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Old Posted Oct 12, 2018, 10:14 AM
Jonesy55 Jonesy55 is offline
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Euro Road trip August 2018

Hi all, just thought I'd share a few pics of our recent family summer trip, left home in the central UK for three weeks on the road through 6 different countries (not including UK), a mixture of cities, small towns and rural areas.

Lining up to drive onto the ferry at Dover, then shortly afterwards first sighting of the French coast.




Last edited by Jonesy55; Oct 15, 2018 at 10:08 AM.
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Old Posted Oct 12, 2018, 10:23 AM
Jonesy55 Jonesy55 is offline
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30 minutes out of Dunkirk is time to turn left into Belgium. The first night was just a brief stopover, found a lakeside apartment on Air Bnb in a complex that seemed to be mostly used by Belgians from the region as a weekend getaway. The couple who owned the apartment we stayed in lived in nearby Liege.





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Old Posted Oct 14, 2018, 9:47 AM
Jonesy55 Jonesy55 is offline
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The next it was back into France via Luxembourg. This is the small town of Courcelles-Chaussy near Metz.



And then onwards over the border into Germany where we entered the Black Forest for a couple of days camping.















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Old Posted Oct 14, 2018, 12:15 PM
Jonesy55 Jonesy55 is offline
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Some more from the Black Forest, a 15 mile hike in the hills above the small village of Schapbach.













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Old Posted Oct 14, 2018, 4:58 PM
Crawford Crawford is offline
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Looks very nice! SW Germany (and adjacent parts of France) have great scenery.
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Old Posted Oct 14, 2018, 11:29 PM
Jonesy55 Jonesy55 is offline
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Yeah, there are some really nice spots in that region, most of the tourists we saw at the campsites were German or Dutch but there were a few other British people plus some Italians there. Not many French which is kinda surprising considering its just over the border.

Next stop was down into Bavaria, a few days at Hopfensee, a lake right down by the Austrian border with the Alps looming in the distance.















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Old Posted Oct 15, 2018, 8:54 AM
Jonesy55 Jonesy55 is offline
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Here's a panorama I took of the lake, it was very swimmable in mid-August, warm enough to lounge around in the water pretty much as long as you like.



If you don't like pork you might struggle in Bavaria, it seems like 70% of the dishes on regular restaurant menus are pig-based, either pork steaks like below, pork knuckle, various sausage etc...

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Old Posted Oct 15, 2018, 12:56 PM
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YNot many French which is kinda surprising considering its just over the border.
For whatever reason, the French rarely vacation in Germany.

My family owns a Mosel-area vineyard/tavern and visitors are overwhelmingly German, Dutch or Belgian, and a few Brits. Very rarely you see Americans, Canadians or Australians. But no French, even though they're 20 minutes away.

The French don't think much of German wine, I guess.
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Old Posted Oct 15, 2018, 2:14 PM
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^ While it is the very Franco-German region on Earth, Alsace is a significant, legit and popular wine producer.
They do quality vineyards just like much of France, far better than the Paris region which is lower than sencond-rate in that particular business.

I think their local dialect is more Germanic than Romance by the way.
And the Lutheran culture has been established since the Protestant reforms over there. So they can train some enlightened pastors as well as cool Catho priests.
It is not exactly Bavaria or Austria in that matter.

Anyway, it's true that the feeling of brutal rivalry between France and Germany caused some harm to the industry of tourism over there, but sympathy towards the Germans has undeniably been growing in the French. Today, more and more are interested in visiting their country.

However, learning their language is yet another story over here.
Spanish is just supposed easier for us, being another Romance language, fairly close to French.
So lots of lazy French kids would rather pick Spanish as an easier choice.
That's it.

All in all, Germany is hugely advertised here nowadays, like "deutsche qualität". Right? Ha ha.
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Old Posted Oct 15, 2018, 3:16 PM
Crawford Crawford is offline
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^ While it is the very Franco-German region on Earth, Alsace is a significant, legit and popular wine producer.
They do quality vineyards just like much of France, far better than the Paris region which is lower than sencond-rate in that particular business.
Yeah, I agree with all this, but it's still funny that the French tourists won't touch German wine. It's the same soil on either side of the Moselle, and the people are basically the same, but you only see the French on their side.

But it's fair, because German wine (overall) is not very good and French wine (overall) is best or second best on earth. Alsace and Pfalz are the same wine, though.

Also, I don't think French tourists would have language difficulties. French has always been the second language in that part of Germany. Almost all my German relatives took French in Gymnasium.
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Old Posted Oct 15, 2018, 4:29 PM
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I'm no expert at all in wine production. All I can do about it is drinking some. It's yummy with a good meal. Isn't it? That's why we like wine.

I just noticed quality widely depended on exchanges in this industry as in all others. I guess people need to be good, confident and share their experience.

