Sunday 5 October

It rained quite heavily during the night (no doubt just because we’d put the screens up so they got wet!) but by our later getting up time the sun was shining from a blue sky and it stayed like that all day. The plan today was to continue to the end of the Deutsche Alpenstrasse at Lindau on the Bodensee, or Lake Constance if you’re Swiss. So a steady cruise along quite busy roads through more super countryside, including 3km of a switchback descent which got the brakes warmed up a bit!

Typical views

Roundabout Art

Lindau was built on an island jutting out into the lake so all the interesting bits are there. We parked at a stellplatze at the Park and Ride and walked to the town – the pretty way (knew I should have taken the satnav). Apart from its fine ambience Lindau does not have a lot of anything special to offer, nor is it very big. There appeared to have been some kind of road race earlier in the day but the altstadt was now relatively quiet so we enjoyed a stroll around, stopping off for a snack lunch at a street café.

The harbour area seemed to be the busiest place, not surprising really as the train and bus stations were there also. Lindau has regular ferry services all over this very large lake, including to Austria and Switzerland.

St Peterskirche

Harbour entrance with lighthouse and lion (no idea!)

We think this was the old lighthouse

Once we had seen enough we caught a bus back to the van. The stellplatze was quite expensive, would not take our cards (again!) and as we had run out of change we had only paid for a few hours parking. So after a cuppa we decided to head north west along the lakeside and look for somewhere a bit more reasonable. 

There were several stellplatze marked so after being unable to find the first we pulled into the second, which turned out to be more like a campsite attached to a hotel. It was very nice, if a bit dear, but all facilities were available at no extra charge so as it was getting quite late we settled in. At least the machine takes notes!

We think that the Deutsche Alpenstrasse is a superb route to follow (just try and avoid the public holidays) and in the autumn the trees and forests make it more so. We would not hesitate to recommend it and are quite likely to come back again. As with the Romantische Strasse, it is important to get as much information about the various places along the route as the signposting is a bit hit and miss. But we loved it.