Through France to Germany

This spring the Monica Buckland singing week(end) is in Dresden. It's my first visit to Dresden, or indeed to that side of Germany. Though I tried hard to book train tickets, the system defeated me. I can do French trains, but I couldn't understand how to book wheelchair space on the German-run night train from Paris. It involves a call-centre. 'nuff said, sadly.

Anyway, if I had to drive I was going to make it more than just Dresden, so the plan was to tour a pretty part of the mountains in eastern France and visit the Baha'i Haus der Andacht in Langenhain-Hofheim near Frankfurt.

It was fortunate I'd decided to book a room in Chalon sur Saône rather than Besançon, because the rain and spray made the last part of the journey very slow and very tiring. Also, I'd not taken into account how early it goes dark this far east. The hotel Première Classe was fairly cheap, adequately kitted (though no showergel and drinks only from a vending machine), clean, warm, with a very cheap breakfast but no wifi. This was a good thing because I went to sleep instead of messing about online.

Today I wandered off the motorway via Baume les Dames along the Doubs river, among the mountains, in bright sunshine. The river is very high, and was making a lovely noise over the weirs. On the route north-east of Besançon, as you enter Alsace, there is a big sign marking the frontier between the North Sea and the Mediterranean, which caused a "what?! oh, yes" moment.

I planned to go further north on the western side of the Rhine and cross at Strasbourg, because the scenery is prettier and it meant spending longer where I can read the signs and talk to people. However, ViaMichelin and Google wanted me to go up the east side, and when GarminBot started pestering for it too, I gave in and headed for Freiburg. This meant I passed by the dam and HEP plant near Marckolsheim, which is decorated with nekkid ladies pretending to be Rhinemaidens. Apart from the dam the scenery was indeed rather boring, and the Autobahn much more crowded than French Autoroutes. This crowdedness was probably the reason for an extremely tedious and delaying set of blockages in roadworks: it was so like UK that I had to check whether to be on the left or right. The driving is generally quite neat though very fast and far too close together. I thought that with the 100mph vrooming, fuel must be cheaper than France, hence was shocked to be charged 1.53 euros per litre for petrol.

Eventually I arrived in the Taunus after dark and got very lost. Most of the time GarminBot was lost too. Now I'm tucked up in the Ramada which was the only hotel I could find without steps: it's not a bad price for the room, but I shan't be eating here! The wifi is also rather expensive, but I succumbed.