Lake Constance

The next stage in our German adventures was Lake Constance, properly called Bodensee. To continue with the thoroughly organised trip reporting, here's a map of where we went around the lake:We decided to splash out and stay in hotels, which was great when it rained all throughout our first evening/morning in Friedrichshafen. Also, our shy 'Sprechen Sie Englisch?' was met with a firm 'nein' so we spent quite a while translating the hotel instructions on what we were and weren't allowed to do and most importantly, what time breakfast was. The breakfast buffet was great - cheese, meat, bread, nutella..

The following day we caught the ferry to Konstanz (see photo left), at the head of the Rhine and the border with Switzerland. Our next hotel had a fantastic with a view over the lake and even a wee kitchen (where we cooked white asparagus - no-one told us you were supposed to peel it first). The downside was the free food this time was another German speciality - McBreakfast! Yes, vouchers for the McDonalds. We were tempted not to use them but being the stingy kiwis we are we just couldn't resist the free-ness of it. Mmm lardy.

All the McFat made us decide we needed some exercise - so we decided to bike around an arm of Lake Constance. Actually, there's a great track that goes around the whole lake. It's mostly off-road on dedicated cycle paths or on quiet roads through amazingly picturesque towns. Also very well signposted, although we still managed to get lost at one point (see the squiqqly bit on the map above). It was a decent 75km ride on our hired bikes (8 Euro each for the day, what a score!) and certain parts were pretty sore by the end. Very sore, actually.

We also thought it was pretty cool that we spent half the day cycling in Switzerland, and half in Germany (there was no border control). The two photos here are us making a border crossing in Konstanz....

The next day was a bit more relaxing with a ferry across to Meersburg in the sunshine, a wander around the town there and a beer by the lakeside. We then decided to rough things up a bit by hiring a boat. I think we'd envisaged some speedy double kayak, but we got a peddle boat which took almost 20 minute at top Mark&Sylvia peddle speed to reach the Swiss border about 200m away. We tried chasing a swan but it lazily outswam us. The most fun was avoiding the ferries.

After two full days in the glaring sunshine we were actually starting to feel it, so Mark turned into the peddle boat Ninja by putting his polypro on his head. The swans weren't impressed.