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We left Luxembourg and headed back into France in the Lorraine region. We needed another map showing campsites but the tourist information was closed for a 2 hour lunch so we decided to wing it, as Ian says, campsites are everywhere in France. We stopped in a fair sized town for the night, or so we thought, and only had to re-track 7 miles to a campsite we had passed earlier.

Still heading East to get to Germany we encounter our biggest hypermarket ever, which sells a bit of everything and food as an afterthought. I am overwhelmed by the choice of food and then brought back down to earth by remembering that whatever we buy can be cooked in no more than 2 pans and a frying pan in less than 20mins (time the fuel takes before a re-fill is needed). Back to couscous or hearty soup then………….

We get to Simserhof and see part of the Maginot Line fortifications for WWII with a tour in English ! We have had enough of trying to understand French tours. Simserhof held out against the Germans for many months and only reluctantly stepped down after direct instructions from the French government.

We visit Bitche which has a huge citadel on a mound (another tale of French holding out, against Prussians this time). There is also a very nice gardens with a very steep, scary slide which deposited me a few feet from the end – never again. The hills are slowing down our daily mileage, but it is a holiday after all.

We are rather confused by French viewpoints marked on the map as what could be a stunning view is generally obscured by huge trees. So we zoom down to the Rhein and cross into Germany on a free ferry.

Our first German campsite is €19, twice the average French price so we make sure to use all the facilities. A problem with camping is the inability to recycle/compost our waste as we normally would. This is solved at the campsite by 6 different types of bin for paper, glass, food waste, plastic & metal, dodgy chemicals and none of the above. Unfortunately after sorting out our rubbish we were not able to hit either of the two 30mins slots when the bin area was actually open !

We get very frustrated by cycle paths trying to get to Baden Baden (and a small amount of navigator error). As a result we do not really enjoy the town full of tourists and some Roman/Irish Baths – no, we do not know where the Irish came in either. We had contemplated a detour to Stuttgart to see the Mercedes-Benz or Porsche museum but we decide to get out of Germany asap. Todays mileage was an unimpressive 30 miles, but it did include about 12 miles of continous climbing out of town along part of the Tour de France route with names still painted on the road.

The Black Forest is full of hard climbs, stunning views and very fast descents. Ian is particularly pleased to trigger a slow down sign to light up after breaking the 50kmph speed limit in one town. Cars generally hold us up when descending around bends. Ian tried his hand at route planning around a campsite desert. We started well on a 3 mile long 1 in 6 stretch but then it all went wrong. Bits that were flat on the map (according to Ian) were definitely not. By 6.30 we had only covered 50 miles, were 20 miles from a campsite and we were still climbing. Sanity finally kicked in and we rewarded ourselves with our first night in a Gasthof and a meal out. Ian has promised to let me do the route planning in future, he will stick to driving.

We visited Donauschingen for a game of Pooh sticks in the town where the Danube starts. All being well we will get to the other end of the river in Romania.

We then head to Lake Constance and encounter many recreational cyclists on the cycle paths around the lake. Meersburg is a pretty town with steep cobbled roads, castles and the Zeppelin museum – which looks like the contents of someones loft with every conceivable piece of, what some may view as junk, linked to airships, kept in a glass case. We nip across the lake on the ferry to the town of Constance and tick off Germany as done as we enter Switzerland. It starts raining and I get to try out the waterproof trousers I bought in Germany to cope with the worst August weather for ages. It rains most of the day in Switzerland and we get very cold and wet.

But the good news is Ian has realized a long held ambition to cycle to visit his relatives here. We are currently staying with Ians cousin Patrick, and Cristina in Zug, just south of Zurich. Total mileage so far is approx 1000 miles at a daily average of 45 miles – excluding rest days. I think this may drop as we encounter proper Swiss mountains and the Alps.

Do not expect to hear from us too often as we have discovered that Internet access is usually in large towns/cities, just the places that we usually avoid !