The French earned some great science in wine production over the past centuries, there's no question about it.
It's been a very long-run business over a couple of regions. Of course Gironde (Bordeaux), Burgundy and Champagne still are the ultimate references here.
Some local producers ventured in Australia, California, Chile and South Africa, then local productions have been booming all over these regions, growing in quality.

I think they just should look further East in Europe, which is not natural to us yet.
The thing is we really didn't like nationalism or communism that ruined our continent.
Still a bit spiteful, but time will help healing.
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Old Posted Oct 15, 2018, 8:08 PM
Jonesy55 Jonesy55 is offline
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I quite like a good German wine. It has a bad rep here in Britain because of all the sweet German crap that people used to drink in the 1970s but there are much better options than that.

On with the pics...

Just a few km from the campsite at Hopfensee is the well preserved town of Fussen. One nice touch in this area of Bavaria is that they give free transport passes to anybody staying in tourist accommodation for use on buses or local trains. So we left the van and took the bus into the town.

























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Old Posted Oct 16, 2018, 2:37 PM
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Nice ones mate!
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Old Posted Oct 16, 2018, 5:18 PM
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I bet you went to Neuschwanstein.
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Old Posted Oct 16, 2018, 8:38 PM
Jonesy55 Jonesy55 is offline
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All will be revealed shortly.
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Old Posted Oct 16, 2018, 9:17 PM
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ha, we love our pork steaks here, too. probably where it comes from.


Quote:
Originally Posted by mousquet View Post
^ While it is the very Franco-German region on Earth, Alsace is a significant, legit and popular wine producer.
They do quality vineyards just like much of France, far better than the Paris region which is lower than sencond-rate in that particular business.

I think their local dialect is more Germanic than Romance by the way.
And the Lutheran culture has been established since the Protestant reforms over there. So they can train some enlightened pastors as well as cool Catho priests.
It is not exactly Bavaria or Austria in that matter.

Anyway, it's true that the feeling of brutal rivalry between France and Germany caused some harm to the industry of tourism over there, but sympathy towards the Germans has undeniably been growing in the French. Today, more and more are interested in visiting their country.

However, learning their language is yet another story over here.
Spanish is just supposed easier for us, being another Romance language, fairly close to French.
So lots of lazy French kids would rather pick Spanish as an easier choice.
That's it.

All in all, Germany is hugely advertised here nowadays, like "deutsche qualität". Right? Ha ha.

my "german" ancestors seem to come from the former "alsace-lorraine" frontier which is part of france at the moment, but historically germanic/german dialect speaking.

funny, as a native english speaker german words are rather easy for me to pronounce, and in fact fun to say, and of course spanish is drilled in everyone in the u.s. so not so much of an issue, but i cannot make those french words go. they break my tongue.
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Old Posted Oct 16, 2018, 9:34 PM
Vlajos Vlajos is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jonesy55 View Post
I quite like a good German wine. It has a bad rep here in Britain because of all the sweet German crap that people used to drink in the 1970s but there are much better options than that.
Germany definitely has good wine, especially riesling. But there is a quite a bit that is vinified far too sweet for my taste. Alsatian rieslings and even Austrian rieslings tend to be much better on average with far less residual sugar.
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Old Posted Oct 17, 2018, 1:45 PM
Jonesy55 Jonesy55 is offline
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As Crawford noticed, Fussen is right next to the famous Neuschwanstein Castle. Unfortunately tickets for that day had already sold out by the time we got there! So we went for a look around the not so famous Hohenschwangau Castle just down the hillside, it was built in the 19th century by Maximilian II of Bavaria, father of Ludwig II who built Neuschwanstein. The castles were extremely busy with tourists, bus loads of them arriving all day long. That did mean the experience is a bit limited, you get a timed ticket and have to enter at that precise time, I think ours was 15:12, then you get quickly ushered round a few rooms by a guide then quickly out again, no opportunity to just wander around. Damn tourists!

Neuschwanstein in the distance...









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Old Posted Oct 18, 2018, 3:04 PM
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That sucks about Neuschwanstein.

I remember visiting Neuschwanstein as a kid and it was pretty much just Western Europeans and a handful of Americans. Now every "big destination" has huge tourist groups from China and other newly emergent lands.

Best castles in Germany are Burg Eltz (near Luxembourg) and Hohenzollern (near Black Forest). I visited both two years ago, and neither seemed too crowded. Tourists are mostly Germans, and a few Belgians and Dutch.
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Old Posted Oct 19, 2018, 10:36 AM
Jonesy55 Jonesy55 is offline
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Yes, it would have been nice to visit, oh well maybe next time!

On to our next country, a drive through southern Bavaria and into neighbouring Austria. Our base for the next week was the Alpine resort town of Schladming, a skii g verge in winter, popular with hikers in summer.

















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