The Oldies had previously driven along Lake Constance on the German side so this time they thought they’d give the Swiss side a go. Good choice. It is possible to drive directly alongside the lake for longer stretches in Switzerland than in Germany. The towns along the way are, appropriately enough, true chocolate box kitsch, though not the ‘Heidi’ mountains and chalets variety. They are oozing with beautiful timber framed houses, so it is more the German cliché than the Swiss one.

Moving on from the lakeside, we continued along the river Rhine, stopping off at the incredible Rheinfall (Rhine waterfalls) at Schaffhausen. I love water as you know but these tremendous waterfalls scared the wits out of me! For once I was quite happy to stay on dry land and just watch from afar. Incredibly, one can take a pleasure boat trip out to the rock in the middle of the waterfall. Pleasure boat! A misnomer if ever I heard one.

Thereafter followed a leisurely drive through the beautiful Black Forest in Germany which helped to settle the nerves. After the ‘Cheese Road’ in the province of Vorarlberg in Austria and the ‘German Alpine Road’ in Bavaria we now added the ‘German Clock Road’ in the Black Forest to our tally. They sure love their cuckoo clocks around here and they sell like hot cakes. Perhaps the Irish should look into developing a gull clock industry. I’d even volunteer to model for the prototype. For a fee, of course.

We overnighted in Staufen, a very pretty little town, with a feature fairly typical of the Black Forest: a stream running in channels along the streets. You’d want to keep your wits you about if you imbibe in too much of the local wine or you could literally end up in the drink!

Sadly, over two hundred of the ancient buildings in the old town centre Staufen are very severely cracked. The cracks appeared after drilling was carried out to install geothermic heating in the old town hall, causing the ground to rise by up to 30cm in places. What a crying shame!

  

The following morning we crossed the border into France. I immediately noticed how empty France is in comparison to Germany, especially on the roads. It was instantly more relaxing to drive there. To avoid the astronomical toll charges on French motorways we stuck to the routes nationales. They are not bad at all, though it seems that you can forget about buying anything en route – you know, minor items such as diesel and food – unless you’re prepared to get off the road and go chasing through the countryside in search of villages etapes. We very nearly ran out of diesel at one stage after driving over 200km without a petrol station in sight.

The French countryside is wonderful but it was shocking to see many villages and towns or parts thereof are completely derelict. Is everyone moving from the country to the cities? I dread to think what these places will look like in 20, 30, 50 years time.

The plan was to stay overnight in Chalon but the weather turned nasty, not particularly suitable for sightseeing. In other words, the Oldies didn’t fancy getting wet so they decided to press on instead to our final destination, a tiny village in the Charente about 40km from Angoulême. We arrived around midnight. Tomorrow we will start work on a house renovation. It looks like the holiday is over.

Merde!