Wheels Around Europe . . . . . . . : Meersburg and the Mainau Botanical Gardens

After some thought, it was decided that as we like Meersburg, we would stay here another day, so the journey home was postponed and plans were made for today.

We decided to take advantage of the free bus pass and go down to the harbour this morning and see where we could get a boat ride to.

The Island of Mainau containing the Botanical Gardens seemed favourite.

The other alternatives were Konstanz, the main city here or smaller towns around the lake.

We decided upon the Botanical Gardens. The city didn`t hold much attraction on a hot day.

It was a very pleasant boat ride on excellent ships that swept across the lake in no time. They ran bang on time and were spotlessly clean.

The gardens are situated on a tear drop shaped island just off the coast from Konstanz.

There was quite a lot to see, some of it a bit bizarre, the Sphinz ?

The Italian rose garden was colourful, the palm house a little disappointing, just a few palms and pictures of Gorillas and Bonobos dotted around with some piped jungle noises.

They had some spectacular trees in the Arboretum, most notably California Sequoia or Giant Redwood trees.

There was a farm, Mainau Castle, café, Church, restaurant, insect garden, beer garden, Diana fountain, souvenier shop, Butterfly House, ice cream shop, herbaceous garden, gift shop, dahlia garden, another restaurant, I`m sure you get the picture.

It was a worthwhile trip but not especially impressive. The planting was large, bold and colourful but I suspect not especially interesting to keen gardeners looking for rare or unusual plants.

They had a very big assortment of Hydrangers that even I could recognise and these were throughout the garden. Surprising for quite a hot dry climate, they usually need lots of water, as in the name. So they must be busy with the watering can.

Something else they had were those glorious views of the lake through the plants around 360* of the island, something not many other Botanical Gardens can boast about.

After doing enough walking around for one day, we returned to Ed via the boat and the complimentary bus service up to the Stellplatz.

We chatted with a couple in the next door but one motorhome called Glenn and Hillary. They are from Yorkshire and are a really good to get along with.

They use the same motorhome forum that I use for info, tips and recommendations. It`s called MotorhomeFun and is a really helpful and useful resource for all things motorhoming. There are many very knowledgeble people on there always willing to help. I`d never had any contact with them previously but I was familiar with their username cropping up from time to time so it was nice to put faces to a username.

They gave me some information on Germany for the route home together with a map which was very kind of them.

Tomorrow we will do what we planned for today and begin our route north and aim to be home for mid July (ish).

Life in bricks and mortar is going to take some adjusting back to I think.

Oh, the Germans here have all gone missing this evening, after finishing bottom of their World Cup group they have all disappeared inside their motorhome to drown their sorrows and munch some Sauerkraut I think !