An iffy forecast today which turned out to be totally wrong, thank goodness. As it turned out nice, we decided we’d go down to the lake & the first thing we saw was a Zeppelin flying over it, obviously full of people having a flight. After finding out all about it yesterday, we thought about maybe doing one....until we found it was €200 EACH for 30 mins!! The ship was obviously carrying rich people :)

 

We caught the boat across to Mainau Island, originally the summer property of Count Bernadotte, who created the whole island as a garden. It is beautiful, small but quite hilly, & very busy as it was Saturday plus beautiful weather. Nothing could detract from the blooms & trees though, & we spent several hours just wandering
around & taking pictures of virtually everything. 

 

     None of it is very formal, and we did think the grass cutters should be a bit more active, but there were lovely lake views as well as the flowers. There were topiary sections, a gentle waterfall surrounded by blooms, a small train which ran through gardens if you put 50c in the machine, and my favourite, huge peacocks and birds made entirely of flowers.

     
There is also a butterfly house which was great – they fly freely about within the enclosure & occasionally land on people, but mostly pose beautifully on the orchids etc in there. It was very hot and steamy, and so many people that you had to shuffle along the path, but that was no bad thing as it gave you time to appreciate bothe the flora and the fauna. Cue a lot more pictures!

Whilst wandering the winding paths, we came across a wedding party who had just come out of the church, and were having their pictures taken on the lawns - what a lovely place to be photographed. We had kept hearing music during our meanderings & finally came across the musicians – who turned out to be an alpenhorn band, playing extremely well.

 
Back at the site we were invited across the road by the friends we’d met at Camping Bled – obviously on the same schedule! Dave had bought some blackcurrant liqueur there & we all made a toast to absent friends, then a passing German insisted on taking our picture after he’d seen me struggling to set the camera up on Dave’s canvas stool, propped up with his dog’s rubber chicken.....whereupon I spilled some of my drink (dark red) onto his bright yellow stool.....oops. I was mortified as it looked like Rorschach blots but my Spanish-bought-anti-red-stain spray got it straight out, thank goodness. Phew.