Monday 6th July – Week 4 – Bacharach

Single beds, single bed duvets and small bath towels – we must be in Germany. Indeed we are, a hop, skip and a jump from Germany's former territory and we were into Deutschland, visiting the Rhine and the Moselle rivers.

Before leaving Strasbourg this morning, we did a bit of a walk around the central city, grabbing a coffee and then getting on the motorway. Leaving France on their 130 kph motorway, we hit Germany and switched immediately to a 90kph rough single lane road for 6ks, which was quite a surprise. As soon as the road increased to dual carriageway, the Germans were off and roared passed me. As the speed limit increased to 130kph, the speeds got even faster and I got blasted past by a range of BMW, Audis, VWs and of course even the “man in the white van” made a brief appearance as he shot past me in one hell of a hurry. Also on the road were more trucks than I knew existed.

The roads in Germany are free and although they allow unlimited speed in some places, they are also the home to millions of trucks, traffic jams and contra-flows. All of which makes for a mixed result, as some of the locals we have spoken to complain of the number of road works, where the lanes are coned off, traffic is at a crawl and there is no apparent work being done.

The weather has now changed from tropical to unsettled and rather than a cloud burst in the afternoons, we are now getting regular deluges at any time of the day or night, the skies are generally overcast and camping has been put on the back burner until the situation rights itself, or the holiday ends, whichever comes first.

Our first deluge of the day came on the motorways and it was one of the scariest experiences I've ever had in a car. Just as I pulled out to pass a truck, the heavens opened and the conditions turned into a white out. All I could see was the silhouette of the truck ahead of me and the white line to the side of me. Everything else was just spray and the road almost immediately was covered in surface water – all this while travelling at 130kph, although the speed reduced rapidly until the conditions improved a couple of minutes later. The brief trip to Bacharach (the small town on the Rhine where we are staying) involved 3 single lane contraflows and one tailback that went on for a couple of kilometres. This is more traffic trouble in one hour on German roads than we've in 3 weeks on French ones, so from our perspective, the French pay as you go system seems to yield a better result.

Bacharach is a pretty little town at the side of the Rhine. We have booked a hotel there for one night. We didn't arrive until mid afternoon, so after checking in and having a bite to eat, we went for a walk around the town before retiring to our room to watch the latest stage of the Tour de France.

We were walking around the town in the evening looking for somewhere for dinner, when this elderly woman came out of one of the restaurants, looked up to the skies and then said to us, “it's certainly chilly out tonight, it was 30 degrees yesterday. Are you looking for something to eat?”. We were both somewhat surprised at both the perfect English and the direct but very friendly apporach, so we both said yes, and with that were taken into one of the smallest restaurants we've ever been in. It was like stepping back in time. The restaurant was a small room the size of a living room, with only 7 tables, one of which was taken up by the Lord of the Manor, who appeared to be in his 80's, but was nonetheless doing the books on his laptop.

The room itself was wood panelling to waist height, with 3 layers of red tiles above that. Animals heads and skins adorned the wall, along with badges from various police and fire departments and there were a couple of stuffed animals on the shelves around the room. The table cloths were green plastic, leadlight lampshades hung from the ceiling and the curtains were red string. The owners obviously had something to do with horses, because there were also several photos of them with horses in their younger days. All the tables and wood panelling in the place was dark, so it really did have a rather old fashioned but comfortable feel to the place. Half of the tables had customers, so Anne settled in for what turned out to be one of the most enjoyable meals of the holiday. After all the French fare, it was nice to have some simpler food, so the Bratwurst and French fries, and the Weinerschnitzel was absolutely perfect. The lady of the house of course convinced us to have some of her home made apple struddle, which was to die for, so we left the restaurant well satisfied and all for the extremely reasonable price of only 30 Euros including a beer and a pitcher of wine (the food and wine were suggested by the lady of the house! She ordered and we enjoyed)

It is difficult to know how the GFC is affecting Europe (as translating the odd news we see is beyond our language skills) but certainly things seem quiet especially as this is peak season! The restaurants are not full and neither are the hotels, nor the campgrounds – certainly a surprise at this time of year! We have been told that a lot of Europeans are holidaying at home (be that in France or Germany!). The exception of course is the Netherlands, where 1 in 5 of them have got a caravan, so they are all out traveling the highways and biways of Europe – as we are.