Leaving Braubach we headed south towards the Pfalzwald and the 'Weinstrasse' a major wine producing region of Germany. Indeed wine is produced here in truly industrial quantities as indicated by the size of this 'wine barrel'. It is in fact a restaurant but the barrel purports to have a capacity of 1,700,000 litres!

This is in Bad Dürkheim where we spent a night at a stellplatz close to the centre of the town. Here we had our first experience of an automated stellplatz where everything is obtained by the coin in the slot method, parking ticket, electric, fresh water etc. With a little bit of guidance from a German guy everything worked OK although I managed to drench myself on my first go with the water machine!

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On Friday morning we drove a few miles to Neustadt an der Weinstrasse, every which way you look it's vineyards. We found our stellplatz in the town (the sign above is what you look for) right next to an Aldi supermarket. We'd already done our shopping at a Netto in Bad Dürkheim but picked up a few extras 'cos the place was so handy. We had intended to stay a few nights here so we could sample the annual wine festival on the Sunday however we couldn't find anything else of interest around the town so we decided to move on the next day to the Schwartzwald, the Black Forest.

This is a beautiful place, we don't have time to explore but it definitely deserves a return visit. Our drive down took a bit longer than expected because of road works and a traffic jam at Kahlsruhe. I think people were coming off at an exit road and then rejoining in the middle of the single lane section causing havoc. I did think about trying it myself but conscience got the better of me!

We're spending a couple of nights at Camping Schwartzwaldhorn overlooking the Simonswald valley, we'd recommend it to anyone visiting the area, smallish and very friendly. Unfortunately today (Sunday 31st August) has been very wet but at least that's allowed us to catch up with some things including this site. Tomorrow we move on to Switzerland so wish us luck!

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