Ore Mountains, Bayreuth and Mering 🇩🇪 - crooked, full and home

Sven Walther

August 15, 2026

Crooked in the Ore Mountains

We continue to a very remote pitch in the Ore Mountains, found via Landvergnügen. The drive there is already exciting, and the pitch itself is then, let us say, quite crooked.

Mammothon on a gravel track on a slope, wooded hills behind — Mammothon parks steeply

For the night we can at least park more or less level down by the road. The next morning, however, Mammothon has to go back up onto the sloping pitch. The reason: Starlink. Only up there does Sven have a clear view of the sky for work. So he tries to get his workplace as level as possible while also finding a good connection to the satellite. Doing both at once works only so-so.

Meanwhile Saskia explores the surroundings as usual. She is out on the Kammweg Erzgebirge-Vogtland and so almost at the Czech border. On her hike she even made it briefly across the green border.

Information board about the Kammweg Erzgebirge-Vogtland with a map and texts — The Kammweg

Wooden cross with a sign reading viewpoint Steinkuppe, basalt, 906 metres — The Steinkuppe: basalt, 906 metres

View over spruce forests to a wooded ridge — View across the ridge

Lou standing in the grass in front of spruces, a bench in the background — Lou with a view

Bayreuth

After fighting our way out of the Ore Mountains through all the little roads, we continue to Bayreuth. There is a free motorhome pitch quite centrally here. You know the game by now: Sven works in Mammothon, Saskia explores the city centre.

Bayreuth is of course the city of Richard Wagner, and he sits there as a bronze statue with crossed legs, as relaxed as if the festival season had never been stressful. Add to that the palaces of the Margraves with their courtyards and the Hofgarten, the town church and, quite unexpectedly, a dinosaur in the pedestrian zone.

Tower with a pyramid roof behind trees and historic buildings — The tower of the Old Palace

Courtyard view of a palace with a yellow facade and red decorative stripes — The New Palace

Palace with a grey roof behind well-kept flower beds and trees in the Hofgarten — In the Hofgarten

Gothic town church with tall windows and a tower under a blue sky — The town church

Bronze statue of Richard Wagner sitting on a chair with crossed legs — Wagner takes it easy

Large dinosaur with a long neck standing in front of a yellow house in the pedestrian zone — A dino in the pedestrian zone

Truppach

We do not want to spend the night in Bayreuth after all. The site is quite full and correspondingly restless. So after work we continue to Truppach-Mengersdorf, once again via Landvergnügen. Unfortunately the farm is a case of “everything is going down the drain here at the moment”. You can still see very clearly that this must once have been a really great location, but that was apparently a few years ago.

Mammothon parked on gravel in front of a barn, a row of children's vehicles on the left — Pitch on the farm

At least there is a small restaurant run by the owner right on the farm, and there we get really tasty Asian food. Freshly made? Yes. Tasty? Absolutely. Only our stomachs see it differently the next morning, and actually quite clearly all through the night. You cannot win them all.

Small white chapel with an onion-shaped tower next to Mammothon under a blue sky — Chapel along the way

Mering and Schwabmünchen

At the weekend we can cover some distance again. First stop is Mering, part of our old home. Here we meet our friend and Lou’s breeder, and for Lou there is a very special reunion: she meets her sister from the same litter.

Saskia and a friend kneeling on the grass with two white dogs between them — Lou, her sister and the duo of humans

Two white dogs sitting next to each other on a path by the edge of the grass — Two sisters

Sven of course did not choose the meeting point entirely by chance. Right here is the best Mongolian grill he knows. So first celebrate the reunion at length and then fill our bellies properly.

Mammothon parked in a car park in front of a building with a Mongolian lettering — Mammothon in front of the Mongolian

With a very full stomach we continue to Schwabmünchen, another part of our old home. There we park rather cheekily, but without blocking anyone, right on the car park of the Luitpoldpark. Sometimes you simply have to know where to find a spot for Mammothon.

Shady playground under tall trees in the Luitpoldpark — In the Luitpoldpark

Quiet stream between tall trees in the park — The stream in the park