28.04.2016

After a bizarre overnight stop in a motorway motel, with our tandem safely stored away in the stockroom we set out in bright sunshine to follow the Danube downstream.

Today’s ride was relatively easy, following for the most part well maintained paths on the riverbank – sometimes freshly laid gravel made the going harder work.

We occasionally cut off the odd wiggle in the course of the river to head off down quiet country lanes and cyclepaths, crossing attractive agricultural landscape.

Stopping for lunch at a crossroads of decently surfaced narrow agricultural tracks we thought it would be a peaceful spot…. however we were passed by several tractors with trailers, walkers and other cyclists. One of whom stopped to have a brief chat about destinations and starting points. Benno, we discovered, had set out from his home in Freiburg on a year long journey on his bike to get to China! He told us of his blogsite www.bennopolo.tumblr.com , so we gave him our card’ with our blogsite address on.

A sleety windy squall that suddenly arrived in the space of 10 minutes and broke up our chat. So we dressed up in our waterproofs and headed off again, fortunately being blown along by a brisk, icy cold westerly wind.

One particularly attractive detour cutting across river bends, went up and over beautiful woodland on a recently constructed gravelly cycle path…. unfortunately it involved a bit of climbing and our long ride yesterday meant we both had some difficulty peddling up the uphill required ….. after a bit of walking and several breath-catching pauses we reached the river again.

We passed through various historic looking settlements, often characterised in the Bavarian manner, by a substantial entrance of a gatehouse leading on to cobbled streets and amazingly ornate old buildings inside.

At one of these towns, Neuberg an der Donau, we stopped to have a very nice coffee, rooibosch tea and a beer, before having a quick wander around the ‘Aldstadt’ beyond the gatehouse.

We passed yet another one of many hydro-electricity plant built to take advantage of the waterflow from the river. Each of these formed a lake in the river behind the low dam walls which invariably provided a home to broods of geese with lots of little goslings in tow (usually we were hissed at by the parents to keep away!)

We also observed lots of other birdlife swooping and darting to catch the insects over the water – usually, swifts, swallows and martins. Hearing a few Cuckoos in the woods suggest spring and warmer weather is not far away.

We arrived at the beautiful old town of Ingolstadt on a chilly but sunny evening to meet our Airbnb host Svetlana who showed us our interesting and attractive apartment for the night.

Ingopstadt is the northernmost point on the Danube as it wends its way eastward  to the Black Sea.

Ingolstadt is also the home of the car manufacturer Audi… and we noticed quite a high proportion of the cars locally were of this luxury car brand.

After a really nice meal at a vegetarian restaurant recommended by our Airbnb host Svetlana called “Swept Away”  we had a lovely wander through the attractive streets of the  Aldstadt in Ingolstadt

Nerd’s Corner

Donauworth to Ingolstadt: 43 miles

Journey so far: 1,041 miles…….. our first thousand miles!

25.04.2016

We had planned our journey to Ulm in short hops, because we know there are hills to be climbed on the way –  however as it turns out, today there was not much hill climbing.

Also, finding somewhere to stay at convenient points is not always easy (and it is too cold to be camping right now!), so some stages are shorter than perhaps they could be.

We sat by a river for lunch watching lots of House Marten’s swoop and dive over the water snacking or feasting on insects over the water.

Although Stuttgart is reputedly the warmest part of Germany, it has become unusually cold for the time of year and snowed a little today!

Nerd’s Corner

Esslingen to Göppingen: 22 miles

Distance travelled so far: 897 miles

24.04.2016

Although this section of our journey towards Ulm and the Danube was relatively short we found today’s ride was rather more tiring than previous days; partly because there were several ups and downs but also because we had a few hailshowers and cold weather to contend with.

Our German based bike route planner helped us to find some lovely back lanes to reach our destination,  finding ways under busy roads and through woodland…. however some of the woodland tracks became paths …. then …. disappeared … in the middle of the woods … or suggested a path that just didn’t exist!

However, fortunately,  we managed to push our trusty steed to reach a track again and we eventually reached our Warmshowers hosts for the night, Frank and Ho Pheng their 6 year old daughter Inge and their little baby Jan.

Their home was in Esslingen near Stuttgart, a lovely old house fitted out inside with lots of woodwork and homely touches.

Nerd’s Corner

Leingarten to Esslingen: 42 miles

Distance travelled to date: 875 miles

Height climbed 267mtr

23.04.2916

We left Heidelberg in the rain along the Neckar for a few kilometers, then turned up another river valley following this for some way.

Although Simon asked the website he used to give us a flat route, we did encounter some hills. However we are skirting around the Black Forest, so what would you expect?

Glad to say we didn’t have to resort to pushing the tandem up the hills, but for one hill we did have to stop a while to catch our breath.

We found a little shelter to eat our lunch….

Then, later on, when we stopped for a hot drink, Simon wrung the water out of his gloves.

When we reached our Airbnb host, Susan, at Leingarten, there was a lovely fire going and lots of hot water for a refeshing shower.

Nerd’s Corner.

Heidelberg to Leingarten : 39 miles.

Distance travelled so far: 833 miles

21.04.2016

We learnt from our welcoming warmshowers host, Angela, that the historic city of Worms is reputedly the oldest city in Germany. However  very little had escaped the intensive allied bombing in the latter days of World War 2 in 1945 so few historic buildings have survived.

Unfortunately the ancient Lutheran church didn’t survive the bombing, (Luther/Diet of Worms etc.) with its replacement being built in the 50’s.

Apart from the Catholic Cathedral one of the few remaining historic buildings is the impressive gate house on the Nibelungen bridge across the Rhine. We crossed this as we left the Rhine and headed for the Neckar River to reach Heidelberg.

Most of the bridge was bombed out but the gate houses survived, although only one is now remaining.

We left the Rhine at Km443 , so we have travelled along it for a total of about 300Km

Then our route to Heidelberg took us through a narrow path in a field……  thank you Google maps! At least there was no locked gate to negotiate this time.

Coming into Heidelberg we could see what an attractive city it is, especially the “Altstadt”.

Having found our airbnb host in a small village beyond the city, we unloaded our tandem and caught the bus in to the city for a bit of a wander.

We’re staying a couple of nights here before following the Neckar towards Ulm and the Danube.

Nerds Corner

Worms to Heidelberg – Just 33 miles

Total distance travelled – 794 miles

20.04.2016

A highlight of today was seeing several storks, although sadly we did not get a picture.

We left Winkle and had a very pretty ride towards Mainz, this was where we saw 4 storks, 1 on a nest high up on an electricity post.

A little after we left Mainz we left the Rhine and went inland.

The terrain here is more open with gentle rolling hills, so the uphill was not too extreme. It cut out a big curve of the Rhine and saved us several kilometers.

We peddled through lots of vineyards with clear blue skies…… beautiful.

Although the ride along the Rhine has been predominantly on the riverbank, the views have been surprisingly varied..

Worms, our destination today , is famous for the ” Diet of Worms” (well known for schoolday sniggers in history lessons) when the “Diet”, a conference of the Holy Roman Empire, declared that Martin Luther, a German professor of theology and a monk, was declared a heretic and excommunicated. This helped to develop the protestant churches in europe at the time.

Worms is also famous for that popular German white wine, Liebfraumilch.

Nerd’s Corner

Winkel to Worms : 48 miles

Distance travelled to date : 761 miles

19.04.2016

We set out today as usual, tandem loaded and pedaling along the Rhine past the Loreli rock.  We reached Bacharach for an early coffee stop.

A very picturesque town, with many medieval buildings, town wall and a chequered history of kings, lords and various sackings in the 7 years war and 30 years war.

It also seems to have been the starting place for a pogrom in the mid 13th century, leading to wiping out the Jewish population of the lower and middle Rhine.

There Diana suggested we went on the tourist boat

to Rüdesheim, getting a view of the Rhine from the water for a change and lunch as we cruised along. We passed quite a few  “schlossen” and lots of vineyards.

It was then a short ride to Winkle den Oestricht , our overnight stop.

There has been a noticeable difference in the friendliness of the people we have passed today. Much more likely to say hello in these parts ratger tgan previously.

Nerd’s Corner.

St. Goar to Winkel den Oestricht : 40 miles – 20 on tandem, 20 on Rhine cruiser.

Total distance travelled to date : 713 miles