The German excursion: Lindau im Bodensee

A special day today, both at school and afterwards.

Today was the day when all the local teachers were having their annual grade-deciding conference, and as part of that they had a big buffet in the staff room. My co-teacher and I were both urged to have as much as we wanted from it, both during the mid-morning break and afterwards for lunch. The vast majority of the dishes were homemade. I was urged in particular to have a Bavarian speciality, weisswurst with sweet mustard; it was absolutely delicious - so juicy and tasty. I don't normally like mustard but this was much nicer than English mustard. I also had some amazing pumpkin soup (which tasted very similar to Dad's curried parsnip soup), a slice of pea and broccoli quiche, a small cheese and spinach pie and an onion and roasted vegetable slice. What a feast!

After class finished we took a train around the lake into Germany to the historic and picturesque Lindau im Bodensee, which is set on its own little island connected to the main town of Lindau by the rail line and another bridge. We went on a lovely extended wander round town in the sunshine and crisp winter air, admiring up close the harbourside...

...the lighthouse and Bavarian Lion sculpture at the harbour entrance...

...and the view over the rest of the lake. I spotted some mysterious wooden posts sticking out of the water which I thought could be old supporters of a former, wooden jetty;

On our walk round the historic town I admired a lot of the buildings. One of them had an absolutely massive, woody plant growing up one side; maybe an ancient wisteria or laburnum.

Some buildings had murals on the front and antiques stalls set up outside.

Before returning to the train station we stopped at a cafe, where I had a lovely Black Forest coffee. Then we went to a supermarket to get sandwiches for dinner, as we'd already had a main meal at lunchtime.