At the recommendation of our Rough Guide, today we have made our way to the small town of Eichstatt in Southern Germany. Basil is ensconced on the very nice riverside Stellplatz provided by the town for 8 Euros a night, electricity extra. (48.883820 11.198307).

It rained all day as we made our way from Austria, round Munich to Eichstatt, but upon reaching Eichstatt the clouds cleared. We have discovered that many European countries ban lorries from the outside lane and that means the second lane on a two lane motorway. This is great for cars and the likes of us, but must be frustrating for the lorry drivers. As we approached the Austrian German border, because lorries were forded to stay in the innermost lane, there was a queue of perhaps 10 or more miles of lorries, simply because the traffic merged into one lane. We and the cars sailed past the whole lot and then joined a queue of no more than 20 vehicles to merge with the lorries before the border.

We parked up in the Stellplatz Eichstatt and then walked for 10 minutes or so into the beautiful, small, baroque town.

Until the early 19th Century this small town (population now only 14,000) had been the capital of a small principality. Ruled by a prince/bishop Eichstatt remained staunchly Catholic during the wars of religion and for it’s pains was ransacked by the Swedes during the 30 years war.

The town was rebuilt in a baroque style by a combination of Italian and German architects and the centre remains beautifully architecturally harmonious. The buildings’ have no doubt been extensively restored, but the more or less complete old town, with it’s pastel shades and stucco embellishments, is a great place to spend a few hours wandering.

Sarah and I finished our tour with an Eichstatt breed Weissbier. It was nice to see that the smallest measure available was 0.5 litre. None of your “small beer” nonsense for the Germans!