Germany – CopperLioness Roams

Leaving Home

CopperLioness — Thu, 21 Jul 2016 14:11:46 +0000

I think in the end I was a bit scared to actually go. Normally as I approach a deadline I get super efficient and get everything done like Super Woman and I was counting on that burst of energy and anxiety to kick in. But as this deadline approached, I found myself stalling and not being efficient at all. Was I having second thoughts about it all? Was I actually a bit nervous, even though it’s what I’ve wanted for...

Read More Read More

Morning in Mainbernheim

CopperLioness — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 19:26:40 +0000

Woke up and had the van ready to go by 9, without really rushing, and with packing things up in their stuff sacks since this was our last morning, a time we’d never achieve in a tent. Then our breakfast, one of the kids’ favourite: yoghurt and granola (crunchy muesli for the Europeans): Then, as we’d promised Sprocket, we got a bit of time in at the playground outside the medieval city walls: Yes, as DutchBoy read there, and as...

Read More Read More

Run through Regensburg

CopperLioness — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 19:50:19 +0000

We woke up in rainy Lienz at another almost abandoned parking lot by a athletic facility only open by appointment, another find from our guidebook (though, having lent the non-Germany volume of the guidebook to our new friends since we only needed it one more night, I was going by my notes – I’d noted down only the GPS coordinates, which turned out to be wrong and led us down a dirt road to nowhere in the rain – I’ll...

Read More Read More

Beautiful Bled

CopperLioness — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 08:41:07 +0000

Leaving Oberaudorf, we took a bit of a detour to avoid a traffic jam, and were treated to another random castle. OK, it probably isn’t random, it probably has good geographical and political reasons for being there, but we didn’t stop to find out: Then back into Austria for the straight shot to Slovenia. The kids fell asleep, tired out by their morning on the mountain, but when Sprockette woke up she wasn’t happy. That is, until we went off...

Read More Read More

Overnight in Oberaudorf

CopperLioness — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 09:48:01 +0000

There are two kinds of free campsites in the guide. Really free, and free overnight parking if you buy dinner in their restaurant. Austria doesn’t have either kind, but Germany is littered with both. We decided to try the second kind, in a little place called Oberaudorf, which is in Germany, in the little corner surrounded by Austria (near Munich and Salsburg). It turned out to be a good choice. The beer was local and good: And the food was...

Read More Read More

Lunch in Liechtenstein

CopperLioness — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 21:46:40 +0000

Many years ago, my parents hitchhiked around Europe with me and my sister, then almost 3 and less than 1. They hadn’t planned on hitchhiking – they bought a car in Amsterdam and planned to drive to visit my grandparents during my grandfather’s sabbatical in Nice. But the car broke down soon after they bought it, and being the early 70s, hitchhiking was the next best thing. At the time, my sister and I shared a passport and my father...

Read More Read More

Free in Freiburg

CopperLioness — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 09:29:01 +0000

Feeling somewhat trepidatious, we left the dealer in Strasbourg. We went to a discount electronics store we’d spotted and then while waiting for them to come back from their two hour lunch, we again bought good bread from (another) Lidl, and threw in a car dustbuster for good measure. Man these Lidls and their random junk aisles can suck you in. While there DutchBoy also called the VW dealers in Freiburg, and luckily enough, one of them had the part....

Read More Read More

Stuck in Strasbourg

CopperLioness — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 16:12:39 +0000

I really should know better. Years of travelling should have taught me not to be so effusive in my gratitude for something, praising the GPS twice in 24 hours of all things. That just attracts the trickster god (of whatever pantheon), who clearly is behind my dropping of said item as I tried to pass it behind myself and into my purse, and its subsequent transformation into a brick. Not even a whimper as it died. Now, neither DutchBoy nor...

Read More Read More

Under the Tuscan… Rain?

CopperLioness — Wed, 19 May 2010 21:58:19 +0000

Maybe buying a tent called “Waterfall” wasn’t such a hot idea. Maybe it somehow cursed us. Ridiculous idea maybe, but hard to avoid when Libertario tells you this is the most rain he’s ever seen in May in all of his 60 years. The trip started well. We made it from DutchBoy’s parents’ house to Italy much the way we’d planned, with an overnight in Colmar, France. Around Lugano, Switzerland, DutchBoy remembered that his aunt and uncle had very much...

Read More Read More

Camping in Switzerland and the South of France

CopperLioness — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 21:23:28 +0000

There’s a reason we tend not to make reservations. The plan was to spend two days getting down to the South of France, spend a week there and spend two days coming back. Only that last part ended up being true. (see the map at the bottom of the post for our route). The reason for this vacation was that DutchBoy had Thursday and Friday the 21st and 22nd of May off because of Hemelvaart (which sounds cooler than Ascension...

Read More Read More