Romantische Straße and the Mittelrhein : 2017-06-16 : To Rottenbuch

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Activity
Type Name Description Service Provider Cost Kms To Date Total Notes Actions
Cycle Landsberg am Lech to Rottenbuch Today: 51km; Total: 732km $0.00 51.00 51.00
Accommodation
Type Name Service Provider Confirmation Location Cost Notes Actions
Camp Campingplatz am Richterbichl $23.50


Trip Log

Notes Actions
We had a fantastic German dinner with Jürgen and his wife, Nathalie, and their daughter, Victoria. Nathalie is from Nantes (France) and has excellent English. Victoria has been learning English in school for two years but is very shy about using her English. After dinner, they invited us back to our place where they fed us some white wine, Greek olives, dark chocolate and candy-coated black licorice. They had two adorable bunnies in a hutch and a beautiful back yard. They were amazingly friendly and enjoyable. As we were finishing up, it started to rain. Jürgen and Nathalie offered to let us stay at their place, but we declined – we like to camp in the rain.

As we arrived back at the Campingplatz, the rain and wind had picked up some, and we walked down the hill to our tents in some running streams (aka the road). In the night, the wind blew my side of the fly in (the ground had been impossible to peg in properly), but then eventually it cleared up and I just completely opened up my part of the fly and had my side of the tent pretty much open the rest of the night, which was awesome. There was less carnage in the morning to clean up than I expected… just the usual damp tent fly.
According to our elevation profile, the next two days should have us in the foothills of the Alps, and arriving in Fussen tomorrow. How exciting, but at the same time it means a LOT of climbing (those foothills) on our way. We had a very very long 13% downhill followed by a couple of short 12% uphills. The 13% downhill is described in “The Romantic Road” as “Turn right to reach Reichling where unfortunately you drop off the edge of the world”. Laura and I had ourselves pretty psyched out about that, but it turned out to be not that bad. What WAS bad, however, was an unexpected 18% downhill leaving Schongau on a street (the regular pathway was damaged), and an unexpected 20% uphill that those crazy British people (The authors of “The Romantic Road”) neglected to tell us about.
Being that we’re now in the foothills, the scenery is stunning. We’ve heard that Bavarians consider themselves Bavarians first and Germans second, and have a bit of a “superiority complex”. It’s easy to see why. Their countryside is stunning, and they’re astonishingly friendly, helpful, and disproportionately excited to see Canadian visitors.

We met Jürgen and Nathalie yesterday. Today was also filled with fabulous Bavarians.

First there was Hans who we met in Altenstadt. He passed us in his car, then pulled over to wait for us and talk. His son-in-law is a hockey player from the Edmonton area who moved to Germany several years ago. He wanted to talk and take pictures of us. Ironically, as we were entering Schongau, we ran into him again as we were consulting our maps for our route into town and he told us how to get up the hill to the Altstadt. Once up at Altstadt, we met him again (on purpose this time) by the fountain and had more of a visit and more pictures.

After we finally said farewell to Hans, we tied up our bikes and were about to go check out the local church when we were accosted by Felix who was sitting having a coffee. He spoke excellent English and wanted us to join him for coffee while he waited for his fiancé to finish with a doctor’s appointment. Felix had the best “how we met” story ever. He told us about being on a boat and being seasick. He’d prepared some fish for himself (hobbyist cook). He went to the front of the boat where he encountered Barbara, who was sitting there, also feeling seasick. He asked if he could sit with her, and she accepted. He put his arm around her (something he wouldn’t normally do), and she put his head on her shoulder, and together they ate the fish he’d prepared. Awwwwww. So sweet.

Later on, as we were cycling through Peiting, Brent waited outside while Laura and I went into a grocery store. When we came out, Brent was deep in conversation with Johannes, who has two uncles in Canada. Johannes kept us for a while to chat, and was apparently very impressed with us for hauling all of our gear for camping.
A super-special treat for us tonight. The local brass band is out at the Campingplatz playing some Bavarian music. I think the whole town is out, including the Burgermeister (mayor). A bunch of the older men are out in their Lederhosen and Tyrolean hats. Amazing.


Photos

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