It was a relaxing day, with the bus ride to Bregenz.  We got up late and had a nice breakfast of cereals, local cheese and ham with eggs, and bread with numerous fruit spreads, all served with fresh juice and coffee.  We walked down the hill to the bus stop, and with time to kill, had a coffee in the local shop.  

Over the last few days we’ve seen more tractors (from old to new) than I’ve ever seen before.  The first cut of silage has already taken place, and the current work is either turning it to dry, taking it for storage, or spreading muck for the next crop.  There’s plenty of cows in the bits that haven’t been cut, though most herds only seen to number about a dozen cows.  We did spot a few cows that have been moved up the hillsides.  This area is also the place to come if you want to buy a new tractor or piece of farm equipment as we’ve passed several huge suppliers. 

We crossed the road and the bus arrived on time.  The valleys and hills run east to west, and the route basically went east descending the south side of a valley, across the valley floor, then west ascending the next ridge, repeating this three times before dropping into Bregenz.

We bought our tickets for tomorrow’s ferry trip and wandered around the town.  The old town is well preserved, lying just above the more modern centre, and the walls are still in evidence.  The old town measures about 100m by 200m.  Bregenz’s claim to fame is probably the opera scene on the lake in the James Bond film Quantum of Solace.  While walking we spotted a zeppelin flying overhead; Mr Zeppelin was born in Konstanz and there is a museum in one of the lake side towns.  

The walk along the lakeside to Konstanz is about 60kms and was described by a previous blogger as boring, walking through numerous lakeside camp sites, and taking care not to step on sunbathers in various states of undress.  We therefore decided to take the ferry. The lake is huge, over 40kms in length so our trip tomorrow takes about 5 hours including stops.  We will then have an afternoon walk to our next stopping point.

It’s been chilly the last few days, cold enough to wear a fleece even when walking, with the wind blowing from the north.  Flicking through the Austrian TV channels last night, I saw the meteorologist explain that it is due to the “omega effect”.  There’s a big high sitting over the UK and a low immediately to the east of it, with neither of them moving.  The wind therefore comes from the Atlantic, up and round the high clockwise, down between it and the low, which it then goes round anticlockwise, giving an omega shape.  These northerly winds are bringing us the cold winds.  He didn’t say how much longer it would last.

Tomorrow we leave Austria, have a short walk through Konstanz (Germany) and then into Switzerland.