Dinkelsbühl

So the original plan for getting out of Ulm was: throw everything in the car, park the car in the city, explore the Saturday market, and head out of town. We started with step 1, felt the rain, threw ourselves into the car, and then refused to get back out. So ... no market.

Having deviated from the "Romatic street" from Augsburg, we tried to head vaguely diagonally from where we were, kind of heading in the direction of our next hotel, kind of back towards where the road might be. And to my surprise, we actually managed to come across some signs again. And this time, it wasn't just the mountains that were pretty. We got slightly less lost (for a while) and got chased through some windy country roads that lead us past a gorgeous outlook point with beautiful views in basically every direction.

At some point though, we got hit with a detour, which threw us off the path. I took a few wrong turns and ended up driving us in a big loop. And eventually gave up and just shot to our destination to make sure we will still have some light on our arrival.

I know nothing about Dinkelsbühl besides that it was on the Romantic Street, but the place actually has a certain aesthetic that they seem to have worked quite hard on and it actually works. All the buildings in the told town have house numbers, street names, and business names, all painted on with the same old German font. The end effect is really pretty as you look along the row of houses in different colors but all clearly labeled. Though at the same time, I'm remembering the story from a friend, where the body corporate of their apartment block started discussing the color of curtains people should be allowed to have visible from the outside. I imagine that there are some equally frustrated tenants here.

As part of the asthetic, they also kept all the old cobble, a type of road that you definitely don't get in Australia. And, some would say, for good reason. Back in Augsburg, I watched a bike baby trailer being towed over cobble with the kid being seemingly bounced all around in there. And Washinoko also found the cobble a little tiring to walk across as everything was always a small hill. Makes a cool sound effect through when being driven across.

Dinkelsbühl also appears to have somewhat missed the renovations of the 1940's. Meaning that most of the building in the center originated from around the 17th century. And quite a lot of them even have a little bit of this history written on them. The end result of this, the cute colour schemes, cobbled roads, etc. is that this place feels like it should be an incredibly touristy location. But, it doesn't feel like it is? At least, we don't seem to be finding ourselves tripping over the other tourists every three steps. Maybe we're just lucky?

One thing where they won zero brownie points though: wasps. We had two flying into our hotel room which we got to shoo back out the windows and then securely closed all windows. And then when we tried to enjoy some ice cream, we had three of them joining us, stealing from our treats. I can't stand them, I can't deal with them, I almost walked away from my ice cream with 90% of it still there because it seemed like the better alternative. In almost all parts of the world, the European wasps is regarded as a pest that should be eradicated. In Europe, they are a protected species. I think Europe needs to get with the program, because even here they seem to be making life more and more uncomfortable.