Day # 38 Karlsruhe to Rastatt.

Useless information!

            Launched at 8.00 am into a very quiet Karlsruhe Saturday morning. Not a moment too soon. The last two nights have been dormitory hell at the youth hostel. Normally I have little trouble sleeping, but it was my fortune to be bunking down with 5 world record heavy snorers. As a certified non-snorer, I find it revolting---what the ladies in their lives think, I cannot guess!
          With little thought of the rain forecast for tomorrow, I had a pleasant 23 kms walk in warm sunshine through a chain of small villages. Interesting to observe that the Saturday morning rituals, kids soccer games, supermarket shopping, etc., seem to be the same (western) world over.
         At this point in the walk, the French border has grown ever nearer, so that the actual frontier from now down to Switzerland, is the Rhine River, several kilometres to the west of Rastatt. I have noticed here and did notice also when I was moving through the border region of Germany & the Netherlands, just how little day-to-day population intermixing there is between the residents of the various EU states.We read in the papers, on the TV, almost incessantly about European integration. On the ground & in the real world, the French seem to be happier on their side of the border, ditto the Dutch. This observation is supported by noting the local car registrations on the streets through which I walk. reason. Could be of course, that in this era of the single currency Euro, prices throughout the Community are very similar and that there is no longer the incentive to cross the border 'to get a bargoon' based on currency exchange rates. Seems a pity though----wasn't national interaction one of the goals of the visionary fathers back in 1954?
       Tomorrow my walking goal is a modest 15 kms  from Rastatt to the resort town of Baden Baden. Aware that this town is a major tourist draw, I have tried unsuccessfully to advance book a bed & breakfast in Baden, so for that reason, I have decided to stay at my hotel in Rastatt for the next several days, while making my walks & returning to it late in the day by train or bus.

23.0 kms. walked today per Google Maps.
721.5 Cumulative kms. walked:.
Type of overnight lodging: Da Franco Hotel.
Cost of lodging: 59E.