Ack, woke up to the sound of pouring rain! It really can rain in Germany, but we don’t want to pedal in it! Luckily 2 coffees later, it had stopped!
Had a very restful night in our little apartment - one bedroom, living room, bath and kitchen - plenty of room for all our gear. We have several of these apartments booked on this trip. They are harder to find your way into (keys, codes, directions, etc.), but much nicer than the usual hotel room. And finding your way into where to put the bike is even more interesting, this might be the most unusual overnight place for the tandem thus far!
Had coffee in the apartment and then found breakfast at a little bakery steps away from the flat. Loaded up the bike. Steve did the ‘tweaks’ and then we were off for our day of dodging the rain.
Good day with the bike engineering to start and not a lot of really big hills although we did notice the ones we had - some after the rain squishy gravel and then those wonderful wine-dy paved paths through the fields which go on for miles and miles. Our time spent on roads with actual traffic is minimal, today might have been all of two miles (except for our little detour).
The gravel paths have been fine, but they are a bit more difficult on the backside. Lots of ‘bump, bump, bump’. Bit sore (and bruised) by the end of the day! All went swimmingly well until we got to less than 2 miles from Ulm and found the path was closed! Not sort of closed, sneak your way around it, and then head on, but unpassably shut. As we were going to see if we could get through another cyclist came by and said it was really, really closed. The only other option looked like another 6 miles backtrack to get to Ulm on a different path - nooooooo! Steve managed to find a route on a sidewalk right into town - very busy, very trafficy, but got us there.
Staying at the Hotel Centro Stern in Ulm tonight and found a very tradional German restaurant for dinner. I had three different German ‘tapas’ of sausage, beef cheeks and the most amazing cabbage fritters, and Steve had schnitzel w/ bacon potatoes. Both the beer and wine were very good!
Some notes / thoughts from the day:
Thought we might be some of the older ones on this trip, but we’re not by a long, long, long shot!
Our German is absolutely horrific! The technology really is what makes this type of trip possible. Booking.com translates the messaging back and forth. Google Translate does the words and viewing the translated menus prevents all sorts of food ordering errors (I once ordered pigs feet in Spain!). And Komoot does the route for us. Makes traveling in another country so much easier!
Not tons of climbs today, but enough to make you pay attention. This will be known as the ‘could have climbed this hill on the Orbit’ trip!
We adore German shutters - push a button / pull a cord and, the metal shades drop - poof, blackout shades!
Comments:
Quite stunning scenery to be riding through. Certainly makes for enjoyable days and maybe helps to focus less on the sore bottom. Finding food and such is almost as much of a job as all that pedaling. 😁
Not much to add really, not a difficult day but after three days in the saddle I can tell you that you can’t beat a Brooks Saddle!! We did debate taking them off the Orbit but didn’t think it would make that much difference, probably a mistake, sorest “bottom” ever and we are not even 25% done.
Bavaria tomorrow and 58 miles but not a lot of climbing 🤔. It’s also a bank holiday weekend in Germany this weekend so we raided the local supermarket this evening, not sure what will be available tomorrow. Think we’ll be ready for a “rest day” on Monday. River is getting bigger, still no big boats on it yet, sure that will change tomorrow as two more rivers join the Danube here in Ulm.