European trip

Part one.

We spent most of May wandering through France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

The main reason for the trip was to visit Switzerland and the Alps and the other places we stayed at were on our route there and back and I've only posted the stops where we stayed longer than a day.

  As May is the low season I didn't book sites so weren't tied to any route, and so we had overnighters mainly in France and Luxembourg, but our first stay was in the Black Forest at Kirchzarten.  At the campsite, you pay the local taxes but in return get a travel pass for buses trains and trams within a certain area, not a bad deal I thought.

The Kirchzarten stork, which has been coming for many years, has its nest on the church, with a webcam so that the locals can keep an eye on the chicks.

 The old mill house. 

Judging from the houses in the town I would guess that Kirchzarten is a fairly affluent place. 

and how's this for a town hall. 

No shortage of wood here. 

Using our travel pass we went to Freiburg.

Bicycles are used a lot here and everywhere caters for them.  The trails in the forest are well signposted and well looked after so consequently they are well used.

As we were crossing the road we got caught up in a legalise cannabis march.

There's a good reason why you don't have to book sites as May is often wet and cold, and it was, so after leaving Kirchzarten, we went down to the German Austrian border.