20 April 2024 – No Room at the Inn

Miles driven today = 179

Total Miles to date = 4,560

We got a fairly decent view of Ulm’s record breaking church spire as we drove around the ringroad this morning and it was largely covered in scaffolding so we don’t feel quite so bad about not having had the opportunity to view it up close before we moved on again.  

Today’s journey has been on more of a westerly trajectory and we quickly found our way to the A8 Autobahn.  We passed Stuttgart Airport, which I have flown into on a number of occasions en-route to the annual Reinsurance conference in Baden-Baden, and on to Karlsruhe where I have spent rather too many hours in the past waiting for connecting trains in the freezing cold whilst consoling myself with bratwurst and pretzels.

I’d like to go back to Baden-Baden one day just to see what it’s like when it’s not full of men and women in suits from London and other financial centres around the World.  I’m pretty sure the restaurants bump up their prices considerably for that week to take advantage of the corporate expenditure.  It wouldn’t be too far off the beaten track for us but not this time. 

Once we had crossed the Rhine we continued via a mix of single and dual carriageway roads through the bucolic hills of southern Rhineland-Palatinate.  The weather was certainly a vast improvement on yesterday’s almost continuous deluge but we did have a few showers nonetheless including one of hail, which slowed our progress for a while.

Our original plan was to spend tonight in a Stellplatz in Zweibrucken with restaurants nearby, so we found our way there.  We followed the instructions at the gate by picking our preferred parking spot (no.18), then we crossed a bridge to the hotel which runs the place to book ourselves in.  Much to our dismay we were informed that all the plots large enough to accommodate us had been fully reserved for tonight so we had to find an alternative back up plan.

We’ve ended up a few kilometres to the south in the small and very quaint village of Hornbach, which is right on the border with France.  There appear to be plenty of walking trails around the vicinity and we did try to stretch our legs for a bit but within a very short space of time the heavens opened again so we retreated to the van in a rather soggy state.

The site appears to be run by the local municipality and it’s just €9 a night to stay here, plus a little more if you want electric hook up and a water refill.

There is a games area where mini-golf, badminton and table football are all available free of charge.  There is also a communal pagoda where a few of the regulars have congregated around a barbecue but we didn’t get the memo in time I’m afraid so we have had to make do with a fish pie dug from the depths of the freezer.  With any luck we will have another crack at eating out tomorrow night, by which time we should be in Luxembourg.  

21 April 2024 - Remich, Luxembourg