Well our last four nights in Lake Konstanz had no internet access, too small of towns to update the blog.  We went over 345km this entire trip.  We saw the following towns at the end of our trip: Arbon, Horn, Romanshorn, Kruezlingen, Konstanz, Reinchnaue, Allensback, Radolfzell, Stein an Rein, Dingelsdorf, Lagenrain, Bodman, Ludwigshafen, Sipplingen, Oberlingen, Salem and then a bunch of small towns.  It was very pretty trip in the end but a little cold for summer time with some rain… All in all- Germany had the best paths and signs, then switzerland and least was Austria, seems like they don’t see the investment for nike travelers as Germany and Switzerland do.  We feel our favorite of the trip was the Germany side.  We enjoyed most of the trip and Berger & Meer was a good company just a couple of the visits could have been better.  We saw a castle building festival, a string quartet concert, and several nights home in the hotel watching the Olympics!  We met a very nice couple from Norway that we plan to visit Lia and Martin.  A few pictures below from the remainder of our vacation and most of the trip pictures are in the album to the right. 

Today is Day 3 of our vacation.  We had a very very very long day as I accidentally took us the long scenic route instead of the direct route.  This meant instead of 72km we went 90km, I thought I was a good map reader, ops!  In one day we went through three countries- Germany- Austria-Switzerland.  A few of the villages we road our bikes through were Langenargen, Wasserburg, Lindau, Bregenz, Hard, Gaissau and finally our evening destination Rorschach.  Austria does not label roads as well as Germany, we were missing all of our road signs every .5km.  We had lunch a Lindau on the island- very cute and very tourist central.  We went through marsh land and endless farm lands until we got back on track to Rorschach.  Our hotel is Hotel Mozart and it is very plesant on the water with a view of the garden.  We have been lucky with three nice hotels, just one bad dinner last night but tonight’s dinner made up for it.  We have had great wines and now we are ready for bed.   A few pictures from today and ready for 56km tomorrow to Konstanz, where we will be for two days. We also saw a volleyball tourney and a sand castle competition- they were very good, we added one below! Too bad Greg’s Mom and Dad are not with us they would love this trip.  It is very nice with lots of great bike trails and very few areas that you must ride your bike next to cars.  Talk to you tomorrow with more details….

 

Today, was our first day biking around Bodensee.  We will do about 300km by the end of the trip.  It rained hard last night but lucky for us just cloudy and no rain today.  Today we only road 35km.  It was a very pleasant and pretty ride.  We went from Salem to Friedrichshafen.  Suprise, we are staying at a very nice Best Western- would never think a Best Western would be nice.  We have the penthouse room with great huge windows and views of the cute town and lake. 

 

Yesterday, we arrived in Salem and walked around the castle- Scholoss Salem.  Our hotel was very cute with views out to the castle and garden maze.  There was a very cool turn of the century wine press- see below.  We had some amazing white wines from the area and one very interesting Pinot Noir.  The Pinots in Europe are very different from Oregon, of-course we think Oregon’s are better!  More pictures and stories to come later in the week.  A few pictures below: