Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet

Well, I thought I had seen most that there was to see in Central Europe in terms of natural beauty, but it turns out that I missed a spot not far from Matthias' parents. This week, Matthias' father took us to the Elbesandgebirge (Elbe (river) Sandstone Mountains) for a three-day
hiking holiday in these beautiful hills not far from Dresden and the Czech border. The mountain scenery was awesome, and now after all that biking, I was just about able to keep up with the guys. We spent a couple days hiking (or wandering, as they say in Germany) along some great trails, took a ride over to the Czech Republic to take a walk and boat trip through a pretty gorge, and stopped in Dresden on the way back to visit the newly (re)completed church. Not that Matthias and I needed to get away or anything, but it was a wonderful trip. Now we're back in Gommern ready to catch up with folks.

Warm Bed

We are now back at Matthias' parents' house for a much appreciated rest. We made it as far as Düsseldorf on the Rhein and then decided to end the trip and take the train back for a variety of reasons. First, the damn rain just wouldn't stop. Not to say that we didn't have many sunny and nice afternoons, it was just that every morning and most evenings it rained, which didn't make campsite living very comfortable. Also, our stuff started to break down - our coffee cups, the camp stove, little things on our bikes - and it didn't make sense to buy new just before finishing. Plus, with our weekend ticket, it cost the same to go all the way across the country to Magdeburg (40 Euros for us and our bikes) as it did to go a short distance. So, here we are. Now I have time to write, load pictures, and catch up with things.

Really, despite the lousy weather at the end, the bike trip was fantastic, surpassing my expectations (which were high in the first place.) I just got my first glimpse of the photos, and realize that we have seen a lot. Since I wrote last, we rode along the Main river to the Rhein, where we spent time in Rudesheim, a lovely and touristy town in the wine country. Then we rode along the Rhein past all the famous castles and hills to Matthias' aunt's house near Bonn, where we spent two nights. We rode two more days past Cologne to Düsseldorf, a surprisingly nice city (I had heard it was all industrial.) We spent our last night on the town and then took the train to Magdeburg, where it was a short (25km) ride to Matthias' parents'. (Photo at Tanta Inga's house)

Photos are loading as I write this, and I'll try to upload some to the entries that I have written as well as the Yahoo Photos website (link to the left.) And as we spend the two weeks between now and Matthias' fathers' 60th birthday party, we'll be researching our next steps. Will it be winter in Spain? A bike ride to Greece? Asia? Stay tuned!

Back where I came from

We are now in Offenbach, having biked a total of 3233 kilometers. It's raining again, which is why I have time to write now. We decided not to pack up the wet tent and ride today because of the rain, and because we are staying close to Frankfurt, which has good Apple Wine. The weather for the past week has been on-and-off miserable, with some good sunny and cool afternoons. We only have about two weeks to go before we have to be back, and we have been wondering if the weather had been like this the whole time (as it can be in Germany), whether we would have made it this long.

Despite the weather, the Romantic Strasse was lovely, and we visited some beautiful medevial towns, including Rothenberg, which was almost fairy-tale like (pictures to follow in a few weeks.) Then we followed the Tauber River Valley, which was beautiful and green (probably from all the rain) all the way to the Main River. Then we rode through the Bayern Spessart region, which was also nice. We soon found ourselves near Aschaffenburg, where my grandfather's family is from, and it was a short ride from there to Offenbach, where my grandmother was born (I think) and which is next to Frankfurt.

Tomorrow, rain or shine, we are off to Mainz on the Rhein. We plan to travel along the Rhein valley and then make our way back across the country with a combo of train/biking. Weather forcast is not promising, so I better stop looking at those forcasts!

The (not so) Romantic Street

Donauwörth, 2,829 kms

We are now back on the Danube for a night after traveling over the Romantische Strasse bike route from near Munich. The ride is nice, but the weather is crap. It has rained for the past three days, and yesterday it rained so much we could never even pack up the tent and go, and we had to spend all day at a campsite with nothing to do and nowhere to get out of the rain (oh, did I envy those people with campers, or even big tents!) Fortunately, there was a restaurant nearby, where we could warm up with cold beer.

We can´t really complain about the weather...we have had uncommonly good weather for the whole trip so far, and have done lots of swimming, as I may have mentioned. And I guess this rain is typical for Germany, so we´ll just deal with it.

Our plan now is to head up to the Main river, and then over to the Rhein and back toward Matthias´hometown of Gommern for his father´s birthday at the end of the month. We´ll see how far we can get without needing to take a train, but it´s good to know that the train is there for the taking.

Hope everyone is staying cool!

Chiemsee Cowboys

Munich, 2,699 KMs

We are now in Munich after riding along the foothills of the Alps, through some beautiful Bavarian countryside. On of our first stops there, was the Chiemsee, or the biggest lake in Bavaria. We stayed an extra day to ride around the lake and go to the Country-Western festival they had there. It was fun, and the band, the Chiemsee Cowboys were really good (and much better than the Elvis impersonator.) So, on the eve of my 21-year high school reunion, I got to relive those days listening to 80s rock...the Eagles, ELO, Billy Idol and more. It was all I could do to keep from yelling "Freebird!"

The ride after Chiemsee was probably the most beautiful, and the most challenging, that we experienced. We passed beautiful Alpen villages and great scenery. We are definitely going back to the Alps! (Photo below is the view from our room in a local pension.)