Our new "Home"

After Heidelberg, we headed straight to the Bodensee, Lake Constance, the place this year's second home swap.  Here's a rough map where you can see how it is nestled between Switzerland, Austria and Germany.

And this gives you an impression of the elevations around it.

 

For a glimpse of its real beauty just scroll up to the masthead.. That's the island of Mainau in the lake. More about our trip there later.

Lake Constance is one of the most frequented places as far as tourism in Germany goes and in the summer you walk should to shoulder at times. We were here before, stayed in a converted, refurnished castle and were rightly ripped off although the flat didn't even have curtains;neither in the bedroom nor the bathroom. Highway robbery! This experience gave me the idea of looking into home swapping and we haven't regretted it.

In fact, we are on our 8th swap now and this could easily one of the nicest we have had. The home is very cosy, practical, close to the sites we want to see and has a gorgeous garden. Alas, the weather gods are not with us. While our home swappers are sweating it out bravely in Florida, we light the open fire in the evenings. And this village has several stork nests.When did you last see storks? I was a child when...they all but disappeared.

Tomorrow, we're going to meet our exchange partners of last year. We're all very excited.

It's bucketing

Just like in Ireland.Well, all the good rain comes from the west via Ireland most of he time.Saturday we had set out on a bicycle tour only to abandon the bikes at a metro station and head back home after waiting under a bridge for the rain to stop for about an hour. Then we gave  up. We don't have the gear - plastic ponchos- the Dutch have; most others don't seem to mind. They just zip along on the cycle lanes, around cars, among foot passengers, over crossings, red lights or not.Yet, we never saw an accident.. They seem to have the right of way, most not even wearing helmets. I posted the funniest contraptions last year.Here's another gem with room for two kids:

Sunday turned out a beautiful day and we set out to retrieve the bikes. From there we pedaled liked two true locals to a park in the city center where the big museums are: Vondelpark. Although everybody , young and old, was out in force, on foot, skateboards, bikes, lying on the grass, we didn't see any fondling. It must mean something else..:). In fact, it was named after the 17th century writer Joost van den Vondel. Not used to arduous biking, I hate to admit our derrieres were overwrought. We left the Van Gogh and Rijksmuseum for another day, a rainy day we said.

But today's deluge was so heavy, we just hunkered down. There is washing to do, cooking and other menial things when you swap homes. You live just like at home, at least the chores are similar. It's not like being in a hotel. Actaully, I consider that one of the few downsides of homeswapping.

Now the sun is out, it's lovely again and we're going to procure some groceries so that we don't starve .

Maybe a little bike ride around the lake that is opposite our house,  seen on the right at sunset.

Yes, it's the time of the year again. The Intrepid Home Swappers are at it again: we now have a schedule and two partners for about 7 weeks in Europe. How else could you afford it if not by exchanging homes and cars?
I have to admit this planning season was painstakingly slow. Nothing happening for weeks: I wrote to dozens of members on our website, well a site that we use and who gave us a two year membership for free because of the disaster on the houseboat last July. (Scroll down and you can read up on it if you haven't yet!)

The first positive answer came in and made us very happy: my favorite location in the south of Germany, der Bodensee.

To give you an idea if you're not that familiar with German geography:The lake and north of it is in Germany, to the east is Austria and to the south is Switzerland. We'll be near Ueberlingen...if you squint enough , you can just make it out above the word Germany in red. So in Austria and Switzerland, you'll have the famous Alps around it.

You can't tell much from a map, therefore your for enjoyment and interest a real photo of what to expect:

That's more like it, isn't it?
Our exchange partner just wrote me that they are flying to the British Virgin islands today for some sailing. I can't say if it is a home swap, but home exchangers do get around; most of them have the traveling bug!

So we had one exchange and I waited for more for several weeks.Nothing doing. I even signed up with another site to have more places to choose from. They, I have to say, were not very responsive and if there was an answer, it was a NO.
My preference would have been to go to Italy or France for a change. In my experience, however, these folks don't often reply. Neither are they interested in coming to Florida. We were about to give up hope when, out of the blue, an offer came in from Amsterdam.  So we gladly grabbed that, a very nice family btw. We skyped immediately. No dillydallying with them. One more email and they booked their flights and signed the agreement

I often compare home swapping to internet dating. Either there is some connection and interest or there isn't. Sometimes you have to wait, but you must give it a try. Just sitting at home will get you nowhere. So more about Amsterdam at a later stage.
I never finished last year's report. Just back from a trip to Maui and of course I had to write about that: http://www.shewrites.com/profiles/blogs/i-ve-fallen-in-love-with-maui
Hawaii has 46 members on our home swap site as well.I wrote to about two dozens suggesting a trip from one paradise to the next.But no takers so far.

A Celtic Find

Our exchange partners prepared a comprehensive information folder with things to do in that area. One spot caught our interest straight away: close to our house is an ancient Celtic burial site, actually around 500 B.C.  It’s called the Hochdorf Chieftain’s Grave. In the late 1970s, this grass mound among agricultural fields was excavated and revealed a most astonishing find.

. 

The original pieces and remains are housed in a museum in Stuttgart but what they have in place here is pretty impressive and well worth a visit.

“A man, roughly 40 years of age and 6 ft 2 in (187 cm) tall, was laid out on an exceptionally richly decorated 9 ft (275 cm) bronze couch on wheels inside the burial chamber. Judging by other objects found there, this man probably had been a Celtic chieftain: He had been buried with a gold-plated torc on his neck, a bracelet on his right arm, a hat made of birch bark, a gold-plated dagger made of bronze and iron, rich clothing, amber jewelry, a razor knife, a nail clipper, a comb, fishing hooks, arrows, and most notably, thin embossed gold plaques were on his now-disintegrated shoes.

At the foot of the couch was a large cauldron decorated with three lions around the brim. This cauldron was originally filled with about 100 gallons (400 l) of mead. The east side of the tomb contained an iron-plated wooden four-wheeled wagon holding a set of bronze dishes—along with the drinking horns found on the walls enough to serve nine people.”

The art work on his shoes and the drinking horns in bronze and gold was exquisite.

Given my Irish farming background, the reconstructed mound reminds me of a bunker silo. In case you don’t know what they look like, take a peek. This is how they are made:

How did they do it all that time ago without machinery?