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Travelogue
We continued west, following Lake Constance. Our first priority was breakfast and, having identified a bakery in the town of Constance, detoured to our right by about 500 m, parked the bikes and M1 went in to get pastries and coffees.
The woman serving spoke good English and asked M1 for "eleven eighty". M1 paid by card, took pastries and coffees outside and enjoyed breakfast sat at a table with M2. M1 commented that 11.80 seemed much cheaper than usual and that maybe there was hope for Switzerland yet!
Fuelled, we jumped back onto the bikes and headed off. Pretty much around the next corner, we were confused to see a Swiss border control and customs booth. Apparently there to control traffic into Switzerland.
"Hang on, what country are we in??" said both M1 and M2 simultaneously!
Apparently that 500 m detour had taken us across the border into Germany!
Rather than risk having to take our bags off the bikes and have them rifled through, we turned around, consulted the map and found a way around the border control via a small park. Simples!
It started raining. And then raining harder. We put our rain jackets on. It stopped raining.
M1's solar panel was packed away because the forecast had been for rain and didn't come out to play until the afternoon when the weather and outlook improved.
We turned right, following the map and found ourselves crossing the Rhine on a large bridge and heading for what looked like a nice town. Immediately over the bridge, we turned left into a cobbled street and were amazed by how beautiful it and its buildings were. We were in a medieval town called Stein am Rhein. It was one of the highlights of the day and a lovely surprise. We had no choice but to stop for coffees.
After leaving the town, we cycled across now sunny farmland, complete with sunflowers.
We stopped to photograph a covered wooden bridge.
The route was increasingly hilly. 15% at one point. We soldiered on and at the top of one steep section found we were at a tourist attraction called the Rhine Falls. There were hordes of people and a big car park
We parked the bikes but not wanting to leave them unprotected, M1 was dispatched to investigate the falls. He soon returned to report that after a short walk you could see the Rhine through the ramparts of an old wall but not any actual waterfalls. For that you needed to buy a ticket and pass through turnstiles. M1 had taken no money with him and wasn't that interested. He'd seen the Niagara Falls so doubted the Rhine Falls would be up to much!
M2 went to investigate but took money in case the urge to see the falls was strong. It was not.
We left the Rhine Falls behind and cycled on increasingly hilly roads, always into a strength sapping headwind.
Eventually, we crossed the river, cycled west a while and crossed the border into Germany which is where the day's campsite happened to be.
The campsite was a cool municipal place complete with outdoor sofa, which M1 made good use of, completely exhausted from all the up and down hills as he was.
There were only two other travellers in the "tent meadow". One was cycling from the Netherlands to somewhere near Rome. The other was a well travelled walker who was walking from Cologne to a Swiss Lake near Como.
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