so, off we set, very steadily, arriving in good time with no ill-effects detected.

I can but assume that there has been some random electrical glitch which has latched a fault. Maybe I'm being naive.

Hope not.

I'll seek out a Fiat Pro dealer (or Citroen or Peugeot; same vans basically) asap and get them to at least plug in and see if my suspicions are anywhere near the truth.

Hope so.

Damned annoying, whatever. 

Anyway, we arrived in the early afternoon and thus had the pick of several 'pitches' in the swimming pool car park near the town centre. Yes, they're designated MoHo pitches, and free up to a maximum of three nights stay. Once again - great hospitality towards motorhomers/vanners that leaves most of the UK in the shade in respect of attracting trade and visitors to towns that need it. Bravo Germany (France, Spain etc).

We took a stroll into the town centre, partook of the regulation coffee and cake, and generally soaked up the sights and the sun - which had made a belated but welcome appearance.

Oh, and we managed to find a cash machine too!

Maybe tomorrow we'll head south further along the Straße, but not because we don't like it here; we just want to see more.

Saturday the Eighth

Well, it was a fairly interesting evening as it happens. Several cars turned up, for maybe three hours, bang opposite us, and proceeded to chat, smoke, and drink their abend away. Can't really complain though as they weren't all that intrusive, and thankfully refrained from the bass-heavy music. It just puts you slightly on edge though, wondering if they're going to stay really late and get lairy with it. But no, they all cleared off at a reasonable time and we were able to settle down for a very peaceful night.

Friday the Ninth

Up again quite early then, and we pointed the van's nose south towards a campsite a few miles west of the Straße at Rot am See, not too far away as it happens.

We had decided a campsite would be a good idea so we could both get good showers (and they were very good), wash our hair, and wash clothes - all of which things were slightly overdue...

It's an odd sort of place, the site, to be honest. Very small, and almost full of semi-permanently located, mostly quite small and old, caravans all of which have quite elaborate timber and canvas annexes attached.

Turns out that the owners all spend weekends here, but this being Easter have cleared off elsewhere for the duration so it's virtually devoid of people.

Those few folks here, though, including the owner (who speaks excellent English too) are all exceptionally pleasant and helpful, and the facilities, which could charitably be described as 'moderately tired', are all spotless and fully functional.

Strange place though!

The town, a 20 minute stroll away, also has its limitations - mainly being that there's not a lot there, and what there is is almost universally closed.

Honest, sturdy sort of urbanization though.

Mind you, it has a large-ish Lidl, which was open, so we descended on it and purchased lunch in the form of warm and substantial mushroom and cheese pidé type things, jammy Berliners, and excellent coffee from a bean-to-cup vending machine (at just one Euro per cup). All that came to €6.98, and I could barely walk after hungrily consuming my share as we sat on a wall by the nearby stream. Rather cheaper (and more substantial) than our snack lunches of late in various High Street cafés.

It's still cool here - going down to maybe two degrees tonight, so the heating's on high (the benefits of 16a hook-up again) and we'll probably succumb to another early-ish night in readiness for what could be a somewhat longer drive tomorrow.

Oh, steering fault status: no change, to status lamp or vehicle performance. I'll just daft-man it until at least Tuesday and then think about finding a dealer.

Easter Sunday 

We went to Germany. And it was shut.

Well, it seems like that at the moment, but we're well stocked up, so no problems. At least it's bright and calm out there, and the forecast for the next week doesn't look too bad - if only it would warm up a little more. Perhaps it will as we head south, or have I just hexed it?

The road south continues in similar vein to yesterday. A virtually flawless ribbon of smooth grey asphalt, and a joy to drive on. The lack of squeaks and rattles from the van feels quite uncanny, not that it's bad in that respect anyway.

It's just not possible to stop in all of the many towns that are highlighted as gems on the Straße roadmaps. It would take far too much time to cover the distance, so, we motored on through to Donauwörth as that seemed like a sensible staging-post; far enough along to be worthwhile, and at a point that feels like a genuine step in the trip: the crossing of the River Danube/Donau.

We'd checked online and there appeared to be a suitable parkup right on the banks of said river (between it and the River Wörnitz in fact, very close to their confluence).

It's a big level car park, but doesn't really feel it as we are tucked in on the very end beneath trees and adjacent to beech hedging. And it seems to be quite peaceful - so far at least. We could pay for a hook-up should we desire, but the battery is at 100% of its 230 useable amphours, so why bother? The solar panel is in sun too, as there are few leaves as yet blocking its rays, so it's a free night.

We spent a lovely two or three hours wandering around the beautiful town centre, imbibing the usual coffee and the unusual, in a very good way, Walnuß Torte. Quite delicious.

Might just stay a second night on the balance of the evidence so far.

Decisions, decisions.

Easter Monday: 10th April

Decision made by morning, and a nice relaxing second day had here in Donauwörth.

The sun shone. The battery got a full fill of volty stuff, and we had another walk discovering bits of the town that we hadn't discovered yesterday. And it didn't disappoint. We topped (bottomed?) off the afternoon with a couple of hours on the Donau's bank, drinkin tea, eating Berliners, and Kindle-ing.

What could be better?

Well, we enjoyed it anyroadup!

Tomorrow's another day for moving on though, and possibly seeking the advice of the Fiat dealer in Augsburg, further down the Straße.

We shall see