Distance ridden. 75km
Total. 100km
What a frühstück (breakfast). I had high expectations for German breakfasts but this was wunderbar! It had everything I could think of except Bury black puddings. Of course we managed to snaffle food for our lunch too. Janice made a smoked salmon sandwich and I did a ham, salami and cheese sandwich, both on lovely seedy fresh bread rolls. We were set up for our first proper cycling day and the weather was fantastic.
We were cycling from Germany, into Switzerland for most of the day along the southern edge of Bodensee and into Austria for the final bit. Bodensee is the third largest freshwater lake in Central Europe.
We had occasional stops at Romanshorn for an expensive coffee, at Arbon and Rorschach. The Alt-stadt of Arbon was particularly picturesque with a nice church and old buildings. We kept having to pinch ourselves.....well I was certainly pinching Janice! At Rorschach we went into the free art museum of the Wurth Group. As far as we understand they are a company a bit like Screwfix but wow what a modern spacious building.
The art was rather modern and not really my thing. I thought the figure on the floor was a modern place to park a bike but it is actually an Antony Gormley sculpture and there were some interesting looking things including a Picasso.....the important thing was that it was free. They actually do lovely tool boxes and rawl plugs (I thought I would give them a ‘plug’).
We crossed the points where the Rhein enters the Bodensee and that meant we were in Austria.
What a nice town Bregenz is. Lovely waterfront, good shopping area with some modern buildings for art, theatre and museums. After we showered at our city centre zimmer und frühstück (B&B), we walked up to the Oberstadt to see the older buildings and then we bought some provisions for an evening meal and ate them in sunshine at the Festspielplatz, where they hold a theatrical festival each year and it involves a massive head and hands.....
No, I don’t know exactly how they do it but it looks amazing. There is a whole open air seating area that is open for use and that’s where we sat. Then we walked back along the waterfront to watch the sun go down on a magical day.
Neither of us knew why Switzerland has the CH initials for its cars. It is derived from Latin meaning Confederation of Helvetica, which is what Switzerland was before it was Switzerland. Interesting.
I nearly forgot to mention that the cycling was fab too.
No comments:
Post a Comment