Wanderung 15

Volksmarching through Germany and a Cruise to get back.

September-November 2007

Monday, October 15th - Lindau im Bodensee.

Bob:

Since we were planning on driving westward into the Black Forest the next day, we decided to explore the Bodensee area eastward into Austria where it touches the borders of Germany and Switzerland. So after breakfast we drove East through the morning fog, hoping it would lift as the day wore on. We stopped for the morning just a few kilometers up the road at a town called Lindau that was located on a small island just off the German side of the lake, and it turned out to be quite interesting.

Parking at the shore just before the pedestrian and automobile bridge leading to the island, we collected our gear and ambled across the bridge into a nice park at the edge of the island. The park had a fountain, weird sculptures, and some of the biggest, healthiest fuchsia plants I have every seen. The fact that those fuchsias were so huge and were still blooming in mid October indicated to me that the lake must create a mild micro-climate for the cities just around the shoreline.

Monika:

We decided to drive east around the Bodensee, since tomorrow we will be heading west. When we got to the eastern most part, I remembered that the island of Lindau was supposed to be quite pretty. So we followed the signs to the island. When we found a parking lot just before the bridge to the island, we decided to park the car and walk across the bridge.

We started walking through a little park with beautiful flowers and funky statues. One was very modern, the other baroque. What a contrast!


 

Bob:

Continuing into the main section of town we wandered into the central market area, where Monika found a store selling dolls and assorted hobby and craft goods. Monika bought a memory game for Annalise and two small dolls for our doll houses, and I found a doll-sized teapot, cup, and saucer that I bought for my sister Lois, the tea freak. Lois would probably be overjoyed that the German bed and breakfast places all offered complete pots of tea as well as pots of coffee. In fact, I typically had 3 cups of tea while Monika had a like amount of coffee to start out every morning, and all that caffeine surely did energize us for the morning activities!

One remarkable aspect of the city was what I would call "The Tale of Two Churches". In a central square we found a Lutheran and a Catholic church standing cheek by jowl, and as these were clearly the main churches of the city we stopped in to take a look. The churches were about the same size and looked reasonably similar from outside but my goodness were they different from the inside!

The Lutheran church had clean lines, white paint with light colored patterns stenciled on it, and a plain pulpit. The altar was simple and adorned with a single burning candle with a poem about the fragility of freedom in the modern world. Very evocative. The stained glass windows were quite unique in that some very nicely done figures were formed as the bottom part of windows that otherwise had a regular pattern of circles inserted in the lead frames. Curious, that.

The Catholic church gave a totally different impression. The interior was furnished in a busy, almost overwhelmingly complex fashion. Statues, pictures, marble, and gold where just everyplace, pulling your eyes in several different directions at once. The pulpit was only similar to the one in the Lutheran church in its basic shape and function, but otherwise it was completely different. The altar was so embedded in a mosaic of different gargoyles, saintly figures, and gold plating that you almost could not see it. the Catholic church was far more entertaining, I guess, but from this description I think you can detect that I was more comfortable in the Lutheran church.

Monika:

From the bridge, we walked into the old part of town and came to two churches. The first one was a protestant one. It was quite beautiful, but plain, open, and somewhat modern with a beautiful old organ. The stained glass windows were fascinating, since they did not cover the whole window, but just showed figures in the lower half. I found the church rather restful, and could imagine worshipping here. Next door was the catholic church, not that much different from the outside, but oh my, the interior was a burst of colors and ornamentation. Even the ceiling was painted. I could not have imagined two churches that were more different!


 


 


 

Bob:

From the churches we continued through the center of town. When we saw everybody stopping to take pictures, we knew we had reached a "Kodak Moment", so we also stopped and took pictures of what turned out to be the Rathaus or city hall. It was not huge, but it certainly had a fancy exterior! I particularly enjoyed the fact that on the front face of the Rathaus the city fathers had installed both a traditional clock and a very nice sundial. You just can't have too many clocks in Germany!

From the Rathaus we walked a block down to the harbor area, which was small but quite picturesque. Some kind of stone tower with a pretty roof dominated the shoreline of the harbor. Two arms of a breakwater reached out into the lake to form the actual harbor, and the marina on one side of the harbor was filled with pleasure yachts despite the lateness of the season. The gap between the arms of the breakwater formed the mouth of the harbor, and on the left side of the gap we saw a large bronze statue of a lion while the right side boasted a very nice old lighthouse.

Since we saw people up on top of the lighthouse, we knew we could climb it and walked out along the breakwater to get to the base of it. After duly paying our entrance fee we walked up the 139 rickety wood steps to the top and were rewarded with a wonderful view of the town on one side and the lake on the other. Since the mist was still hanging over the lake we could not see the mountains of Switzerland across the way, but the sun had burned off enough of the fog by this time that we could get really good views of Lindau. We took some pictures of ships coming into the harbor and returned to the breakwater to continue our walk around the island.

The perimeter walk around the island was very pleasant. We had nice views of the coastline and old turrets or towers that probably played a role in the defense of the city in the Middle Ages. We also saw the causeway with the railroad connections to the mainland, and then worked our way back into the city, stopped at an Imbiss for lunch, and returned to the car to continue driving to Austria.

