A couple of rants

I’m sorry Switzerland, it’s just not good enough. It is with displeasure that I need to report that today, for the first time, we encountered a pot hole. Whilst barely measuring about 6 inches across and about half an inch deep, it is nonetheless a great disappointment. Please ensure that this heinous scar on your roads is sorted as soon as possible.

I’d also like to complain, much more seriously, about the writer of the guide book that we are following. He gaily appears to imply that as long as you rock up to your chosen destination before 4 o’clock in the afternoon there will be no end of guesthouses looking for your business. Having camped the last 3 days, and knowing that the weather was on the turn, we felt that a night with a more solid roof over our heads was in order.

We arrived in Gailingen at about 2 and immediately found the tourist office, as this book said to do so.

Problem 1- It only opens from 8.30 to 12.00. Ok, let’s phone some of the guesthouses with pictures on the information board.

Problem 2 - they are all full. Fine, lets go down to the hotel just down the road. It will be more expensive, but at least it will have rooms. Now by this point the promised rain had arrived, and rain was dripping off my helmet down the back of my neck.

Problem 3 - It’s full.

And here is where a bit of luck intervened: the receptionist in the hotel was an absolute godsend. Without any prompting at all, she started a whirlwind of telephoning around other places to see if there was anything available.

Problem 4- nothing available. The only hint was from some basic hostel where the husband of the owner essentially said that he hadn’t the foggiest if there was anything available and if we rang back an hour later his wife might have returned and be able to help…...

So we sat down in the warm lobby, shot jealous stares at the residents who had the foresight to reserve rooms and contemplated our only option - a soggy 4km ride back down the steep hill we had just climbed to a campsite. Having offered us a coffee, our St Christopher made one last phone call, and despite my extremely rudimentary German, I could tell that finally, there was success. Turned out she rang someone who usually only accepted bookings for 7 days, laid on the pathos about 2 wet English people who would otherwise be on the streets etc etc, and the lady said that would be fine! Literally 100m down the street we met our host, who could not have turned out to be more kinder and welcoming. She did turn out to be quite canny however, as the bill was a bit more than was advertised on the information board. To be fair, it was perfectly reasonable given our circumstances.

A soggy picture of our overnight Gasthaus courtesy of Frau Bossell