CYCLING LAKE CONSTANCE DAY 3 – sunshine on Meersburg

That white stuff is snow on the mountains. It probably fell yesterday.

What a difference a bit of sun makes! Nearly seventeen degrees today, so off came the Goretex jackets (though they were kept handy, just in case.)

It was a day for a leisurely 38km on the flat, with vineyards on one side and the Bodensee on the other. It was a day for a long lunch with a generous glass of local wine, without getting too schlossed. It was a day for browsing a couple of museums and a compulsory gloomy castle. And finally it was a day for sitting by the water with a Greek dinner (‘my cousin live in Brisbane’) with a Zeppelin buzzing lazily overhead.

Walkers and cyclists seemed to be Meersburg’s main customers.

No rain, no wind, and the sun almost breaking through as Europe’s most popular cycle route started to live up to its reputation.

Meersburg is touristy, for good reason.

Castle Meerburg is a gloomy place, like most castles, I suppose. All those cold stone walls, heavy wooden chairs, suits of armour, dusty cannons and battleaxes. The only guided tours were in German, which was a relief to me. I could speed through it at my own pace without having to listen to a lot of names and dates.

I should be fair and go back to give it another chance, or at least google it.

It’s not a great job, being a knight, standing outside a castle checking tickets. It must be hot in that helmet.

Placing dummies like these around still fails to bring the place to life for me.

So we strolled the streets instead…

…lunch by the water was time better spent.

Sculptor Peter Lenk has enhanced the Meersburg foreshore with his satirical work Magische Saule. It’s a complicated back story (he’s worth a detailed later post too) but as an artwork it’s a lot of fun, and shows that city fathers around these parts have a spirit of adventure and a sense of humour.

Peter Lens, Magische Saule.

Peter Lens, Magische Saule.

It was an easy 20km ride to Friedrichshafen, a bustling provincial town with a spectacular location. It’s main museum, The Zeppelin Museum, houses art and technology, particularly featuring the displays on airship travel. The Zeppelins are worth a later post on their own, but for now, here’s the Maybach Zeppelin saloon car:

The Maybach Zeppelin.

The cloud is high and scattered and the wind blows fair for Austria. Must stop blogging and get onto breakfasting and biking. More soon…

The writer was the guest of Freedom Treks and was assisted by Bodensee Tourismus.