Konstanz

We've had the pleasure of meeting up with friends a lot recently, and ended our streak by staying with a childhood friend of mine, Jessica. She is living in Konstanz, Germany with her boyfriend, Jacob, where they are both working/studying at the university in town and have been living there since November.

June 21st - Train from Montreux to Konstanz

We arrived in Konstanz right around 5pm, which timed out perfectly to allow Jess to come meet us at the train station and show us to her place. We walked to her apartment a couple blocks away and got settled in. We were pretty hungry at this point since we had basically travelled all day and really only had a few snacks on the train. We walked through town getting a good tour of some of the nearby area and looked for a place to eat. We settled on a Greek restaurant and had a great meal. Jacob was able to join us later on once he was done working as well. Will noticed that the bar next door had beer from the monastery that we had visited in Munich, so we decided to stop by after dinner for a beer as well.

The Rhine river flows through Konstanz and is a popular place for the university students to hang out on summer nights (and days). There are concerts next to the river on Wednesday nights, so we decided to check out the music. We met some of Jess and Jacob's friends and sat by the river.

June 22nd - Swimming in Konstanz

In most places recently, we have been waking up relatively early even if we don’t get out the door very quickly, but our first day in Konstanz, we ended up sleeping in a bit more than usual. I credit the sliding window screens that keep the rooms dark when the sun starts to shine in the morning. We are actually much further north than you'd expect, and with the summer solstice being the day before, sunrise is very early (and sunset, late). By the time we actually got moving and out the door, it was nearly noon and we hadn't had breakfast yet, other than a quick cup of coffee at home. Jess was in class, but had left us a note with some recommendations about things we could check out in Konstanz. We tried out a recommended café and had an awesome veggie-friendly breakfast. We stopped by the market on our way back to stock up on some snacks and some other things to make another meal with since we had some leftover pasta from our stay in Geneva. We also made sure to grab some good beer that we could take with us when we went to swim later.

It was the heat of the day at this point and we had been walking around getting hot, so our next stop was the lake to swim. There is water all around the city in either lakes or rivers, but it's not obvious where you can or where the best place is to swim. We tried looking around on some maps for ideas and eventually settled on a nearby green area that we could easily walk to. We found a good place to put down our bag and towels and noticed a few other people swimming in the area as well. Most places have cement slopes down to the water, but we found a set of stairs that we could walk down. The water was definitely warmer than in Montreux, but still refreshing after walking and laying in the hot sun. We relaxed there for a while before heading back to get cleaned up and figure out our plans for dinner. There was a nearby restaurant that opened recently called "California" with tacos that we decided to try for dinner. They were amazing and a great change from the food we had been eating so much (I needed some guacamole in my life!). After dinner, we were in for the night, but got a chance to chat with Jessica's parents who had been in town for about a week and a half before they headed home the next day. 

Beach beer 

Our duck friend!

June 23rd - Reichenau

After are slow start on Thursday, we made sure to get out a bit earlier on Friday to make the most of our day. We had decided to rent bikes to ride to Reichenau, a nearby island where a lot of the fresh vegetables used locally are grown. The bike lanes in Konstanz (and all of Germany) are great, and we had a nice ride through the veggie fields and greenhouses on the island. We met a woman in the bike shop in the morning when we were renting the bikes who was giving us some tips and we found out that she was living in the same apartment in Madison, Wisconsin where we had just moved from! She and her husband had moved there in November from Chicago, and we had about 6 months of time where we both lived in the same building! She had been biking all around Konstanz and had lots of tips for us including taking the ferry from Reichenau to the Swiss side to ride back through the Swiss towns. Unfortunately, it was a very windy day, so when we arrived a the location for the ferry, the one she recommended taking was not running. There was a larger ferry that was still running, but it was more expensive, so we opted to ride back the way we came.

Picnic on Reichenau

While on Reichenau, we watched the waves, windsurfers, and kite boarders on the choppy water for a while, grabbed a quick scoop of ice cream, then biked back to Konstanz. It was really hot this day as well and we had run out of water pretty early in the day, so the ride back was a bit rough. But we made it to another place Jess had recommended where we were able to jump in the water to cool off. It was pretty crazy how quickly I could go from basically overheating to shivering after jumping in the chilly water and standing soaking wet in the strong wind. We laid out on the beach for a while watching a momma duck continually quack in concern at the people and dogs getting too close to her babies. Once we were sufficiently cool, we returned our bikes and went back for some much needed water. We made dinner with Jess and Jacob and sat out on their patio enjoying the nice weather and some good wine that we had from Montreux.

Wine from Montreux

June 24th - Paddle boarding/Biergarten/Flohmarkt

We had a very busy Saturday. We started the day with some homemade pancakes. It was pretty gray in the morning, which was pretty strange for us since we have been spoiled with sun pretty much all day everyday since London (with a minor sprinkle in Prague one day). It started raining early on and rained pretty hard for a little while, but stopped by the time we were done with breakfast. We were planning to go paddle boarding over by the university where Jess could get us a student discounted price. We met up with Cami (one of the friends we had met our first night there) who joined us and lent us a bike so we could all bike over to the boating area. We arrived and the sun was poking out occasionally and eventually the sky was nearly entirely blue. We really lucked out after the mornings rainstorm that the weather was so nice for us to be out on the lake. After paddle boarding, we biked to a biergarten to eat the lunch and snacks we had packed and shared a couple pitchers of beer. They had a slackline set up, so we practiced our skills and relaxed on some blankets in the sun before biking back.

Jess had bought a one use grill the other day that we decided to try out for dinner. We stopped at the market on the way home from the biergarten and stocked up on veggies and brats to grill. Jacob found some bricks to prop the grill up on behind the apartment and we started grilling tons of food. It worked pretty well for a while, but lost some juice toward the end, and we had so much to grill that we ended up cooking some things in the oven as well, but we had a great time sitting in the backyard around the tiny grill cooking up tons of different foods. Plus everything was delicious and we made sure to pair it all with some good beer as well.

Lots of veggies for grilling!

Grill master

Waiting for dinner

Loaded grill

We also lucked out to be visiting during a once a year event called the Flohmarkt. It started at 6 pm on Saturday and ran through the day on Sunday, so we went to check it out after dinner. There were tables set up down different streets of people selling all sorts of goods. It was essentially a really large garage sale, and you could find just about anything you'd imagine there. It was amazing how big it was and how many people where there. Even Jess and Jacob we surprised by how many people were out that late in Konstanz. I allowed myself to buy one thing if I was able to find it, though I joked that it would have been bad news if I could bring more home, because I probably would have bought way too much. I had been eyeing some small steins in Munich that I really wanted to buy, but they were really expensive and I couldn't get myself to spend that much for something that will end up sitting on a shelf without much other purpose. But I found one at the Flohmarkt! Jacob helped me haggle with the ladies at the booth who were clearly having a good time joking about why I didn't want a bigger stein and I got it for 3 Euros! Success! We walked around a bit more before heading in for the night. Jess and Jacob made off with some great purchases as well.

Tiny stein!

We had an awesome visit in Konstanz with Jess and Jacob. Thank you so much for your great hospitality!