Week 10: A weekend on the Weinstraße!

We left the aire which had become packed with vans overnight as the workers arrived and the chipping machine got going at 9am. It was Saturday morning and the weekend beckoned along the ‘Deutsche Weinstraße’, or wine route.  Crossing the bridge in Bertha we admired cyclists doing the same. Been there, done that!

Deutsche Weinstraße

It was a mercifully short drive along the busy autobahn before we got off it and into the rich agricultural land of the Pfalz in West Germany. 

The way to the bottom of the Weinstraße was mainly farmland and piles of harvested pumpkins, squashes, cabbages and potatoes lined the fields. 

Small villages advertised Erbst or Oktoberfests and many homes and farms had barrows piled high with fresh vegetables for sale alongside the road. Iron- framed archways into and out of villages wound thickly with vines, lately picked. At the spa town of Bad Bergzabern we wound up a steep hillside through the grounds of a klinik and into the vineyards of Weingut Hitziger.

The terrific aire at Weingut Hitziger

The campervan parking was situated at the foot of the vines and despite a moderate slope, it was tremendous. Once up on chocs and (almost) level we admired our surroundings of 80 hectares of colourful, autumnal vines.

We were warmly greeted by its owner Nicole and arranged for an early evening tasting, heading meantime down the steep slopes to explore the town.

Bad Bergzabern's old centre is pretty and lined with flea markets and second-hand and vintage clothes shops, whilst the new centre is upmarket spas and designer shops. Having collected some food supplies we puffed back up the slopes and met Nicole for a terrific hour of conversation and tasting of wine. We learnt a lot about the family’s way of life at the vineyard and the different needs and complexities of the many varietals they grow for their range of wines. 

Enjoying a glass of wine in the vineyard

The sun was shining hotly on the weingut’s patio and Nicole invited us to enjoy a seat and a glass of rose amongst the vines. 

After 64 days on the road, it felt such a treat to be doing this, and at a surprising 23 degrees, the late afternoon was so different to that of 24 hours before on the bikes.

A walk over the hill to Oberfhofen

The weather cooled overnight and it was cloudy and drizzly as we set off the next morning to walk to the weinfest in the next village, at Nicole’s urging, to taste ‘the new wines’. 

When we arrived at bustling Oberfhofen it wasn’t even noon but trestle tables and benches were filling up with people drinking large glasses of a cloudy juice-like wine. 

Landhaus Wilker with the festival oompah band

We meandered amongst ad hoc stalls and up and around the village for views of its setting in the hills. At a decent hour we headed back into one of the wine-makers courtyards, the noisiest, to try the new wine. 

A brass band pumped out oompah and traditional tunes that the tables full of eating and drinking people sang and clapped cheerily along to.

Our first and last ever 'new wine'

The new wine was served in quarter and half litre glasses and was a cloudy yellow colour, very grapey in taste and yeasty. 

Simon declared it to be fermenting in his stomach so we didn’t finish our small (!) glasses and left as the band got particularly noisy and rosy-cheeked drinkers stood up, swaying and embracing each other.

A Bertha baked apple tart

As rain again set in for the afternoon, Simon baked an apple tart making use of 2kgs of apples that had been travelling with us since the Black Forest!

It felt a fitting way to end a super weekend of autumnal festivity in another very pretty corner of Germany.

A day on the Rhine

We ploughed along the busy A8 heading west. The route east was the way to Stuttgart and both carriageways were full of fast-moving freight, the traffic announcer on the radio amused us by continually referring in English to ‘stop and go’ on the autobahn.

At the Rhine we got off the road gratefully, and headed underneath it, literally, to a free overnight aire at Maxau am Rhein, a leafy suburb of Karlsruhe.

Bertha beneath the N10 and Railway bridges

A couple of vans were already parked up and half the aire was taken up with plant machinery being used by landscape gardeners who were cutting back trees along the riverside and chipping them.

It was noisy from their work, but surprisingly not so much from the four lanes of traffic thundering overhead across the high bridge that spanned the wide river. 

Cycling through Rheinhafen-Dampfkraftwerk

In this corner of Germany the Rhine (das Rhein) flows west across to Wörth am Rhein, the last town before the border with France. Despite threatening skies we got the bikes off to cycle along the mighty river.

