EEY AB IN THE SOUTH

The last days have been very emotional for us, we have been on the road for several hours every day, which is why this blog entry is appearing a bit late.

Currently we are in Grän, a small ski resort near the German/Austrian border.

But first I would like to refer to our last blog post. According to the latest information, we wanted to finish the journey in Germany and drive back home with the change of seasons from autumn to winter.

Since the corona situation has been getting worse since our start on September 17th, we had to remove the countries Belgium, France, Spain, and Portugal from our travel plan in addition to Norway. Thus, our original plan was completely thrown overboard. While at the beginning of the journey we wanted to avoid the virus extensively, we are now fleeing from it. More and more regions are being declared risk areas and today we don't know where we can go tomorrow.

Planning everything seems pointless at the moment and Beppo's roof box, which was full of optimism, anticipation, and hope for a better time at the beginning of the journey, is now in the basement.

The conflict between reason and stubbornness has been getting bigger in the past days. So the general advice to stay at home and not to travel is absolutely understandable for us. However, we have invested so much in this journey in the past one and a half years and have repeatedly replanned it, that we cannot waste the time we have now.

It was initially difficult for us to motivate ourselves, which is why we are grateful for the motivating and encouraging words of our family and friends, with whom we have spoken and written in the past days.

Under the sounds of ACDC's Highway to Hell, we finally decided to drive to Italy and find our luck from the south.

From Rügen, we went 900km to the south. Towards Hamburg via Lübeck. In the Lüneburg Heath, we checked into a campsite for the first time because Yasemin had an important job interview with her future employer. Near Holzminden, we briefly visited Norbert. Phil had briefly met Norbert at a campsite. He had told him that he was selling spare parts from his old LT's. In white anticipation, Phil got the number and address and passed it on to us. Since we still needed a noise protection cover for the engine and a new window lifter, Norbert came in handy. For a few euros, we bought the parts we needed from him and talked about our buses for several minutes.

After Norbert, we continued to the spa town Bad Zwesten on the Edersee. Here we had damn good pizza at the Pizerria Al Parco. The following day took us to Schweinfurt for doing laundry (clean area) and then to Rotenburg ob der Tauber.

In the Lower Allgäu (Legau), we spent the last night with a very friendly farmer right behind his house. The couple treated themselves to a motorhome for their well-deserved retirement and have been exposed to the everyday problems of camping, such as overpriced and overcrowded places, poor sanitary facilities, etc. for two years now. To make camping more enjoyable, the two of them have been offering a piece of meadow behind their farmhouse as a pitch (with a fire pit) since this summer. The self-built sanitary facilities are nearby. Since there are no places for free standing camping in the Allgäu region, such private places on farms or wineries are always a successful and inexpensive alternative to conventional campsites.

Today we went to Plansee in Austria on a recommendation. The lake is Austria's second largest mountain lake and is no longer a secret tip. Along the lake runs a road that is littered with signs explicitly prohibiting camping. Due to a lack of alternatives for free standing camping at Plansee, we then went to Grän, to a ski lift parking lot with a view over the Tannheimer Valley.

In Austria, the snowfall limit was already below 1,000m last weekend. The peaks and slopes are already covered in white. The outside temperature falls below 0°C at night. Since we don't have a parking heater in the bus, alternatives such as a gas cooker, hot water bottle, and heated blanket help against the cold.

Tomorrow we will head back to Germany towards Friedrichshafen.