Day 73: Wangen to Kadelburg

July 11, 2014

The breakfast at our quaint "Adler" hotel had some extra touches, like smoked salmon, and fresh fruit salad that included pineapple, melon, and apricots. Pretty good for a 59 euros place. That is, until I came to pay and check out. It seems that during yesterday's German discussion with the man, 59 and 95 got confused. So the Adler went from being reasonable to costing about 150 Canadian dollars. Shoulda eaten more smoked salmon!

There was a short peddle along the Rhein to get the day going. The way was a moderately wide suburban type street, but historical markers took you progressively back in time to earlier days along this same shore. Once uploaded, there should be photos here showing the path as it is now, and how it looked in 1930. Along the way, a moderate number of oncoming touring cyclists passed us. One family had a youngster in tow, with his bike connected to that of his mom. It looks like a good way to go.

Very quickly we crossed a now mostly defunct border and entered Switzerland. For the rest of the day we would be crossing back and forth, and usually did not know whether we were in Switzerland or Germany. We arrived at Stein am Rhein, which is definitely in Switzerland, quite quickly. Stein am Rhein is still covered in the Bodensee guidebook that we bought, but really it is not part of the lake district, but rather, as the name indicates, part of the Rhine.

Two years ago, as we came along the Rhine from west to east, we had arrived at Stein am Rhein and swept by the gate to the old city and around the town - only luckily pausing to look back from the other side and see what we had missed. This time there was no such confusion, because there is no gate on the east side - so you are just injected right into the midst of it all.

Stein am Rhein altstadt has got to be the prettiest two blocks in this part of Europe. It contains 15 or more named and documented houses. For example, the Vordere Krone, at Rathausplatz 7 is described as "Impressive residential and trading house dating back to the 14th century with unusually wide projecting partial hip and typical lift door. 1613-15 fundamental reconstruction and extension of the stately rear buildings. Wooden oriel with three gargoyles from 1707. Elborate and elegant interior and painting. Exterior painting late baroque 1734 with allegories and ornaments."

The houses are all like this, most with elborate frescoes. The shops in the buildings include a bike shop and a bakery, as well as art and souvenir places. One place is a cheese shop, that advertises 80 types of swiss cheese, and another is a chocolate shop with 300 varieties of Swiss chocolate. In the chocolate shop we asked the proprietor if he remembered us - since we remembered him. Of course it's easy to remember a man with 300 varieties of chocolate. On the other hand, it's hard to remember another two goofy Canadian tourists.

The sticker I got at Stein am Rhein has been proudly displayed on my rear pannier for two years, but weather has taken a heavy toll on it. Now I have a new one! Also, in one of the tacky souvenir shops there were cows bells, from miniature up to full size. At about half size they began to sound like the real thing. But of course, for the bike, only the smallest one is reasonable. So now I tinkle rather than clong along as I cycle!

Stein am Rhein has a Benedictine Abbey, which would have been fun to visit. However, we are starting to be a bit alarmed at the low kms we are logging these days, and decided to give it a miss. We kind of regretted it for the rest of the day.

So now we exited by that gate at the western end of town, and soon were passing through a forest. We were glad that the rain mostly held off while we were in Stein, so the camera did not get drowned. But soon after we left, the skies opened with the first of many heavy rains of the day. In the forest we came to a very little cabin, with just enough room inside for one person to lie down, but a nice table made from a log out back, and a fire pit too. We stopped to speculate about how it would be to pass a night here. We also speculated about whether this might be the cabin of a woodcutter, some dwarfs, a witch, a troll, or some other mythical inhabitant of these German forests. We settled on the woodcutter, and this was confirmed by piles of firewood that we came across deeper into the forest.

Once out of the forest we drew abreast of the town of Diessenhofen, across the Rhine, on the Swiss side. This is where we had "wild camped" two years ago, in a parking lot. We realized that we have learned a lot about Germany and German since, and would have no trouble deciphering the ticket machine at the parking lot now. Then, it was a complete mystery, so we did not invest the required 2 euros in renting a spot. Two years ago, though,the bells of the church across the river had been so evocative. I remember making a recording of them. It was all so wonderful then, and guess what - it still is.

Quite quickly, again, we arrived at Schaffhausen, the town where the Rhinefall is located. Last time, after looking at the Rhinefall, we blew through Schaffhausen. This time, eager to get to the falls, we blew through again. This is a shame, since the Schaffhausen pamphlet lists about 20 points of interest. Schaffhausen has been well preserved, and has for instance the Fronwagplatz, a square that once was the city marketplace. Above the town there is the fortress, the Munot, built 1564-1589, and there is also the largest cloister in Switzerland.

