My new book is a week old tomorrow. One of the things I enjoy most about writing the Lakeside Hotel books is that I can picture the scenery. Come to that, I can go for my daily walk in a lot of it. Grimsbach, the fictional village where the hotel is, would be just a kilometer or two up the lake from my flat. Below is the view Stacy admires on the first page of the book when she’s standing on her balcony, looking slightly to her right. Now, in February, the water level is at its lowest, but by the end of May when Stacy and Emily were here, most of the snow melt will be down and that little beach below will be gone.

May/June is also a good time to visit the Falls of Rhine. Lake Constance feeds back into the Rhine, and the falls are a few kilometers further downstream. You can see the scale of the waterfall by the people on the platform – visited by Stacy and Rico – on the right.

Another day, the girls go up the highest mountain in the area, Säntis, this time accompanied by Alan, one of the hotel staff. It’s something I’ve done several times (no mountaineering involved, you just hop on a cable car and up you go). In high summer, the snow will be gone, but there was still quite a lot when the girls were there. The view down over the lake and the surrounding area is stunning.

I’ll be doing more posts about places in Saving the Lakeside Hotel over the next several months, including one about the stony beach where Stacy puts her nursing skills to such good use. That day, it isn’t the hotel that needs saving…

I’ll leave you with a view straight across the water to Germany. I took this one early one morning on my way home from the supermarket. Scenic shopping.

Here’s another (slightly squint) view, with the book. I’m hoping to have the cover image of book two in the series by the time I’m writing the next blog post. See you then!