Monika:

After seeing the churches, we meandered through the old town and enjoying the old houses. We finally reached the townhall, which was colorfully painted on all sides. From there it was just a short walk to the harbor, where a lighthouse and a lion guarded the entrance. We walked the 139 steps up to the top of the lighthouse and had a nice view of the city. Although the fog was slowly burning off, the mountains were still hardly visible.

After walking around the seawall, we returned to the downtown area for a quick bite in a Imbiss that sold turkey-gyros. The Imbiss not only had a no-smoking sign, it also said, "We don't sell cigarettes". It seems that the no-smoking lobby is finally gaining ground in Germany. Our room in Rothenburg and the room here in Friedrichshafen had signs asking people not to smoke, and there was no ashtray in the rooms. Whereas 4 years ago, no smoking rooms were only available in some of the larger hotels. Nice, that...

Bob:

The funny thing was that the borders in the European Union have become so diminished that we actually didn't know we were in Austria until the gasoline prices became suspiciously lower than they were in Germany. Then the GPS's detailed map coverage ended and that finally made us certain that we were really in Austria. We drove to the next major city but then made a U-turn and drove back to Friedrichshafen for the afternoon.

After parking the car we decided to walk through the nearby woods down to the lake shore. It was a pleasant trail and we reached the shore after walking for about an hour. Along the way we even found ourselves back on the same cross-Germany walking trail that we had just walked on during our Volksmarch back in Rothenburg. It was nice to see the trail's end at the Bodensee, and we had great views out over the lake but still no views of the mountains across the lake as the mist was hanging in there.

Continuing into Friedrichshafen we walked around the harbor, climbed the viewing tower at the end of the breakwater, and found the main church and Rathaus in front of an interesting fountain in a central square. But in almost every way, Friedrichshafen seemed much more modern and industrial than what we had just seen in Lindau that morning. The Rathaus was a modernistic block of a thing, the harbor was lacking in any kind of character or charm, and instead of climbing the steps of a historic old lighthouse to get a view of the city we climbed an black, square tower that was not only a visual eyesore but was shaky to boot! Now Monika says that this is an unfair comparison as Friedrichshafen is an industrial city whereas Lindau is not, and surely she is correct. Friedrichshafen became an industrial center as a direct result of Count Zeppelin building his airships; the town population increased from 4,000 to 20,000 as he began commercial production of airships shortly after the turn of the century. In another sense, however, if you don't care beans for airships and are looking for a cute, cozy German town to spend a weekend at, you would surely be well advised to choose Lindau over Friedrichshafen.

Monika:

We headed back to the car and kept driving around the lake. Suddenly, we noticed that gas prices for Diesel had gone from 1.18 per liter to 1.10. I looked at the GPS and it did not show any streets. So we concluded that we had gone into Austria without noticing it. Thus is the reality of the European Union. Nice, that....

But it seemed we had just gotten into another town, so we turned around to head back to Friedrichshafen. By really paying attention, I did manage to see a small sign that declared "Bundesrepublik Deutschland" and a larger sign that said "Freistaat Bayern".

Back at the hotel, I changed into a short sleeve shirt, we grabbed a map of Friedrichshafen and the GPS with the detailed map of Friedrichshafen and walked through the woods that were close to our hotel down to the lake, and along the lake to the harbor. It was fun, that one of the paths was labeled "Hauptwanderweg 4". That one we had encountered in Rothenburg. It is a walking path that goes from the Main, past the Donau, to the Bodensee. It again showed the pervasiveness of the long distance wander paths in Germany.

Meandering along the waterfront we found another tower to climb and take pictures from, before heading into town to see the town hall. It was quite unremarkable, but the fountain in front was rather unique and hard to describe, so I took lots of pictures.

Bob:

To get back to our pension, we turned North from the Rathaus and joined the E54 highway route and followed it for a few kilometers back to the edge of the city. Jumping in the car, we drove over to the nearest Aldi market, returned our empty bottles, and bought enough food for our evening meal. While Monika was shopping I was checking out a GPS unit that included all the maps of Europe in it and only cost 199 Euro, which I thought was a reasonable price. We finally found an Internet cafe next to Aldi, but it was in a run-down, dirty looking casino and as we drove by three young men gave us a flat, hostile stare, so both Monika and I decided it would be wiser to skip that particular place. Neither of us was sure if our car would still be intact when we came out again! When we returned to our pension for dinner, it was pleasant to put our feet up, watch the evening news, and "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" after which we fell into bed

Monika:

From there we walked the straight way back to our hotel, jumped into our car to the nearby Aldi to get meat and bread for our evening meal. We had wanted to find an Internet Cafe, and I did find one in a "Spieloteque" near Aldi. But when we saw several rather tough looking juveniles loitering outside, we thought better of getting out of the car. So we just returned home, for our normal exciting evening life: writing, acrostics, crocheting, and TV. Evening news from 8:00-8:15 are standard evening fare for us. After that was the game show "Who wants to be a millionaire?" A show that has a remarkable staying power in Germany, although it is gone from American TV. But Germans always have liked quiz type shows.

Copyright 2008 by R. W. Holt and E. M. Holt
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