Chiemsee

Breathe and smile. Although I do cities it’s always places in the country that make me smile and feel good. Chiemsee is a lake surrounded by lower Alpine hills. It was pretty, and I was smiling as we cycled around the lake. The parking place is next to the lake, and next to the motorway. In these cold days the motorway didn’t bother us, when at the van we were inside. This was a two day cold spell, the forecast had said heavy snow but it was only light snow. Nevertheless the journey to here involved driving in sleet and hopefully the people in the cars ahead made it OK. Their cars didn’t and that added 2 hours onto what should have been a short drive. We set off for our cycle ride around the lake in the snow, I had so many layers on. I also made a decision that I wasn’t going to have a picnic, so we stopped for a meal. We, a British couple, went to a Greek restaurant , in Germany and drank Italian style coffee. It was a very good meal all in all. The sun came out and the ride was very beautiful.

I wasn’t that keen on the site, or more precise the prices. At €15 a night, plus a tourist tax, plus electricity, plus toilet emptying it worked out expensive. We didn’t use the water, the showers or the toilets as these were extra costs. To be fair we did use the heaters a lot as it was around zero nearly the whole time. The toilet emptying was some fancy machine, you put in the toilet cassette and it is supposed to do the rest. You have to open the top of the cassette before you place it in the machine and this was the point at which I spilt some contents on the floor, hopefully no one noticed. The notice said you may have some residue left in the cassette at the end. Personally I don’t call 2 cms of water with turds still floating some residue. I’d rather have a simple drain hole anyday.