Bathing with naked strangers was one of several challenges presented and overcome on our cycling adventure around Lake Constance, one of the more popular bike trips in Europe.

Lake Tegernsee is a pretty mountain retreat an hour from Munich yet a million miles from overcrowded alpine hotspots. Brian Johnston gets local among the Bavarians.

The halfway point of our five-day, three-country trip on two wheels around Lake Constance — known as the Bodensee in German — had been long, hot and a little bloody, as I’d taken a tumble ...