Saturday 28th June

It just so happened that Ausburg where we camped the night is near the bottom end of one of the most popular tourist routes in southern Germany called the Romantic Road after an old Gypsy Route from the Bavarian Alpes back into central Germany. The manager of the campsite told us about it so we decided to follow it north as it went in the general direction we needed to go home. Well worth the slight detour as it passed through some beautiful towns and country side. This is me paddling in the river below one of the many walled towns.

One of the many pretty villages and towns we passed though.

We stopped for a walk around the town of Dinkelshuhl, a medevial walled town that was fascinating, people are still living in all the houses including the town walls and turrets.

We were lucky and found another really nice camp site at Munster with a small lake just behind the tent and a river flowing down from it. We had a beer up at the beer garden on the camp site and watched Red Kites and Buzzards soaring over the hillsides around us whilst we supped a refreshing stein of German beer or two.

Saturday we decided we needed to put a few miles behind us so sadly had to leave the end of the Romantic Road and head north west across Germany to Holland and then into Belgium where we tried to find a hotel for the night as by then it had started to rain quite persistently. Unfortunately we couldn't find anywhere suitable and it may have been the weather or just us getting tired but Belgium was just not rocking our boat so we headed over to France.

We found a nice little hotel on the outskirts of Lille and were recommended a local pub that brewed it's own beer just down the road so toddled off to blow the froth off a couple before retiring to the local supermarket where it appears half of Lille had the same idea to dine in the cafe there, good food and very good value.

We are currently about 80 miles south east of Dunkirk so hopefully will have an easier day tomorrow before getting the ferry Monday. It's pouring with rain at present and really threw it down earlier in the day, so hard at one point that we were doing about 10 miles an hour on the motorway so heavy was the rain and spray you could hardly see the end of the car. I hope it improves tomorrow.