The road down was much easier on the engine but the narrowness of the road meant that it was still quite slow. Still, we were rewarded by lovely alpine-type scenery and it was obvious from the number of hotels and guest houses that we passed, especially in the surprisingly large town of Oberharmersbach, that this area was very popular with tourists.
The next town that came to was Zell am Harmersbach where we were diverted off the main road through small residential roads. At first, I thought that this was one of the many roadwork closures that we had come across but we noticed that many temporary car parks had been set up. We found a car park on the western edge of town and headed back towards the town to investigate. As we left the car park the German owners of another motorhome engaged us in conversation. Their English was very good and they explained that they had just returned from Sevenoaks in Kent. Their Rhineland town is twinned with Sevenoaks and they take it in turns to visit each other every year. Apparently the family that they stayed with didn't speak German (as bad as us!) and so they had lots of practice recently! They explained that the festival was a gastronomic one with a huge choice of food and drink. They even had a leaflet that listed the menus available at the many locations. When we arrived at the main street it was closed off by a huge stage with some very good jazz musicians performing. There was going to be a celebrity chef performing in a few minutes time but we decided that we wouldn't stand a chance of understanding him so we said goodbye to our new friend and set off down the street. There were thousands of people there and thousands of seats available at tables down the centre of the road. On one side large marquees acted as extensions to hotel and restaurant kitchens with or bars serving local beer and wine. Each food marquee was only serving a very limited menu, perhaps two starters and two main courses or a selection of scrummy-looking deserts, the idea being that you went to the marquee that was serving the food that fancied. It was like having a giant restaurant spread over a few hundred metres.
At the back of the main street were many stalls selling crafts or local produce, all of a high quality, there were no 'sausage in a bun' stalls here. We bought some plums and local cheese before returning to the van and continuing on our journey.
We didn't drive much further, arriving at the stellplatz in Waldkirch in the middle of the afternoon. This turned out to be a problem as it was next to a sports field where a number of matches were taking place and the car park was heaving with cars parked everywhere including in the areas reserved for motorhomes. It was obvious that there would be spaces available once the cars had gone so we parked in a nearby street and set off to investigate the town. Given that it was very warm, the first stop was an ice cream shop where we indulged in two cones filled with lovely home-made ice cream. The church and surrounding 18th century buildings were interesting but I was struggling to justify the Michelin one-star rating for them. We then walked up above the town towards the playing fields and discovered that there were walking trails and a boating lake beyond. The café at the lake was very popular and many families were in the area either walking or playing mini-golf, which seems to be very popular in Germany. This was obviously another reason why the car park was so busy but when we got there there were spaces so we retrieved Henrietta and parked her up. There were three other motorhomes in the stellplatz and the one that we were next to was another left-hand drive English motorhome. We chatted to the owners who turned out to be from Kent but not from Sevenoaks. They had tried to go through Freiburg today, not realising that the Pope was visiting! They hadn't been able to translate the signs that are everywhere, many miles from the city, that say that Freiburg was closed on Sunday 25th September!
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