Three countries at a spot
On Saturday we made it as planned early from the feathers, skipped the breakfast, arranged the things for the post office together, repacked quickly and were actually already halfway there. Nevertheless we had to pedal a lot, because we had to make about 60 km until 11.45 at the latest to get to the post office in Bregenz in time. The day began with an uphill stage and also in between the one or other poisonous gradient was built in. But in general, most of the route was downhill. We made good progress. In order not to lose any time, we hardly allowed ourselves any breaks. Only at a dairy we could not resist and bought cheese produced on the farm and tasted chocolate and vanilla yoghurt. With a few raindrops we were greeted in Bregenz when we arrived punctually at 11.30 in front of the post office. We lost 7 kilos of weight, which we sent back to Austria. We also sent out the first part of our wedding thank you cards with the photos.
Since cycling and skipping breakfast is not a good combination - everybody can try it out in a self-test and will notice it in the reaction of his body ;-), we strengthened ourselves in Bregenz with an extensive lunch, strolled through the old town and bought some maps of Switzerland.
Lake Constance and Bregenz at the beginning of August are not “summer cycling” but “high summer cycling in high season”. The weather was hot and humid. The area around Lake Constance had not seen any real rain for weeks, as we could see from the brown dried meadows and the moaning comments of the locals. In Bregenz was festival time. The chance to get a room for a reasonable price at short notice was zero, and the campsites in Bregenz were also occupied by masses. This, we cycled further to Rohrspitz in the afternoon. There, we were lucky to get a tiny spot which Katharina was able to acquire, while Matthias was said “everything occupied “ at the same camping site. The lady had obviously sympathy with Katharina, who still felt the missing breakfast as well as the kilometers coupled with the sultry temperatures. Also at the camping site in Kreuzlingen (Constance) “everything was occupied” the next day. But here a meadow is reserved for cyclists who only want to stay for one night. We found this - very pleasant - system also on the campsites in the coming days. High summer cycling at Lake Constance is characterized by many athletes, beach baths and summer festivals. At the camping site in Rohrspitz we enjoyed the musically somewhat questionable pleasure of the annual harbour festival, while we could watch a beautiful firework display on the other side of the lake from a distance. At the lake we could not only watch swimmers, sailors and surfers but also kitesurfers, on the cycle path around the lake not only many cyclists - it was almost like on the Danube cycle path! - but also inline skaters and roller skaters - Switzerland has a network of cycle and roller skates paths - and tandems. We actually counted 7 tandems in only one and a half days along Lake Constance. Düsi felt really well ;-). We enjoyed the public open air pools and the beach of Kreuzlingen. Its entrance fee is included in the camping night. The public bath has even ingenious slides and generally a very generous offer of beautiful pools for athletes as well as for small children.
Bodenseeradeln (cycling around lake Constance) is a three-country hop between Germany, Austria and Switzerland. So we returned to Austria at kilometer 1192 of our tour, to leave it again at kilometer 1228 towards Switzerland. In the next 2 days we cycled towards the Rhine Falls. We lost the overview of how often and when we switched back and forth between Switzerland and Germany on the way. A visit of the lively Constance with many nice restaurants and shops as well as of Stein am Rhein, whose houses are beautifully painted around the village square, is highly recommendable. Constance-Kreuzlingen are two cities that grew together. The border splits them in the middle. It is impressive to see that the character of the city changes completely at the border. The Switzerland part is steril and all closed in the evening while the German part has old houses and many open shops and restaurants.
