{"id":324,"date":"2014-08-26T15:20:59","date_gmt":"2014-08-26T13:20:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/farrimond.me.uk\/wp\/?p=324"},"modified":"2017-07-28T16:14:58","modified_gmt":"2017-07-28T16:14:58","slug":"breisach-kaiserstuhl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/farrimond.me.uk\/wp\/breisach-kaiserstuhl\/","title":{"rendered":"Breisach – Kaiserstuhl"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thur 21st<\/sup> Aug:<\/p>\n

Well, we DID make it into France, but then beat a hasty retreat back into Germany!<\/p>\n

Actually, it turned out to be such a warm morning, that we decided to stay another day and do some cycling around this very flat part of the Kaiserstuhl. That and it was pretty late by the time we managed to get ourselves some breakfast (that\u2019s after I\u2019d cycled into Ihringen and back to get some Pretzeln and Br\u00f6tchen (bread rolls).<\/p>\n

With Breisach am Rhein as our destination, we followed the \u201cofficial\u201d cycle routes taking us mostly over field tracks.<\/p>\n

This area is full of agriculture and viticulture; any slightly South-facing slope is covered in vineyards, and there are many slopes here. Ok, I said it was flat, but Ihringen is the place where the lava flows from the dormant-for-the-last-n-million-years volcanos stopped. So the land jacks up steeply just to the North of Ihringen. Any ground that\u2019s flat is covered in orchards or maize. There are plums, apples, pears, mirabelles, and more plums. Much of this is ripening right now; the air is heady with the scent of ripe fruit and the farmers are all out harvesting. Fancy a pear? Helping yourself to one is fine as long as you don\u2019t take the mickey and start harvesting them all! Forget the industrial scale of farms we have in the UK: most of these farmers have anything from a field of fruit trees to a row or two of redcurrant bushes, and most of them sell direct to the public. Who needs food miles?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The vineyards beyond the corn fields<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Let me say it here; Breisach is another beautiful town. Perched on the Rhine overlooking France, it has a M\u00fcnster sitting atop its highest point, surrounded by the old town walls and enclosing steep cobbled streets. An ancient portal through the walls still exists through which cars can now pass (just!). When we were there, they were holding their Jahresmarkt (annual market \u2013 though I strongly suspect it\u2019s held several times a year). It was pretty rubbish, really. Apart from the cheese stall.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The M\u00fcnster<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Entertainment was provided by a seller of some new miracle car polish he was continually demonstrating with an old VW Golf for the benefit of the gathered throngs (i.e. no-one in particular). I didn\u2019t take a close look at the product, but I sincerely hope it came with very large \u201cExtremely dangerous and highly inflammable\u201d warning notices plastered all over it. I say this because the seller demonstrated the flammability of it. I don\u2019t know how it happened, but his bottle of stuff \u2013 which had a long spout \u2013 was in flames on the ground. The bottle itself was burning as well as the vapours, which were increasing in pressure inside the burning bottle as a result of the heat. He then tried to set his trousers on fire by standing on the bottle. The result of this was to eject more of the flammable liquid from the spout all over the pavement and thus spread the flames further. He then had the bright idea of pouring water on the whole. So now, the flaming fuel was spread even further on top of a river of water. Very smart. We beat a hasty retreat to a safe distance, anticipating the bottle would soon rupture or explode. In the meantime, he then decided to throw a rag on the flames. This would have been a good move had the rag not also been flammable, but then he threw more water over the rag which did eventually starve the flames and thus was Breisach saved.<\/p>\n

Most of the market was just tat, so we wandered off to find a B\u00e4ckerei to get a sandwich. In this, we were wholly unsuccessful. We did, however, end up with a large slice of K\u00e4sekuchen (cheesecake) plus a buttered Pretzel each, so we wandered over to the Rhine to eat. And watch the swans. There were hundreds of them, mostly on the French side of the river.<\/p>\n

Just for a lark, we decided to cycle over the Rhine and into France. In doing so, we discovered three petrol stations on the German side, practically shoulder-to-shoulder. This arrangement usually occurs when fuel on one side of the border is much cheaper than the other side. But everything I\u2019d read suggested that diesel is cheaper in France than in Germany. So we decided to go further into France to find a French petrol station. We were wholly unsuccessful in this endeavour, too. Not a single petrol to be found within a 15 minute riding distance of the border. In fact, PETROL is more expensive in France, but DIESEL is cheaper (allegedly).<\/p>\n

The Rhine here is not actually just the Rhine. That would be far too simple. There are no fewer than 3 bridges over the Rhines, these being:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Yer actual Rhine<\/li>\n
  2. The Rhine canal \u2013 which goes to and fro, joining up with the Rhine whenever it takes its fancy<\/li>\n
  3. Something very wide & turbulent \u2013 probably being fed from the bit of Rhine canal \u2013 that seems to be driving a number of underwater, power-generating turbines. I guessed this from the facts that there were a lot of electricity power distribution transformers alongside the \u201cweir\u201d, and that there were EDF logos all over the installation.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
    \"\"<\/a>
    Yer actual Rhine. With substantial weir.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

    The first bridge is obviously German. It has a generous cycle path in addition to a footpath. The second & 3rd<\/sup> bridges are equally obviously French. They just have narrow footpaths and cunningly hidden signs displaying graphics that supposedly suggest cyclists dismount and walk the footpath. This we only discovered when one officious lady pointed out the sign to us as we came off on the French side. Clearly we survived to see another day, but the ride was \u201centertaining\u201d.<\/p>\n

    So tomorrow, we\u2019ll head over into France (d\u00e9j\u00e0 vue…).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Thur 21st Aug: Well, we DID make it into France, but then beat a hasty retreat back into Germany! Actually, it turned out to be such a warm morning, that we decided to stay another day and do some cycling around this very flat part of the Kaiserstuhl. That and it was pretty late by … Continue reading “Breisach – Kaiserstuhl”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[30,14,29],"class_list":["post-324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-european-tour","tag-breisach","tag-germany","tag-rhine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/farrimond.me.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/farrimond.me.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/farrimond.me.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farrimond.me.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farrimond.me.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=324"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/farrimond.me.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1252,"href":"https:\/\/farrimond.me.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324\/revisions\/1252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/farrimond.me.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farrimond.me.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farrimond.me.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}