Journey: Leogang, Austria to Rothenburg ob der Tauber, Germany
Distance: 375 km
Campsite for the night: Camping Tauberromantik
YouTube link: Days 22 & 23

When we woke up, it was really miserable out, persistent rain, very cloudy and cold. We ummed and ahhed about the wild spa given the weather, and decided we should cancel it given a lot of it was outside and drive as far as we could into Germany to escape the rain. We both were really taken with the area and decided we should come back to Leogang and spend a few days at the hotel so we could do some walking and go to the wild spa another time.

Our end goal in Germany was the Mosel Valley for the wine but that was too far to drive in one day — Google said about seven and a half hours — which would mean more like nine or ten hours with stops. So we settled on a place called Rothenburg ob der Tauber, which was basically as far North West as we could do in a day as well as sounding like somewhere we’d like to visit. Despite the catchy name, it’s a popular medieval town in Bavaria with amazing intact walls and medieval buildings, and had a nearby campsite that looked good.

So off we set in the rain. Driving out of Austria was mostly smaller winding roads through the mountains. Despite the constant rain and low lying cloud, it was a beautiful drive and just strengthened our resolve to come back. Eventually we hit the motorway, which made the driving a bit easier. After a while on the motorway, we spied a services and stopped for a quick wee. As we drove out of the services, we noticed a huge police presence and a few vehicles, including a bus and a campervan, had been pulled over and were being thoroughly searched. We drove on slowly and rejoined the motorway without being stopped and immediately saw a sign with the German speed limits on. Unknowingly, we’d stopped for a wee on the border! The border explained the police and the queue on the motorway just before the services — they were pulling cars over as they entered Germany.

It seems the borders going from East to West across Europe are a lot more intact than one might imagine given freedom of movement…

We carried on for a while longer before stopping; German motorways are pretty boring. In part I think because they very much look like the motorways at home — as the landscape isn’t that dissimilar once we left the mountains — and also probably in direct contrast to the more scenic motorways we’d been driving for the past few weeks. We decided to do a supermarket shop as our stop and then have lunch before carrying on.

We’ve been quite excited about the vegan options we’d find in Germany because a lot of the good stuff we get at home is German, and they always seem very up on veganism. We were not disappointed. Upon entering a very nice Rewe supermarket, we found a huge clearly labelled Vegan chiller stocked with all sorts of wonders. We were there quite a while deciding what to buy and ended up with quite a lot of tofu and fake meats, including German sausages and schnitzel. The rest of the shop wasn’t a disappointment either as there were lots of vegan goodies scattered around (that were clearly labelled) and a whole marzipan section (I love marzipan).

Today’s exciting lunch was pretzel and Slovenian hummus.

After another few hours on the motorway and a quick stop for diesel (a lot more expensive that we’d been used to) we finally arrived at our campsite. After a small wander to stretch our legs and see where we were, we spent the rest of the evening tucked up in the van to stay warm. It was a lot cooler and overnight dropped down to 3 degrees.