July 2nd – Ettlingen

No, we hadn't heard of Ettlingen either, and it's not in the guidebooks. Our reason for coming here was that it was close to Karlsruhe and had a stellplatz (glorified car park) where you could stay for free, and just put a Euro in the meter for 8 hours of electricity.

There's not much to Ettlingen, but it has a nice pedestrianised centre and a lovely open-air swimming baths just across from our stellplatz. So, rather than have a shower in the van, we went to the experience whirlpools, slides, pools and jets, and got to watch the awkward mating rituals of the youth of the town.

As we had no accommodation costs, we thought we'd go out and see what Saturday night in Ettlingen entails – as it turns out, not a lot. We had a nice evening of people watching in the main square, but come 10.30pm it appears everyone heads to bed, so it was back to our luxurious car park for us.