A wide cycle path south quickly turned into a rough track through forest and ended up in the middle of heavy industry. Tall chimneys belched out clouds of steam and elevated conveyor belts hauled mountains of coal. 

The cycle path wound through the grim towering buildings and workers’ car parks before stopping abruptly at a canal-side dock.  

Up and over the bridge at Dampfkraftwerk

We discovered that to cross the wide canal we had to haul the bikes up two flights of thin mesh-metalled stairs that  climbed steeply above the dark waters.

For someone prone to bouts of vertigo this proved terrifying but we were rewarded with the sight of a large tanker passing underneath our feet and a wave from its pilot.  

I managed, with greater difficulty, to get my bike down the steeply nauseating steps. It was a relief to pedal wobbly away on land!

We bowled along south through large forested areas without any real destination in mind. At Neuburgweier we stumbled across a small car ferry that was plying its way across the river to the west bank. It had just left but happily a wurst and beer kiosk was opening up under the canopy of the trees so we joined a surprisingly large crowd of people (where had they all come from?) and enjoyed a late lunch.

Ferry across the Rhine at Neuburgweier

The small ferry was a very reasonable 2 euros each and on it we met Deep, a Londoner heading with his bike and tent to Strasbourg. He was booked onto the overnight train to the south of France. That sounded appealing! 

We waved goodbye on the bank of the river and turned north as he headed south. The skies were darkening.

For much of the ride we were up on the high flood defence banks with wonderful views across open farmland, mainly pasture on this side of the river. 

The trail wound away from the river and it was surprising to see how far inland the defences actually reach. It started to rain but we had our jackets and the hoods were protection enough. 

After half an hour the rain came down in driving gusts, out of nowhere and against us. We stopped under a tree and wondered about Deep, he had at least 30 miles to cycle yet. 

A soggy cycle ride back alongside the mighty Rhine

Surrendering to the weather which was getting worse we pedalled back to the riverside and shelter under the vast autobahn bridge. An immediate problem presented itself. How to get back across the river?  Bertha was tantalisingly close but unreachable. We climbed up a steep pathway that miraculously brought us up and onto the autobahn bridge, but on a separate section for cyclists. 

It was nervy cycling in driving rain across the towering bridge and next to speeding traffic but it was safe. Back at Bertha we chucked wet and muddy clothing that was beyond saving and shared a warming tipple as her gas boiler heated up water for much-needed hot showers! 

The heavy rain would continue until midnight.

To Stuttgart, or not to Stuttgart?

We were up early to ponder a route to Stuttgart. Chancing upon some information online we discovered that whilst Pforzheim is in the ‘umwelt zone’ it’s through ways are excluded. Just off one of these roads is a motorhome aire, also excluded. We decided to chance it and then to investigate the train into Stuttgart for the day.

The pesky Umwelt Zone

Bertha retraced her steps back along the winding road, this time heading north back to Pforzheim. We kept to the ‘bundesstrasse’ or through road until the combination of road works and our sat-nav sent us over a bridge too early into the town. 

Right in the centre of the ‘umwelt zone’ we heard a police siren begin blaring behind us. I was frantically trying to work out how to best present our case in German and avoid the on-the-spot 80 euros fine. 

Incredibly the police car overtook us, acknowledged our stopping and sailed on by up the road. Around the next corner was the aire so we pulled up gratefully and calmed down over coffee!

The stopping train from Pforzheim to Stuttgart takes 90minutes to do the mere 27 miles and costs 27euros for two day passes. This was off-putting but frankly the prospect of staying longer than one night in Pforzheim was more so.

The grey town centre

The town is all grey, concrete tower blocks and overhead walkways with a depressing square of high street shops, and peculiar and unattractive public art. 

Most people in the centre seemed to be hanging about drinking. A pop-up Italian market provided the only colour under blue canopies. 

 

Perhaps Pforzheim should be twinned with Plymouth?

 

The vendors were inevitably flirting loudly with local teenage girls, most of whom we saw already with babies or small children. We headed along the riverside in search of the old centre but found only blocks of flats, a grubby river bank walk, suspicious looking effluvial ‘drainage’ and a vast, empty public square with a towering sculpture of two red chopsticks. Weird.

When in Pforzheim...

The concrete walkways around town

Simon mused that the perhaps the idea of an ‘umwelt zone’ is to keep you moving through it? We forgot about wanting to see Stuttgart and settled in for a nervy night in Bertha on the aire, looking again at maps for a route home.

