Day 3: Konstanz to Waldshut

The day started pretty badly. We woke up to thunderstorms and lightening (“🎵very very frightening me, mama mia mama mia🎵” thanks Freddie). There was much discussion over the disappointing Hotel Constantia buffet breakfast of how much fun it might be to ride 125km in thunderstorms.

While we are here, what is it about Central European breakfasts in hotels? Are they made out of a kit? “Hans, do we have the slightly rubbery scrambled eggs?” “Of course Helga, but your job is to check that we’ve laid out the platter of suspiciously generic smoked meats, fish and the plastic cheese”. “Hans! What about the disfunctional coffee machine that produces flavourless brown coffee juice?”. “No problem Helga, I’ve made sure that it misfires every second coffee and produces only hot water”. “Well done Hans, we are ready for the guests this morning”.

The Hotel Constantia is definitely somewhere to avoid if you’re ever in Konstanz. Poor breakfasts, non-functional towel rails, desultory service at an eye watering price. What’s not to hate…?

The rain poured down, the thunder rumbled, we sat in our damp cycle kit and, in a change from previous trips, it was time to make a properly sensible decision. We would take the train today.

We managed to get completely soaked cycling just 700m from the hotel to the railway station. Rather confusingly, there are two in Konstanz. One on the Swiss side and one on the German side. We bought a ticket on the German side which, it turned out, was the wrong one.

Wet bikes, wet people, wet trains.

We had decided to do a two leg train journey to Waldshut stopping at Schaffhausen to take in the majestic beauty of the Rhine Falls.Who could miss the opportunity to see the “most powerful waterfalls in Europe”? Not us, that’s for sure.

However, we still had to negotiate the confusing but combined German and Swiss railway systems. We had bought a ticket in Germany but were going to Switzerland. This involved a local train which was rather cute going to Singen and then a hot, sweaty and still damp rush across some platforms to get the Swiss train to Zürich which stopped at Schaffhausen.

We got on the Swiss train which was completely empty and an enormously fat ticket inspector berated us for not having bike tickets and not having reservations. After 20 minutes fannying around downloading the inevitable app, I bought two bike tickets (that’s 30 CHF I’m not getting back) but…that still wasn’t good enough for Herr Creosote…we still weren’t reserved. This could have been a problem had it not been for the fact that (a) the train was already moving and the next stop was Schaffhausen and (b) the train was completely bloody empty.

No reservations? That’s a pretty big problem.

Oh well, I paid for the bikes and when it comes to reservations we were happy to stick it to the (corpulent) man. Take that Big Train: we thumb our noses at your irrational corporate rules. We skipped off the train like two teenagers thrilled to have beaten the system.

Leaving the station we saw this sign.

Back on route.

Note the sign for Swiss Route 2 (which is Eurovelo 15) and Eurovelo 6! At some point many kilometres east of here, Eurovelo 6 becomes the route I did last year all the way to the Black Sea. How good is that? Also, let’s face it, this is a pretty good set of bike signs. You would think it would be hard to get lost but subsequent events would prove that to be a false assumption.

Also note the sign to the Rheinfall. We cycled up and down on bike paths through the town and eventually ended up at the major tourist attraction.

Biggest waterfall in Europe.

This is pretty impressive when you’re there although not on a global scale.

There were thousands of Chinese tourists who, with reasonable justification, must have been thinking “Is this it?”. We’ve been to some of the amazing falls in China and this is small beer in comparison.

The visit to the Falls coincided with a break in the constant rain and, in terminally stupid decision, we decided to cycle to Waldshut rather than take the comfortable, dry and warm train all the way there. How miserable could it be? The answer to that question is “really very miserable indeed”. Almost as soon as we were committed to cycling, the heavens opened once again.

We were, rather obviously, at the level of the Rhine and to get back up onto the plain involved a pretty tough climb which, despite Dr T being a long way ahead, didn’t do her dicky knee any good.

15% in the wet.

For the rest of the day we would be skirting the Swiss German border. Here is one of the heavily fortified crossing points.

 

It wasn’t as easy as this in the Great Escape.

As the rain seeped into our shoes and our clothes, we stopped for a coffee in a no-name German town and regrouped. We had no route and were completely lost. Google maps wasn’t helpful and so I worked some magic with Garmin Connect and put together a route which would hopefully get us to Waldshut in a couple of hours. We sipped our coffees and watched the rain pour down for an hour. It wasn’t going to get better and so we we stuck our courage to the sticking place and rolled out onto the soaked roads. After only a couple of km fighting with annoying traffic, we turned onto quiet roads and into the German countryside.

There were fields of wet sunflowers as big as your head.  They were all looking a bit sad in the rain to be honest.

Droopy sunflowers.

A head and a sunflower, approximately the same size.

I am tempted to once again go off on a long digression on sunflower seeds, the Golden Ratio and other mathematical oddities but I refer you to this post from my first trip from Cambridge to Warsaw and this rather wonderful Numberphile video if you really want to know more.

It rained a lot more, the wind got up, the roads were boring, long, straight and wet.  Cycle touring at its very worst.

A ghostly Sean Kelly voice droned in our ears “Oí tink dis is going to be a majorly difficult wun for these two breakaway riders.  Dey’s been givin’ it wun hundert percent for the past number of kilometres”.

Damp, windy and, despite the smiles, not that much fun.

As I have said, we were skirting the Swiss German border. It’s marked with little stone blocks with “D” on one side and “S” on the other. Honestly.

On the Swiss side

On the German side

I spent a couple of minutes childishly jumping from side to side chanting “Germany, Switzerland, Germany, Switzerland”. When you’re soaking and tired, you take your amusement where you find it.

The kilometres ground down very slowly but quite suddenly we were negotiating the cycle paths in Waldshut and then we were on Peter Thumb Straße and we were at the Hotel Bercher. A cheery chap helped us park our bikes in an airy and dry bike store. He also was very convinced — incorrectly it turned out — that the towel rail in the room was fully functional. That being said, everybody in the hotel was helpful and kind. After the Hotel Constantia this was a step up. Also…half the price.

We cheered ourselves up with a glass of the excellent local wine.

Things got slightly better after this.

This was a short day but pretty tough. We are both tired. It’s clear that there’s not much to Waldshut so it looks like we’re going to eat in the hotel. Google Lens helped us translate the menus and it appears it is Chanterelle much room season and so they’re in every dish — and rather touchingly known as “ Pfifferlinge” in German.

We are in deep Germany. As I type this, there is an Oompaloompa band marching up and down the street and everybody is singing songs in the rain.  I think this is going to be fun in a very Germanic way.

The Stats:

• Distance: 37km.  There was 60km on the train but these 37km were not a huge amount of fun.
• Ascent: 217m.  Not much but they were brutal steep climbs.
• Average speed: 18km/h.  Slow but blame the hills and the rain.
• Others:  Contact points still good. Dr T’s knee is still causing problems so we’re going to need to watch this.  Every single item of clothing we own is either damp or very damp and the towel rail doesn’t work.

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