18th September 2016. Würzburg, Germany.

Our plan for today was to move to Würzburg, the beginning of the Romantic Road (Romantische Straße), so we packed up and made our way to the stellplätze Darren had found.  We were quite excited because we thought it said it was on a vineyard (our stellplätze book is written in German) and it was only a few kilometres from Würzburg which meant it wouldn’t take long to ride into the town along the river cycle path.

We passed a lot of vineyards on the hillside along the main road but it stopped looking promising as soon as we turned off the main road and down a smaller road which ran alongside said main road.  The ‘vineyard’ stellplätze was just on the other side of the sound baffle barrier and was actually a tiny little yard.  The owners had made it look pretty by growing vines along the walls however it was ‘compact and bijou’ and it was going to cost more to stay there than the pretty and cheap place we’d left 15 minutes ago!

We considered going back to the site we’d just left as the weather was so manky but in the end went to look at the other stellplätze close to Würzburg.

We weren’t keen on that either so we changed our plans yet again and made the decision to drive into Würzburg, park in the town stellplätze for a couple of hours, do a whistle stop tour of the town and find another one in a different area for our overnight stay.

Yet again our plan didn’t go quite as expected.  We arrived at the stellplätze and although there was parking beside the river we parked in the first space we found because we weren’t going to be there long.  We thought we’d have a cup of tea and some cake then get the bikes out and visit the town.

However as we were eating another Frankia motorhome pulled into the vast car park and pulled up beside the river.  That was an exciting moment because they are few and far between.  Although on this occasion the car park was swamped with Frankias, well maybe not swamped but there was a tag axle Frankia already parked there.  What made this even more exciting was the UK number plate on the arriving Frankia.  I’d never have imagined being SO excited about seeing a UK number plate but it was wonderful.  We haven’t seen any Brits since we met Tim and Vicky in Gothenburg and we’d thoroughly enjoyed chatting to them but that was weeks ago.

Darren decided he’d go over to see them before we went into town but just as we’d finished eating we had a visitor.  What a brilliant and unexpected surprise!   He told us his name was Mark and he was touring with his wife Lucy in their Frankia.  They’ve toured all over the place over the years in a caravan as well as Frankie, their van.  I’m looking forward to reading their adventures in their blog  www.wheresfrankie.co.uk.

Needless to say we didn’t go round the town, instead we chatted for ages.  We only stopped talking to go and have our evening meals then we met up again, in their motorhome, which is beautiful.  We finally stopped talking in the early hours of the morning and I guided a rather ‘merry’ Darren back to our van.  It was fantastic meeting Mark and Lucy, they regaled us with many interesting and hilarious experiences which had me crying with laughter at one point.