A noisy night between the railway and N10

In the morning there was an incident with a cat. A German couple parked in the van nearest to us had a striking large smoky grey cat with vivid amber eyes called ‘Tasso’. 

Their van left as we had breakfast and when we packed up and got ready for the road ‘Tasso’ appeared at Bertha’s door. Oh my god! 

How has he got off his lead? How can they not know? Surely they haven’t dumped him? What to do?

 

Not Tasso

‘Tasso’ didn’t want to be picked up and quickly set off mousing around the service point, terrorising something small and squeaking. I went across the car park to another van to ask questions about ‘das grau katze’. 

The smiling German chap understood my worries but said he had seen the other van leave earlier with the big grey cat on a lead, and anyway this one is smaller and not the same. It is a local cat. I wasn’t sure but it did look a little smaller and its eyes were more yellow than amber.   

How could such a strikingly similar cat appear in the same place? A local grey cat did however suit Pforzheim. Bemused, we left it leaping on top of its prey.

Heading to Stuttgart

Staying on the ‘scenic route’ we drove the 66kms north to Augsburg. The mountain peaks flattened into long undulating plains which still proved to have steep hairpin bends in places. Nervy still about Bertha’s steering we veered off the A8 to visit a motorhome service garage for help. 

Unfortunately, whilst the mechanic understood the problem he was not able to deal with it and directed us to a Fiat dealership. After some fruitless searching around an industrial estate we found the business, closed for the last five years. We headed onwards and it was with some relief that we pulled into a central car park aire at Kircheim-unter-Teck at 5pm, having driven 135kms.

Kircheim-unter-Teck from the autobahn

Not having much energy we meandered into town and perched on a bench at a local’s bar run by punky middle-aged women sporting tattoos and improbable hair colours. Back in Bertha it was a frustrating evening trying to use our phones to internet research a route into and out of Stuttgart without falling foul of the ‘umwelt zone’, Germany’s environmental tax but also network of roads which are off limits to vehicles like ours. Pretty tired by now we battened up for the night as locals left the car park in droves.

A chilly night in Bavaria

Next morning, woken early by a mechanical digger in the car park and not having found an immediate solution to the Stuttgart problem we headed back into the Black Forest, this time on its eastern side. We experienced momentary panic as we realised were indeed passing through the ‘umwelt zone’ around the town of Pforzheim. We fixed apologetic smiles and tried and to look inconspicuous to a passing police car.

A scruffy campsite at Bad Liebenzell proved to be a gem as we got off the road and promptly hogged the washing and drying machines, showers and wifi!

Bad Liebenzell is well connected by train so the next day we took a free ride on our ‘guest card’ south to Horb-am-Neckar.

Through the Eastern side of the Black Forest

It was good to be back on a swift, clean German train but this time it felt oppressive travelling through the dark forest. 

Where on the west side the tracks ran through open pastoral land and valleys alongside clear rivers, pretty villages and well stocked and tended farms, here on the east the route was through steeply forested escarpments which were home to heavy industry and down at heel-looking towns. Everything seemed, well, dark and dank.

It was a close, muggy afternoon as we scaled, yet again, more narrow streets and alleyways up to the centre of the old town. Slightly disconcerted by graphic sculptures depicting Leda and a randy swan, and another of presumably the Minotaur’s mother and her bullish lover, we found the charming market square and painted Rathaus, depicting the good citizens of Horb. 

Decorated Horb Rathaus

A closer look reveals Horb's heritage

Spiralling back down the alleyways we passed gangs of university students camped out in the many kebab and pizza bars housed in mediaeval merchant shops. We joined them to share a kebab fresh out of the bread oven of an elderly black-garbed Turkish lady. Germany has large settled Turkish communities and consequently you are never too far from a cheap and exceptionally good quality kebab!

The Black Forest on a plate

As this was to be our last day in the Black Forest we asked at the tourist office about the best gateau in town. Duly directed back up the steep way to the Markt Platz a bemused café owner presented us with a whole Black Forest Gateau, six inches high, 12 inches wide and covered in white frothy cream. 

Settling just for the one piece we finally tucked into our first, and last, slice of the heavenly cake. A fitting way to end a return to the forest!

 

One final night in the Black Forest