Bike touring and camping at Lake constance

Bike touring at Lake Constace

After breakfasting, we headed towards Lake Constance and were thrilled to find that the first part, at least, was down, down, down. It seemed to be in compensation for the day before, which was filled with unending hills. In fact, we had somehow managed, all day long, to remain between 22-23 kms. from Constance. We looked at our first street sign indicating Constance : 23 kms. One hour later, in another city: Constance, 23 kms. We took direction Constance again…22 kms., one hour later. Three hours later: same thing. It was as if someone was playing a joke on us. We cycled all day long – mostly uphill – only to find ourselves just as far from the city as when we had started that morning.

Anyway, those troubles behind us, we savored the very long descent towards the banks of the lake. The first town we came to had a yacht club and was outfitted for tourists. This was obviously a wealthy area. And stunning. We watched the sailboats glide by on the lake, which is 36 mi. long and 10 mi. across. We passed by flowering gardens, elegant homes, and large green fields with handsome horses on one side, the blue lake and the mountains of Switzerland on the other (Although a German town, Constance is located on the Swiss side of the lake. We were only 1.5 mi. from the Swiss border.). We came to one or two towns which looked like they came out of the “style” section of a women’s magazine. Elegant homes and matching cars, impeccably manicured women, and well-dressed men. I remarked to Stéphane that it reminded me of Palm Beach or the French Riviera. Granted, the houses in Palm Beach are indisputably bigger, but, as the Europeans say, everything in America is on a larger scale.

The weather was perfect, the sun was shining, the warm breeze caressed us. Life was good. We arrived in Constance before lunchtime by the quays alongside the lake. Our path into the town was one which passed wide cobble-stoned walkways, bordered by the vast lake on one side and lined by a classy casino and large, stately hotels with private gardens on the other side. I dubbed it “La Promenade des Anglais” (The English Walkway) after the street in Nice (on the French Riviera) which is an upscale neighborhood frequented by English tourists. Only difference was, this was on a lake, and Nice is alongside the sea.

We watched the tour boats coming in and out of the harbor and listened to street musicians in the town. One in particular had remarkable talent. He was a one-man band. He played guitar and sang and had a harmonica attached around his head that he played when he wasn’t singing. Then he had a drum and cymbals attached to his back, which he relayed to his feet by a string. His right fot controlled the cymbals, the left foot the drums. So that he looked like he was marching in place, singing and playing the guitar and drums all at the same time. That takes a lot of coordination and a better sense of rhythm than I’ll ever have!

Colorful Lake Constance

It was during our stay near Constance that we visited the monastic island of Reichenau (for more on Reichenau, please visit the section entitled “UNESCO sites”).

We stayed in a campground about half an hour outside of Constance for the few days that we were in the area. We took “La Promenade des Anglais” in and out of the town. We spent a day at the campground doing laundry and maintenance work on the bikes. We tuned into a French radio station, which was doing a special on, of all people, Johnny Cash. Apparently the well-loved musician had just passed away, so they were doing a one-hour special on his life and music. As it was a French station, we were able to understand the commentary. It was quite ironic to me to think that I was listening to a special on an American country and folk singer on a French station in Germany. Especially as my cousin Matt is a huge Johnny Cash fan and had always talked about him when I was little. As I was very young, I never became familiar with the music. And now I learned all about him over here in a little town in Germany, almost two decades later. I recognized his music several times afterwards on German stations. So, Matt, here’s thinking of you!

Speaking of music, I’ve been flipping through the radio stations, looking for German music and have hardly found any yet! I can hardly believe it. I knew that they listened to a lot of American and English music, but didn’t realize to what extent. I’ve heard everyone from the Supremes to Tina Turner, Michael Jackson, the Carpenters, Barbra Streisand, Billy Joel, Robbie Williams, Alanis Morissette, and Dire Straits. Oldies, country, R&B, pop, rock, rap. In France, they listen to a lot of English music, but a law limits the percentage of English music that can be played on the radio. As a result, you can hear French music as well. Not here.

I was wondering if the people can actually understand the words of the songs that they listen to. Songs are much more difficult to understand than conversation. Even Stéphane still has trouble four or five years after learning to speak English fluently. To illustrate, I’ll give you a funny example of what happened to me a couple of years ago when we were planning our wedding in France. We were trying to decide upon a song for our first dance, and two of Stéphane’s friends said they knew the perfect song and played it for me from their CD. It was Sinead O’Connor’s song talking about how she had to go to see the psychiatrist after her lover left her. Not very appropriate, right? Then Stéphane suggested a song that he thought would be good to dance to. The singer was lamenting the fact that his girlfriend had “run around with every boy in town.” I explained the words and the meaning to Stéphane and he said it didn’t matter because no one would understand the words anyway. I said I would! I didn’t want a song talking about cheating at my wedding! So they gave up on the English songs and we chose a French one instead.

On our last day in Constance, Stéphane rode into town to use an internet café while, being sick, I stayed back at the campground. As I was hanging some laundry on a clothesline by our tent, a man walked by and started talking to me. Telling him that I didn’t speak German, he said it was okay, he spoke English. He was looking for friends at another campground, but being unable to find them, asked if he could stop and chat for a few minutes. So I said sure, even though I had nothing to offer him in the way of food or beverage. We talked for a while, and then he parted.

Stéphane came back later that evening and I didn’t think much more about it until I got up to go to the restroom later on. Two men were standing near the entrance and one started asking me what I wanted. I responded and he obviuosly didn’t like my answer. It was an odd encounter. He kept saying, “What’s your problem? What’s your problem?” I told him that I didn’t have one, but the men continued to regard me strangely. I headed back towards the tent, and one continued to follow me, yelling. He said that he wanted me to come with him. I obviously refused and started walking quicker. When he became overtly hostile, trying to block my path and follow me to the tent, I called out loudly for Stéphane, who ran right over. Luckily, he recognized the man as the owner of the campground, and figured that he thought that maybe we hadn’t paid. We followed him to the office, but he was still extremely hostile and rude. He refused to believe that we had paid and said that we were staying there illegally. Until the second man from earlier came in to explain to him that he knew us and that we were okay (all this in German, of course). Then, miraculously, they both found that they could speak English well enough (the second one perfectly).

Turns out, the second man (our neighbor which had recognized Stéphane, but not me) had told the campground owner that I was a drugdealer’s girlfriend. He had seen me talking to my companion from earlier in the afternoon and had assumed that because the man was black and had dredlocks, that he was a drugdealer. And I automatically became his girlfriend, simply because we had conversed together. Their logic was the following: black man has dredlocks, therefore he is a drugdealer. Girl talks to drugdealer, therefore she is his girlfriend. Completely racist. The owner wanted to throw us out of the campground, and the second man only came to our aid after he recognized Stéphane when he came running over to rescue me. So hypocritical. They both became very apologetic afterwards, but it was obvious that I was very upset over the whole ordeal. I tried explaining that I had only been talking to the man because it was nice to meet people that speak the same language as you do. The owner then offered me ice cream to make me feel better. I declined and he insisted, so I walked away feeling like a little kid with my Magnum ice cream bar.