Day 34 - Karlsruhe to a beautiful campground just south of Plittersdorf
As we prepared to head south we had decided that Strasbourg would be our next goal with some cycling in the Alsace area that the Grampies love so much. Since Strasbourg seemed a little too far to do in one day, we looked for a camping place somewhere about half way. Good choice, because the next few days were very hot. As we left Karlsruhe we had a night in a campground just south of Plittersdorf (Tuesday night), followed by 2 nights in Strasbourg already booked and we had been in touch with a warm showers host for Saturday night and Sunday night in Freiburg im Breisgau. That just left Friday night unplanned in between Strasbourg and Freiburg. This had to be a record for us when it comes to planning ahead.
Karlsruhe had been a surprise to us as it turned out to be a really pretty (and quite big) city. Since we were not following a river or any specific radweg, I turned the routing over to RWGPS. It did a great job of routing us on safe and good surface tracks. It also seems to find really pretty ways to go whenever possible.
As we were leaving Karlsruhe, there was a weird sculpture
Erika loved the garden statues in this yard. You can't see it in the picture, but there was a continuous stream of little drops of water coming off the umbrella
We arrive at the gate to the campground. This was a major facility for camping and cabins/summer homes surrounding a lake. Lots of grassy space on the lakeshore for swimming/picnicking, sandy beaches and a really warm swimming lake. They also had a scuba training program, a nice restaurant, free showers, a laundry room at 4 eu per load, we just hung everything around our camp to dry
So the camping facility was everything we wanted: A great swimming lake, laundry facilities, good restaurant, even a bakery that would open at 8 AM next morning. When we arrived registrations were not yet open but no problem, they had us park our bikes inside the closed gate and in full view of the staff that were at the gate admitting day users. We could go in, visit the restaurant, do anything else we wanted and just check in later. All in all it was a very good setup for us, we went and had a meal and then killed a bit of time before going to check in. We had 2 choices, we could check into a shared space where several tents would be close together, or for more money we could have a regular space of our own that came, ostensibly, with electric and water included. We opted for the more expensive space. But when we looked at the space assigned we were dismayed to see that it was completely open grass and at least 30 meters from the electric installations. (This is pretty typical of campgrounds in Germany, having electric boxes spaced out so that they serve anywhere from 5 to 30 sites all at once) So I went back to the office to ask if they had any extension cords as well as adapters for the electric box. I explained that being on bicycles meant that we did not carry a 50 meter electric cord or the big standard adapter with us. They explained that no, they didn't have any electric cords for use or even for sale. They said it was a safety issue: They wouldn't know if a cord were developing a short in it and might give us a bad one. Seemed a little lame to me considering how willing the campgrounds in Holland were to loan you whatever you needed.
So I asked if we could bring stuff into their office to get it charged and they were quite willing to do that. Good, that will be fine but is there anything we could do about the open exposed area? I thought we could even take our tent to the shared area, although I had not seen it yet (later when I did see it, it was no better) They seemed really uncomfortable with changing anything about the price and the contract we had already paid for and after a bit of thought and a question to someone in charge, they suggested I go look at a space that wouldn't normally be used but might be big enough for a really small tent. I went and had a look and it was great! So we were very happy in the end.
My conclusions in all of this were that they are very willing to be accommodating but they are so focused on the trailer/motorhome crowd that they are a bit clueless when it comes to touring cyclists who are tenting.
Today's ride: 31 km (19 miles) Total: 1,351 km (839 miles)
