Austria and Germany

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September we sailed to France on our way to Austria via Belgium and Germany.  On our way home we travelled back into Germany to the Carthago Owners UK European Gathering in Ravensburg.  We had organised this event and had to make sure that everyone enjoyed their weekend. As it turned out it was a great success.

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After travelling east across northern France and Belgium we arrived in the Moselle Valley and Kues-Bernkastel.

 

We stopped here for a couple of days and enjoyed the sunshine on the banks of the peaceful Moselle River.

 

We cycled into town and were amazed to find a number of Dutch brass bands playing all the old favourites.  After a while the band moved on only to be replaced with another. Apparently this is an annual event in Bernkastel.

 

We struck up a friendship with a German couple in the motorhome next door to us. They made us feel really welcome in their country.

Everywhere we went in both Germany and Austria we were greeted with the same hospitality.

 

Photos left are of our rather cosy patio in the evening sunshine, the Moselle river and the town of Bernkastel.

We continued south east across Germany and just south of Munich we visited a war cemetery at Durnbach.

 

The cemetery was beautifully maintained by the war graves commission and each grave was very easily indexed.

 

The purpose of our visit was to find Desmond Rowlands, a cousin of Desnée’s mother. 

 

Cousin “Des” was the pilot of a Lancaster in WW II at the tender age of 23. Their plane crashed after a bombing raid on Nurembourg. What was comforting was that his crew are all buried alongside him.

 

These were brave men and it was daunting to see that as the war years progressed so the pilots became younger and younger.

We now travelled south into Austria in wet weather and low cloud and stopped for a night on the shore of Achensee.

 

This is a long narrow lake surrounded by beautiful mountains. Both a summer and winter ski resort. Very picturesque but not in the rain.

 

This was a good overnight stop and again we were made to feel very welcome.  We had discovered that our satellite Internet had stopped working and so we took advantage of the campsite Wi-Fi in the restaurant and had our first ‘meal out’.

South again the next day to Zell am Ziller where we planned to stay for 7 days.

The weather cleared up but it was still colder than we had expected or that the locals expected!

Camping Hofer was a magnificent camp site with views to die for. The quaint village was spread out before us with cattle grazing in the meadow. Beyond were the mountain peaks with their first sprinkling of snow.

We put our bicycles on the train and travelled up to Mayrhofen for a day out and then cycled back to camp along the beautiful valley floor.

On the Saturday it was Almabtreib. This is the day when the cattle are brought down from the high, summer pastures and the whole village celebrates. The cattle all wore head dress and every now and then a herd would be lead through the town which was accompanied by much cheering and drinking.  The cattle seemed totally happy in human company and were not the slightest bit phased by all the merriment.

Each cow also had a large cowbell and the noise of a whole herd on the move was quite deafening

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