We had a great sleep in our super quiet, comfortable guest house. After breakfast we headed out not realizing what a special part of the route we were about to ride. The ride today gave us beautiful lush scenery, incredible hills (hard but worthy because of the views and the downhills), countless historic villages every few km and best of all, kindness from strangers along the way. This has been a special day indeed.
Breakfast at our first guesthouse of the trip: Altstadt Pension in Bad Mergentheim.
Maxie is five years old and is really interested in visiting with us. Like other pugs we have known, his owner said that Max is more like a cat and would have liked a lap to sit on.
This man has lived here for 30 years (formerly of Berlin),has a great sense of humour and was full of stories. At one point he stopped talking and said, now...you speak German. Gulp, I stuttered a bit, but we made our conversation work. I'm glad that the winter of early Saturday morning German classes are proving to be helpful this year.
The route along the Tauber is quite beautiful. We are really enjoying the close proximity of interesting villages that we encounter...and for us, that means, many reasons to stop and explore.
The beautiful Market Square in Weikersheim with Schloss Weikersheim in the background. It was a rainy cold day with a few cyclists enjoying coffee and pastries in the square.
We experienced much kindness today. Rita, the owner of this bike shop was very friendly and gave us a patching kit for our inner tubes as a gift. We tried to buy a rain cover for our seat bag, but she refused to take any money from us. Her only request was a post card from Canada - which we will be happy to do. Thanks Rita for a most welcoming visit.
The path went straight up out of Creglingen - a monster hill!! We stopped for a moment to admire the last view of the river before we ascend the coming hills and leave the river valley.
We're nearly at the top, and we are not going to walk the bike...:) Throughout the afternoon, we got to know many riders (mostly Italian and German) who were riding without any load and some had motors. Many of them walked up the hills - faster than us riding - and they would cheer us on as we summitted. None of them could catch us on the downhills though.
What an incredible day of riding we have had - up and down hills through spectacular countryside. We have finished the last of the big hills and found this rest stop - a perfect place to make and enjoy coffee by the Tauber River. And here, we experienced another act of kindness from a stranger. Barry had cut his arm and was bleeding. Before I could get out our first aid kit, one of the Italian riders we had seen throughout the afternoon, rode by - gave us his roll of band aids, waved goodbye and kept riding. Thanks!
