Schillingsfurst.

Holidays are nothing if not eventful, and into our seventeenth day we’ve had some events.

The latest of which is the battery saga. We thought the hair drier had wrecked the batteries, but after leaving it into Erwins Hymer World discover the batteries are fine, the problem is something only a Hobby dealership can sort out. Mind you it cost us €163.51 to find out.

Helga should still be under warranty, and we had her serviced in November which is necessary to keep her under guarantee.

So that’s that, today it is cold, we’re now 1726 feet above sea level, in the heavily forested area that is our campsite for the night. We’re only here because we need the batteries charged, not to mention all our appliances.

It’s been raining from the early hours and still coming down, nowhere looks its best in this weather, so we’ll spend the time before drinkies, cleaning Helga and I’ve got the bathroom!

Last night was spent in the amazing  Weikersheim, a castle, gothic church, houses 500 years old, a gorgeous square. Everything a tourist needs and more. This site is 1500 miles from home, and I would have no bother coming back, not so many stops on the way perhaps, there’s time to rest tomorrow, immer haute morgan.

Still the rain comes, so I think we’ll go over to the campsite pub for an hour. Well it is Saturday after all.

We ended up in the van, because nothing was open, I mean the two on site pubs, it was a dreary day, and we couldn’t understand the draw of this place.

Until this morning. Woke up to bright blue and sunny skies, vehicles covered in thick ice, but the surroundings bathed in sunshine. This indeed is a hiker and cyclist paradise.

We’re getting on the road early today, so much to see and only four nights left for this part.

Our first stop was Dinklesbuhl, and there was a street market. Even car dealers were represented with about four companies selling cars. Have to say even the markets are outstanding. When we left the site this morning it was 3 degrees, and as we drove along it was trying hard to snow! To the west bright and warm sunshine and to the east snow.

We left there and proceeded to Nordlingen, another stunner. People were living and working here for around 800 years. For those in the know, that’s longer than Granny Dougan lived in Belvoir.