The Rhinefall itself is the largest waterfall in Europe, being 150 meters wide and 23 meters high. 700,000 litres of water per second pass through. It is rather impressive, but just a baby by our standard - which is Niagara Falls. Just as at Niagara, though, there are boats that take people up to the base of the falls, and in this case, there is a pinacle of land in the centre that you can climb.

This was the place, two years ago, where we saw our first currywurst for sale, and our first Swiss cuckoo clock. We have changed a bit in the intervening time, though, and frankly these things were not quite as thrilling as before. Now, of course,we have bigger fish to fry, as we are heading to the actual Black Forest to see even more cuckoo clocks!

As far as heading out towards the Black Forest goes, we do remember some confusion about direction as we came in to the Rhinefall area last time, from the other direction. This time was no different, as we climbed out of the immediate area of the falls and the associated parking lots. The rain intensified and we ducked in to the shelter of an unused building. This turned out to be a former customs/border post, and we were amused to note a door on one side marked Switzerland and one marked Germany. We parked ourselves between the two, and so presumably astride the border. Here we took out the tablet, while the rain pelted, and checked for e-mail. In Switzerland, our SIM had not wanted to work, while here it did. I was amused to speculate whether it would cut out if I moved it 6 inches to the Swiss side of where we were standing.

To give you an idea of the low quality of discussion that Dodie and I may have on these long trips, in reference to the FIFA matches, I crowed "Hey, I'm in Switzerland, I'm neutral!" and she replied "I'm in Germany, and we're going to whip those Argentinians!".

The rain tapered enough to leave our customs office, and presumably follow the Rhine radweg along the Rhine. Not so easy! We knew our next main destination was Waldshut, and we followed signs for that. Normally these bicycle direction signs also boasted the plaques of the radwegs that were involved, like Eurovelo 6, German route 8, the Rheintal radweg, etc. However, mysteriously, the signs while still pointing to Waldshut stopped having radweg designators. Still we followed them, because after all, they were meant for bicycles.

After a while, though, the signs put us on a flat out car road. We carried on a bit, and were relieved when a fairly non-explanatory but still meant for bicycles sign pointed us to a left turn off the car road. Naturally we took this, but immediately found ourselves on a rough forest track, climbing.

We pushed the bikes up and up through the forest. Fortunately the rain was just drizzle, or being in the middle of a deep dark forest, pushing uphill on gravel in pouring rain such as there was earlier, would have been really a downer. We kept checking the GPS, which was fairly non-committal - indicating that the track was sort of generally taking us in the right direction. It showed that a road was coming up, that looked like a more direct way. But when we got to the road we found it barred, and German signs seemed to say that it was not barred for cars but maybe bikes could pass, but rather that bikes would not be able to pass.

So, we carried on on the gravel track. At least, I mused, there would be no bears to worry about in this forest. On the other hand, there was no telling what other creatures might be about - trolls or dwarfs, or suchlike. Then, out of the mist came a maiden on a large horse. The horse was wearing some slightly decorative gear, but the maiden looked just normal. They passed by us and disappeared into the forest we had come from. "Strange", I mused "we just came from there, and there is nothing that way for kms and kms". "They could live inside that forest", said Dodie, "did you get a picture? That could have been a Princess". "No", I said "If a princess, her disguise was too good, and I just thought she was an ordinary girl on a horse". "Idiot!" observed Dodie sagely.

As we carried on in the direction from which the girl and horse had come, we could see that there was nothing in that direction either. After a long time, though, we did come to a village. From there we began to plot a way back to the Rhine, where we felt the real radwegs were to be found. We finally did come back to more recognizable territory. Later, Dodie was able to map out where we had been - we had climbed a mountain and circled around - losing about 3-4 hours and 10 km in the process. We did get a good tour of a deep forest and some teeny villages in the process.

Now we passed some camping places, but as it was still spitting we carried on, looking for a guest house. We found one, in Kadelburg, just outside Waldshut.

Meanwhile, that email we had checked on the Swiss border had included a message from our friend Didier, whois in Strasbourg right now. We have mostly arranged to meet up on Sunday and go with his car deeper into the Black Forest. Tomorrow we need to push on, to get as close to Didier as possible. Suddenly we are no longer dawdling along. Of course that does not mean we will bypass the breakfast that the lady at today's guest house will be making. We may be crazy cyclists, but not that crazy!

Internet is very weak where we are - so no chance of photo right now. Check back for them, Stein am Rhein especially is worth looking at.