24 April 2015 - Auf Wiedersehen Bermatingen, Bon Jour Vidiex!

As travellers we are delighted when our plans go well but not too surprised when they don't!  We were all set for an very early start for our 11 hour drive (approx 900kms) from Bermatingen near the Bodensee, Germany to Videix, near Limoges, France.  Picnic breakfast and lunch packed, bags all ready at the door, car full of diesel and Tom Tom primed to avoid tollways and get us to our destination!  We were all seated in the car when we realised that the Tom Tom was not working AT ALL.  We didn't have a back up plan as to this point, the Tom Tom has been very reliable and with the poorly marked roads in Germany, essential.

All set to go!

Bye bye Autenweilerstrasse!

Main street Bermatingen

We all took a deep breath and Karl went back inside to our house, restarted and rebooted and reset and updated the Tom Tom and after a few attempts, it suddenly sprung into action.  We wonder if Tommy, as we affectionately call the Tom Tom was having revenge after we had ignored her persistently the day before! (She didn't know about the roadworks that we did know about!).  All was not lost as the kids and I went for a walk and bought our last croissants from the local Bermatingen bakery and stretched our legs before the journey ahead.  So, it was 8 AM before we left eventually, 2 hours behind schedule.

Last walk down the main street

It was a beautiful day for driving, for which we were very grateful and the journey was indeed through magnificent countryside and many small villages and farming areas.  Heading towards Singen we continued west in the direction of Basel, avoiding Switzerland and tolls. We travelled through the famous Black Forest (Schwarzwald), in and out of tunnels and mountain passes, enjoying the dark green of the pine forest and rugged terrain.

Black Forest farm

Sometimes we went through the tunnels and sometimes the train track did!

Dense foliage of the Black Forest

We went through Freiburg, Germany, a lovely town where my brother and his partner, Susan and kids had lived for 6 months a few years ago.  We didn't have time to stop, due to our later start, and so we pushed on until we crossed the border to France through Basel until we came across a boulangerie on a minor road and declared it was time for a break!  I smiled to myself as we were greeted with " Bon Jour" and did my very best to remember "Merci" instead of "Danke".  Fancy travelling between countries so easily and speaking different languages in one morning! 

Freiburg

Freiburg

 It wasn't hard to choose the pain au chocolat for all but Luke who enjoyed a boule de Berlin!  To the kids' delight there was a vending machine which delivered the best hot chocolate and they were set!

Vending machine and hot chocolate!

Typical French village

Lovely farm

Through the car window

Fairly typical of the roads we travelled

The kilometres of emerald green grazing land and gleaming yellow canola plants in flower and some fallow fields in between the forests were absolute eye candy.  At times it seemed as if we were seeing everything through a green filter.  This type of green is foreign to our Australian eyes.  Personally, I never tire of this kind of scenery and don't feel "bored" of the sheep and lambs, different coloured cattle and calves and   horses with their foals.  The kids were generally good although Luke decided he was bored from time to time.  We managed to play word games and other "car" games before we relented later in the day and said they could watch a movie on Tim's laptop.  I remember many road trips as a child, with no devices at all except a crackly old radio balanced on the dashboard of the Kombi van which gave us the ABC news from time to time!

We did stop at a McDonalds for toilets and an ice cream on the outskirts of a largish town.  I was having trouble ordering and the nice young man serving me said : "You can speak English to me" and so I did!  The music playing in the toilets was "Let it go" (in French) from Frozen...peculiar choice of music for the toilets!! Reminded me of my brothers hooking up Monty Python's "Here comes another one" to our back toilet when I was growing up and my sister's friend emerging from the toilet looking very embarrassed.

And so we drove on until we found a pleasant roadside stop for our uber lunch picnic and leg stretch. Point of note, the public toilets in France are often "squatters", which we got used to in Asia, but are not our preferred toilets!

Lunch break - note canola fields

 Almost immediately once we continued through the forest flanked roads, we noticed the very different trees.  From the dark green pine trees of the Black Forest to the deciduous birch and beech trees with their new spring foliage in rural France, the green was so very bright in contrast.

Deciduous forests of France

Green,green, green

Karl was doing a fantastic job of driving all the way and I was chief navigator and sign watcher alongside "Tommy".  I did, at one point, lapse into Australian sided-ness  and nearly had a fit when I thought Karl was going the wrong way around a roundabout!!  No harm done but a bit scary! We couldn't have done the journey without the Tom Tom as the little winding roads and sharp turns through villages are confusing.  From time to time we came across barricades and "deviation" signs which confuse Tommy!  At one newish roundabout we spent a few goes trying to exit on the correct road and came across another car stopped and confusedly looking at their misguided Tom Tom too! Having said that the road signage is better in France than Germany by far! 

Love the ivy

 With the sun getting low and our destination still 2 1/2 hours away, we stopped in a biggish "little" town which Karl described as quaint and I described as a poorly maintained ghost town! The German towns are very well maintained with pretty flower boxes whereas the French towns are scruffy in comparison but more relaxed. There were very few people about and shops were all shutting at 7.00PM on a Friday!  We found a pizza shop open and ordered two pizzas from there and the woman kindly filled up our water bottles.  There was a pizza vending machine outside, which amused us, but it was better to buy the "real" thing.  We wandered to their town centre, found a bandstand to eat our pizzas, then continued on.

Dinner spot

Well, well, well

Very quiet town, nice buildings!

St Martinus Church

Town Hall

The roads were dark and mostly without traffic and we counted the minutes down to our destination!  When we got to our gite, it was dark, country dark, with NO lights and without the expected note on the door to say where the key was!!  It was 11 PM and there was no one anywhere!!  

We were certain that it was the right place!  I had emailed the host earlier, saying we would be late because of the Tom Tom issue however, due to the change of hosts (new people taking over this airbnb), we couldn't contact the new people directly and didn't have wi-fi en route!

We found an open window through which Karl climbed (!) and was able to open some french windows as our doorway.  He turned on the lights and snuck inside!  We were relieved to find the house 1) empty, 2) with power and 3) with internet which we had prearranged!  It was lovely inside and just as the photos had indicated.  The kids found their beds and settled quickly.  Karl and I had a quick cuppa and also crawled into bed, weary and relieved to finally lie down!  We are here for three weeks and tomorrow there is no rush to get up or be anywhere!