Bodensee

Bodensee (Lake Constance) is on the border of Germany, Austria and Switzerland, and is a beautiful clear lake tucked in under the Alps, with little towns and villages around the edge - very popular as a holiday spot in summer with lots of camping grounds, and little hotels and B&Bs.





We were pretty early in the year for the tourist season (we definitely were NOT going swimming!), but we had the advantage of almost deserted tourist attractions, and ease of finding somewhere to stay and to eat.





We stayed at Meersburg, a lovely little town on the German side of the lake. Getting there was a bit of a mission - 4 trains and a bus to get there, and a boat, 5 trains and a bus to get home! (An hilarious start when Lyn realised as we were about to get on the first train that her trousers were on backwards - fly at the back!) The train ride down took us through a mountainous area, where there was still a bit of snow on the ground, and there were lots of half-timbered farmhouses with their barns attached to them, very picturesque.





Our little hotel was cute, a nice room, with everything we needed and a good German breakfast in the morning. They make their own schnapps there. It was a bit early in the season for them to be doing tastings, but we bought some anyway.









The town is dominated by its two castles (Old and New Schloss), sitting side by side about halfway up the hill. Above the castles the 'old town' has little narrow lanes with half timbered houses, and between them glimpses of views across the lake to the snow covered alps on the other side.




















The Alte Schloss (old castle)is Germany's oldest castle, orininally built in the 7th century, and some of the rooms are still that old - just amazing!











We were almost the only people there and were able to wander slowly through looking at all the old weapons and armour (some of the suits of armour were so small they would almost fit Ben). There was a well that went right down to the level of the lake below, and a torture room where they kept the prisoners, and a hole that they lowered some prisoners down through the floor to the dungeons and just left them there to die! There was a secret passageway from the stables through the rock down to the lake, so that they could secretly get supplies in when they were under seige.

The rooms the were used in the 13 &1400s were great, with huge tiled stoves in the corners, and some furniture and paintings from that time. The big hall where the knights ate was great, and also the big living room used by the local ruler's family. It would have been pretty cold and miserable in winter in those days, I think.

By the time we came out of the castle it was cold and raining, so we pretty soon found ourselves in a 300 year old winekellar, eating local lake trout. I had a glass of Bischoffingen rulander which was delicious and very nostalgic!

The next day we were up early and waiting for our breakfast when Frau B&B opened up! We had another little wander in the town, Lyn and I bought a few local bits and pieces, and then found our boat across to Mainau Island. This island is just all garden! The owner has developed it into an absolute showpiece, and apparently it is lovely all year round. We are too early for the roses of course, but the spring flowers were all in bloom, and it was gorgeous.

There is an enormous hothouse, with palms and banana and orange trees, which was full of every imaginable colour of orchids, just tumbling down from the trees.

The children's garden had a huge peacock made out of pansies.

There was a great play area, and a really cool train set with half a dozen little trains running. (We thought the guy who was managing it looked as though he was in his dream job, playing with his train set all day!)

A highlight was the butterfly house. This was another hothouse (so hot that my glasses and the cameras all steamed up!), full of tropical plants, with a little river, a lake with turtles, a waterfall, and hundreds of gorgeous exotic butterflies, and just flittering round us, and almost landing on us. There were even some monarchs!

This was the biggest - you can't really tell from the photo, but each wing was almost as big as my hand.

The coccoons were in little metal baskets on the wall - we tried to buy some to bring home for Grandma for her stray monarch coccoons, but no luck!

Freidrichshafen, one of the other towns on the side of the lake (where we spent an hour between bus and train), is where the zeppelin was invented. There is one that flies over the lake giving tourists rides, but at $E335 each we thought not....

We also spent a some time in Lindau between trains, a lovely little resort town with a walled harbour and old, genteel-looking hotels along the waterfront.

We arrived home in the evening to find a cup of tea from Claudia with cake that the neighbour had made specially for us, and Timothy waiting for us, all dressed in his new clothes that Lyn had bought him. We reckoned he had grown in just 2 days!