Hardly to believe, that our last riding day is already there. Today our highlight on the route is King Ludwig's castle Neuschwanstein. Beautifull sunshine and the cow bells woke us up in the morning.

On curvy roads we went from Warth to Reutte, further on to Neuschwanstein, to take great pictures from the castle. Lunchtime in a typicall bavarian "Biergarden" at lake Staffelsee.

Today on the Edelweiss Tour Menu:

The Alps!

We rode along the river Rhine and the Lake of Constance deep into Switzerland. The landscape slowly changes as we approached the mighty mountains of the Alps. One mountain in particular is very visible the whole morning: the Säntis. Would that not be a perfect place for having lunch?

Indeed it was. What a view. With perfect weather... blue sky everywhere.

When you think it can't get better the two mountain passes waited for us: nice curvy roads with fantastic views into deep vallyes. A wonderful scenery after each curve.

And in the end: there is a great hotel waiting for us. With cowbells ringing, a wonderful sorroundings and peaceful scenery.

THIS is what they call "the best ride there is".

As much as we all loved France, it was time to head on and so we packed our bags
and jumped on the motorbikes to have another fun riding day in the black forest.

We crossed the rive Rhine and shortly after that we hit the winding roads of
the black forest. On twisty roads we got higher and higher and soon we would end up
in the clouds. So our viewpoint was of high humidity and we all used all our

imagination and enjoyed the view into the whiteout. But soon we left the clouds again on our way down and went through a fantastic landscape, with cows and meadows left and right.

The black forest farmhouses with its roofs going almost all the way to the ground
are all around here.

The road was dry and with a nice mixture of sweepers, small roads, some bumpy parts
and some of perfect tarmac we cruised through the black forest.

We rode down into a deep little vallye and stoped at a little mill. You can easily
imagine that in former times people believed that witches lived here. And so it is
no surprise that our coffeestop is called Hexenlochmühle (witch hole mill) [the
author of this article was really making sure that he got the first letter right
this time ) ].

At the Schluchsee Claudia was waiting for us with a great picknick she prepared.
Black forest bacon, different sausages, some cheese, tomatoes and a lot more waited
for the hungry crew. Thanks Claudia, that was fantastic!

The hills get lower and we are slowly leaving the black forest. But there is one
more highlight.
Schaffhausen is a nice town, but its highlight is certainly the waterfalls of the
Rhine. What an impressive view we had on our last fotostop before we headed to the
hotel where we could enjoy the very nice dinner in our nice hotel in downtown
Schaffhausen.

What we will remember:

- The "incredible view into the clouds"

- the winding sweepers through the black forest

- fantastic coffeestop at the little mill

- of course: Claudias picknick!

- The mighty falls of the River Rhine

The Hexenlochmühle ("witch hole mill"... with some great cakes and souvenirs...our coffeestop... not bad, isn't it...

A short ride on the restday in Ribeauvillé brought us to Château du Haut-Koeningsbourg. On a loop on small winding and good paved roads we passed Col des Bagnelles, Route de Crêtes and Col du Bonhomme. A really beautifull sunny day ended with a suprise little aperitf picnic in the courtyard of our hotel.

Today we didn't have to pack. We would stay two night in the same hotel in the beautiful town of Ribauville.

Some were up early and had a short walk in town even before the breakfast room opened.
At ten we were ready to roll and started the engines.

Our first stop of the day was the fantastic castle Hochkoenigsburg. It offers a great view into the Rhine vallye all the way into the black forest. And through the mist you could even see a little bit of the swiss Jura mountains.

ON twisty roads we coninued through the Alsace mountains. A great riding day. Not too hot, not too cold... just perfect.

On Col de la Bonhomme we had a little lunchbreak before we were up for more twisty roads. A what a fantastic live we have...

We are really a fun group. Wherever we stop there is joyful laughter and big smiles. But the next stop made everybody a little bit sad.
On the Lingenkopf the first world war had one of the worst battles. More than 17000 poeple died on an area as big as two football fields. Fiercly german and french soldiers fought for a few weeks for this little piece of land.
Some of them where just exhumed in the 70s and little crosses mark their place of death.
What a waste of live that was.... but this is all part of history of these peaceful looking hills.

We decided that we wanted to see a little bit more of the nice town of Ribauville and took the next shortcut back to the hotel.

Claudia was waiting for us with some local snacks which we enjoyed still in riding gear...

A little bit of wine shopping and a good dinner finished a perfect riding day...

What we will remember:

- a lot of twisty roads

- nice hills, great views

- the neighbours at lunch who were eating coock ledooockledooo (=rooster)

- the madness of WW1 vs. the beauty of the landscape: what a contrast

- yummie food at the arrival

Todays episode of Edelweiss goes BEST OF EUROPE brought us from Heidelberg through

the black forest into France.

It started all well with a nice group picture in front of the famous Heidelberg

bridge. The sun was shining and everybody was excited to get into the black forest.

One bike (we will not mention any brand here...) decided that the first gear would

be enough for its rider.
All friendly words from the tourguide did not help and so we had to get the spare

bike out of the van (easy) and get the 1-geared bike into the van (not so easy but

with quite some excitement and fun).

So after that unexpected break the real tour could continue.

Some time on the autobahn and then into the black forest. The hills get higher, the

valleys deeper and the curves tighter.

The Mummelsee with a great view into France, some local food, and more curves,

curves, curves.

What else you want when travelling on a motorbike...
Oh yeah, see some nice old towns and see some more countries on the way!

And so we crossed the river Rhine and rode into France. Into to fantastic town of

Ribauville. Not easy to pronounce, but what a pretty little town.
Small houses, narrow roads, cobblestone...
WOW!

... easy to guess which bike it was

Another beautiful riding started and we had good luck, nearly no rain today. We started from Rothenburg ob der Tauber to the monastery Schöntal, which was first mentioned in 1157. We headed on to Jagtshausen, Hirschhorn and arrived early in Heidelberg.

We started our day in perfect sunshine, even though the forecast was not promising at all.

Dark clouds rolled in from the west and it looked like we would hit some rain at some point...

But first we enjoyed the fantastic rolling hills of farmland all around. rich green cornfiels and a nice tarmac road in between.

After our fotostop in Langenburg we descended to the valley of the River Jagst and followed it all the way to the monestary of Schöntal, where we had a coffestop in the sun.

 The sky was full of dark clouds, but beside a free 5 minute bike-wash we stayed dry. yipiieehh!

The Jagstvalley is full of nice birds, brigdes and little neat towns. It brought us all the way to the river Neckar on which shore we followed along for while. A neat little restaurant offered some local food and a great view on a castle and the Neckar with it's boats.

Hirschhorn, a great castle up on the hill offers a great view on the valley and for sure we would not miss this. So we enjoyed the view before we continued to follow the Neckar all the way to Heidelberg.

The van is always with you and sometimes a challenge to get it there....

Our first riding day brought us from Erding to Au in der Hallertau. This area is well-known for the cultivation of hops, which is used for producing beer. They grow on hop poles.

Unfortunately the hole morning in the rain - we warmed us up with a hot coffee in a nice spot in Vohburg.

Our next stop was Eichstätt, where we had lunch and a short visit in the dome.

Finally we arrived in Rotheburg ob der Tauber and unbelievable for the last 60 km NO rain.

Typical German specialities for dinner, asparagus soup, Schäufele with dumplings and appelstrudel.

After dinner we went out for the night watchman city tour. It was so interesting and funny.

Best of Europe started today with our Welcomebriefing in Parkhotel Erding. We are a mixed group with guests from America, Canada and Australia.