The previous two pages actually were already written two years ago, as we prepared to leave the traumatic situation in Canada behind, take Julie Andrews in hand, and head off to somewhere, anywhere.  

But enter Covid 19 and we were going nowhere. Ok, not quite. We do have three short blogs on the books for 2019-2021. But we have internalized the Shengen visa limit of 90 days, and now to us if it's not about 90 days it's not a real tour.

In November 2021 we judged that Covid was running low enough, and we were vaccinated enough, to venture out to Mexico. Oh, oh, not only did Dodie crash her bike there, but Omicron leapt onto the stage. So we had to wait for Dodie to heal and for Omicron to calm down. Right now, Dodie is sort of healed and Omicron is sort of calming down.  Our vaccinations may be waning, but still, we are going to try it!

Ok then, Julie Andrews, where should we go? In our previous travels, it was clear to us that Germany had the greatest density of stuff that Julie would approve. I say this despite Dodie adding here that she actually cares little for "raindrops on roses", and neither can I prove that Germany has a big advantage in either raindrops or roses. But it does have a massive advantage in bike routes. And bike routes make Grampies happier than almost anything. I mean, just look:

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Keith ClassenYou bring up Biroto - I have completely forgotten about that resource and wonder why I stopped using it several years ago. I suspect its because I started using Galileo (now Guru) for all my navigational requirements. It has several mapping layers but the important one for us is Open Cycle maps. And with that the incredible web of all those bike routes in Germany is at your fingertips. Germany is number 1 in my mind for cycling route options. And on top of that you have incredible breakfasts usually included with the price of your room.
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2 years ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Keith ClassenI will go have a look at Guru, but maybe it's an IOS thing only? Open Cycle Map is good, but easily getting the relevant gpx files allows you to follow any route with such ease, as the gpx file guides you through all the needed twists and turns. Then there are the many "algorithm" sites, like RWGPS, cycle.travel, bikemap.net etc. that will make you an original, fresh route on the spot. Dodie hates these, as they never say what they are thinking. She suspects them of sending us over mountains just to cut two feet off the calculated route distance. Actually, we are suspicious of the "published" routes as well. One case was the Romantische Strasse, I think, that took us way off to the east in one spot, apparently we thought just to go through some town that must have lobbied to be on the "route".

For places to stop, we have in hand this time the map of "Bett und Bike" places. Bett und Bike has standards for cycle friendliness that we like. And we got a gpx file that we can use to show all their stops on our route. The tough part is that they have no online booking service, so we would have to phone each given place, and confront the possible language barrier in arranging to stay.
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2 years ago

Jacquie GaudetTo Steve Miller/GrampiesYou could, of course, look each place up on online to see if it has a website. I’ve had luck doing that and booking directly or through whichever booking system they use.
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2 years ago

Keith ClassenTo Steve Miller/Grampies

I’m with Dodie I don’t trust those custom tracks. I used Komoot a couple times to generate a route - both times it tried to put us off our route onto an adjacent goat track when a perfectly good paved bike path was in front of us. I agree following an established Gpx track is great and we do that when we can. And we also found the same thing going south on the Romantic Road and/or Claudia Augusta where the track veered off trying to take us through the towns. Thats okay sometimes. We typically book our rooms on the road the day of or possibly the nite before if we are certain of our destination. We mostly use Hotels.com to take advantage of the “free night” after 10 bookings.
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2 years ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Keith ClassenWe had a look at hotels.com after reading your note, but so far find their selection seems to be less that what we find on Booking in Sachen Anhalt, and for the life of us we could not get their site to talk to us in English without quoting prices in dollars (vs euros), despite apparent available settings. We tried phoning them, but without an existing confirmation number there was absolutely no way to get a human on the phone. Are we missing something?
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2 years ago

Keith ClassenI signed up with Hotel.com and their rewards program several years ago. I have also used Booking.com and Trivago at times. I suppose it is possible that the number of listings available using Hotels.com is less than Booking.com. The Trivago site does a search of several booking sites and then directs you to the booking site for the accommodation that tweaks your interest …. it may be Hotels.com, Booking.com or others. For Hotels.com I have it set to quote in Canadian dollars but you should be able to have quotes in Euros. I just checked my account and have collected 9 “free” nights since enrolment. Hope this helps.
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2 years ago

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Unbelievably, once you zoom in and in so doing  untangle these routes, any one you mouse over lights up, and its GPX and other details become instantly available. Europe is very well supplied with such routes, but Germany? Insane!

In practice, we did not not so much need Biroto, because the German publisher Esterbauer has dozens and dozens of its "Bikeline" route books, featuring 1:50,000 maps and step by step descriptions (though usually in German).  Dodie just went to our shelf and pulled a small selection (21 volumes), saying "OK, let's go (more or less) on these!"

That would be something of a reprise, conceptually, of our epic 2014 "Grampies Go by the Books" , in which we danced on and off 19 "Books". But that time we were fairly consciously trying to knock off Books, this time we are just looking for guidance and ideas about where to find the most beautiful, exciting, and soul soothing things.

I plotted the 21 Books on a single map, and got - spaghetti, not unlike that Biroto map. So what was  needed was to boil that down into something sensible. As I write this, that has not happened yet. Oh, oh, it had better be soon!