Down like a Lead Balloon.

Konstanz, Germany (again).         frothy.beards.warnings (seems appropriate for getting beer froth on my beard).

Distance.  71km

Total        171km

Früstück was not as good today.  We didn’t expect it to be.  The breakfast room was split into 3 small rooms with elements of the buffet divided between the rooms.....cereals in one, cheese, meats and jams in another and toaster and brot in the third, it was like playing ‘hunt the breakfast’.  

Today we were doing the north side of the Bodensee.  Janice needed to do a few domestic chores, so.....

She was hanging out her washing to dry whilst we were travelling along.  My wife is very resourceful!

Our first town was back into Germany....the amazing town of Lindau.

The views across the sea were fab with the Alps silhouetted in the distance, and the Rathaus was amazing.  There is a long rope coming down the tower which is supposed to be reminiscent of Rapunzel’s tower in the Grimm’s fairytales.  It also reminded us of an overheard conversation between two young American girls....one said, “Germany.  It’s so Hansel and Gretel”.  I suppose that’s one way of summing up a country.  We have been to Lindau before in 2014 and it was then we had hatched the idea of cycling around the lake.

Our next major stop was at Friedrichshafen.  We got excited when we found out their was a Zepplin Museum.  

We were disappointed to find no mention of Robert Plant or Jimmy Page and no reference to ‘The Stairway to Heaven’.  It was all about giant flying airships filled with hydrogen that were built here.  They built 162 before they realised the design fault....they kept exploding in a ‘great ball of fire’, now that was a good piece of music.  Goodness gracious!  I think that dodgy joke probably went down like a ‘lead balloon’!  We didn’t visit the museum other than check the shop.  We did wonder who Graf Zepplin was and what his connection to the balloon...he was a German Count who developed the Zepplin in the beginning.

I must mention that I have never seen so many leisure cyclists anywhere.  The good weather must help and the fairly flat cycle paths as well.  The majority of the bikes are electric powered and riden by people a little older than us.  We still overtake most even with our panniers on.

Our last major town was Meersburg.....we have been here before too.  It is particularly pretty.

I’m being very selective with the photos because every direction deserved a picture.  There is an old schloß (castle) and a new schloß, a lovely harbour and the whole town is very quaint.  We took the liberty of trying the local wine and having a chat with two German couples, one of the men had actually been to Windermere.  He pronounced it, unsurprisingly as Vindermere.  In conversation I told him I liked Riesling but he quickly corrected me that it was pronounced ‘Reesling’ although spelt the same......I didn’t correct him with his dodgy pronunciation!!  They were actually very friendly....or is it ‘freendly’.

Today’s selfie is..

For those of you who are missing our regular church pictures....we have been taking them, inside and out and may consider doing a Church Special Blog, if I can remember which is which.

We got the ferry across to Staad, north of Konstanz and cycled to our accommodation which is at a Thai ladies house on the edge of the city.  It is painted a dodgy green colour but is actually nice and very clean on the inside.   We shall have to wait to see what we get for früstück before I judge.  We cycled back to the city in the evening and had a pizza and salad for our meal just to remind ourselves what green vegetables are.  I had a bier and I was very careful about the froth!