Sunday 1st November – Rottenbuch, Germany

Well, the forecast was correct, it was cold (max. 6°C), lots of showers and the occasional hail/sleet. It was a day for hunkering down, which is exactly what we did. Jane did the last (hopefully) washing of the trip using the campsite washing machine and dryer. I caught up with this blog and did the very involved cooking – a supermarket lasagne.
Photos: None 

Saturday 31st October – Rottenbuch, Germany

 We drove through lovely countryside this morning, more rolling land with hills, large open fields and woodland. We wanted a few days of relaxation and had found an open ASCI campsite at Rottenbuch, We have been encountering the Romantic Road on our travels and Terrassen-Camping am Richterbichl is on its route. We arrived within minutes of their three hour closure between 12:00 and 15:00 but were able to book in and pitch up. The weather was really good, sun and blue skies but we knew that the forecast for tomorrow was not good. That gave us the incentive to walk into the town, ten minutes away.
The small town is based around a large monastery that was founded in 1073 and developed over centuries. Although it is no longer a monastery, some of the buildings still exist and the first one that we encountered on the edge of the town was the very large manor farm building and barn. Moving further in through a monastery gateway, we saw the a clock tower and a line of (we assume) monastic buildings.
An information board told us that the brewery was the first building to be erected after the laying of the foundation stone of the new monastery in 1750. They had their priorities right as beer was very important to the monks as they had a monopoly on beer in the manor. It was the only profitable operation in the abbey at a time when the average beer consumption in the manor was 230 to 280 litres per person per year. In the second half of the 18^th century, the brewery was producing 220,000 litres per annum. That was in addition to 30,000 litres of wine per annum from the monastery vineyards in the South Tyrol. Life as a monk can’t have been too bad!
By the clock tower was discovered the entrance into a church and realised that the clock tower was also a standalone bell tower. The church didn’t look at all special from the outside but it was a real ‘Wow’ moment when we walked in. The inside decoration was stunning – Baroque/Rococo style and totally over the top. This was the monastery church (now just the local Catholic church) and had been developed over the centuries, with the current decoration dating to the 18^th century. The ceiling paintings are of a very high quality and the plaster work is incredibly intricate. It all looked to be in perfect condition – no water damage, no missing pieces of plaster. We always see a lot of churches on our trips and often become ‘churched out’ but this was so unexpected and I didn’t know where to look next, there was so much to see.
There was lots of activity in the church with people bringing in trestle tables and obviously preparing for an event. Today is Halloween, tomorrow is All Saints Day and Monday is All Souls Day. Our guess was that it was that it was connected with All Saints but there seem to be lots of things for children and a chocolate cake suggested that it was going to happen today rather than tomorrow.
Directly opposite the church is the graveyard and, as we have often seen in Germany before, the graves were all being prepared for All Souls Day when people visit the graves of their relatives. All of the graves have a small area of soil in front of them and these had been planted with new blooming plants. The graveyards are nearly always immaculate, a sign that families tend to stay in the same area, unlike England where the population seems to be much more mobile.
Photos: Seen at the Abbey Farm – an early caravan?; The range of abbey buildings – the church is hiding behind the tower; A view down the nave of the church; The very ornate pulpit; Musicians above the choir; Some of the beautiful paintings.

Friday 30th October – Kempten, Germany

 I went back to the bakery this morning, hoping to get some croissants but they didn’t have any so I went for two butter brezels (Laugenbrezel?), like a giant pretzel made of a slightly sweet bread. I also wanted a loaf and chose the ‘bread of the week’ that turned out to be a potato bread.
We had one of the brezels with our friend Hilde’s raspberry jam that we had brought with us from England – delicious. The potato bread was also very good, although quite different from the potato bread that I make at home.
We put Kempten on our list because of the remains of Roman Cambodunum. It was only about half an hour away and we soon arrived at the very new and smart stellplatz. At the automatic barrier we obtained a card that would allow access to the site and keep account of all our expenses so that we could pay when we left. Dumping grey and black water was free but electricity and water were charged for. The card was used to activate the electrical connection with the electricity charged by the kilowatt hour – we didn’t need it. The card also allowed access to the sanitary block where, although the showers were free, you were charged for the amount of water used. That was definitely a first – the council are obviously obsessed by water usage. It was all very efficient and the site was pleasant and very popular with motorhomers but I do wonder what will happen when the site is older and the technology fails.
We walked to the Cambodunum site and paid the €5 entrance fee. Most of the site is open and free but the fee covers entry into the sacred temple area and baths. Most archaeological excavations are left as excavated with just the outline of the buildings on show. Here they have built reconstructions of the some of the buildings, which gives a much better idea of what it would have looked like in Roman times. The problem with doing this is that the interpretation of the remains might be refined over time. We saw that at Weissenburg and here they commented that some of the reconstruction would have been done differently with current knowledge.
We went into the sacred area first where they had reconstructed the double hall that once enclosed three sides of the area. This covered section contained lots of information, in German and English, about the site and Roman life in general. They described the sacred area as Romano-Celtic as the temples were to both Roman and Celtic gods. We went out to look at the temple remains and reconstructions and were surprised at how crowded it was with many small and large temples. The largest temple, to Hercules, had been reconstructed and was impressive even though modern research has suggested that it should have been taller.
Next to the sacred area there is a small café that serves drinks, cakes and Roman food. It was really fun – Jane had Moretum (sheep’s cheese with garlic and herbs topped with walnuts and honey) and I had the ‘Roman Trio’ (sausage, meat balls and Moretum). Very tasty and great to be able to try their interpretation of Roman food.
After we left the sacred area, I discovered that there was an app that would give us a guided tour in English. That was somewhat annoying as one of the features was a 360° video reconstruction of some parts of the site, including the sacred area. The downside of the app was that it was driven by GPS – you had to be in the correct location to activate the audio description or the video. A real issue with the design of the app is that you had to be within about half a metre of the required point for it to activate. This often meant that it wouldn’t activate even if we were standing in front of the information board. I would have to wander around the area trying to find the exact point, often the wrong side of the board. That is really bad design, an accuracy of three metres would be absolutely fine and would make the app much more usable. I had an image of six people all trying to stand in a half square metre area as they each tried to get the app to work.
Much of Cambodunum is actually under the modern town but the ‘Small Baths’ have been excavated and covered. The ‘Small Baths’ are actually very large, which made us wonder how big the other baths were. They were very well displayed and the walkways gave us a good view down into the various sections of the remains.
We walked into the bustling town of Kempten and following signs to the Altstadt (old town) we ended up in the main shopping area with some interesting shops, often in interesting buildings. A little further on we came upon the lovely town hall with its clock and balconies.
They are rebuilding one of the bridges over the River Iller that would have been our route into the town from the stellplatz. I am sure that this would happen in German, but the council have provided free busses that run every 15 minutes from the stellplatz into the town, stopping also at other affected residential areas. We discovered one of the stops by the town hall and took the bus back to the van.
Photos: Cambodunum sacred area with an altar for burning offerings in the foreground and the reconstructed Hercules temple in the background; Inside the Hercules temple; My Roman meal; The reconstruction of a Roman wagon at the baths; A view over the bath complex with latrines to the right and a round sauna in the background at the top; An interesting object lost or deposited in the baths – it is very small, shaped like a lamp and was obviously designed to hold something; The Kempten town hall.