Day 3 - Black Forest

Mark woke up to a disco in the room this morning as Steve was turning all of the lights on and off trying to find out which one was for the bathroom. Obvs, it was the last one.

For breakfast, Steve had cake, a nic3 apple strudel and Mark had bread with some butter that was about as spreadable as wood.

We hit the roads which had now fully dried out and started our long long journey south. The roads were great and we’d got the perfect bikes for them. The traffic was light and got out of the way for the local BMW and KTM. Everyone loves the bikes here as no one else has sports bikes and kids wave and smile as you go past.

We stopped for lunch at an odd place. We were two Englishmen sat in a Swiss restaurant in France eating Italian but having to speak German. Marks mincemeat looked a little undercooked but ate it anyway, what could go wrong.

Back across the German border we pushed on into the Black Forest and found the most awesome road. This is where Marks stomach let him know that things might not be all ok. We carried on as far as possible before stopping for an emergency ‘break’ at a restaurant. It turns out that it was a popular stop with a gorgeous looking lake and thankfully, nice clean toilets. As we were in the right place we shared a slice of Black Forest gateau between us which would probably have fed a family of five for two weeks.

We carried on through the great roads as the day went on, and eventually hit the autobahn. We were tired and weary so kept to sensible speeds but still had a lick on, but we were overtaken by VW Passats every couple of minutes doing what must have been close to light speed.

Things took a minor turn as Steve’s bag gave up and roped a bit so we had to make some emergency repairs. Only about 2 hours to go now, but we were knackered, hot and dehydrated. The last leg of the journey was awful, stuck behind trucks doing 20mph for 40mins.

Finally we arrived in Lindau, a small island on a lake in Germany right on the Austrian and Swiss borders. We had an AirBnb booked but couldn’t find the place or the parking. We went round and round for a while and then bumped into the owners luckily.

The room is a little basic, no shower, toilet, WiFi, etc. But it was welcome still after the 9 hour bike ride.

We freshened up and went for some food and was served by a bad tempered boss eyed waitress. We weren’t sure is she was shouting at us or not so we claimed ignorance.
Annoyingly, sat next to us were two kids who were spitting images of The Proclaimers and they were just as annoying…

Afterwards Steve took Mark for a march around the island in complete darkness and we obviously got lost. Everywhere was closed so we decided that maybe sleep was the best thing and found our way back to the apartment before collapsing.