This mornings breakfast was excellent and rated a nine jammer designation from the Chief Navigator. We enjoyed breakfast with Monica and Manfred who were staying in the Hotel Donau as well. We highly recommend it. The two M's were off to the train station as Monica has to go back to work and the two K's jumped on the ponies for the ride to Regensburg.
The sun was out...we must be travelling under a lucky star. We found the radweg with little difficulty and the first 20 km of the ride were smooth biking. Small communities, all with yellow churches (seriously, they must have had a special on yellow paint) farmland and the river. We stopped for coffee in a village where we met a young couple Daniel and Teodora, who were very good to us, and lots of fun. They were selling delicious savouries and goodies from a market stand and we bought snacks for the road. The people at our coffee stop were lots of fun as well. Everyone was in a great mood given the weather, including us!
We knew we had a fair amount of mileage to put in today, and when we stopped for lunch at 2 PM everything was going smoothly. Very shortly after that we started uphill, and that was challenging enough, but then we were headed uphill and through the forest. Gravel path, slippery leaves and big trucks that were making a mess of the trail while repairing it. They also took up the whole path so we had to walk around them. The hills are a time factor as much as anything, and we were hoping to make Regensburg before Tourist Info closed.
Even the downhill wasn't great because we had to be on the brakes the whole time and were fish tailing in the gravel. Solution? We bailed to the secondary highway and had a great yahoo ride into the next town. Despite the great downhill run it was going to be tough to make it to Regensburg before TI closed so we stopped at the town before and booked a room from there.
From there on in the ride was so amazing I honestly didn't want it to end. Danube on the left, great scenery on the right. Bliss. As we approached Regensburg it became a happy dance of bikers, walkers, Nordic walkers, joggers and strollers on the path. Everyone seems to get along. We rode the cobblestones to our little hotel with the difficult to remember German name. Zum Frohlichen Turken. It means The Jolly Turk. We are happily tucked in for the night but with no wifi. I will hopefully post this in the morning.
It had rained in the night. The Chief Photographer aka the Chief Navigator liked the reflections in the puddles. Note that if you have an old wall surrounding your village with picturesque towers, the towers are a great place to put cell phone antenna.
Here they are. After we had purchased their goodies...the baclava was delicious...they gave us a gift of more goodies, and they were delicious too. Thank you again Daniel and Teodora.
Here comes Alle, Hund of the Day, and she wins the Hund of the Day beauty contest. She was absolutely lovely, and very attached to her human, Gaby, who owns the cafe where we took a break.
Lunch stop. It was hot! I pretended to take a picture of Keith, but was really trying to zoom in on the guy on the porch, who must have been at least 90, and was happily soaking up the rays in his undershirt and shorts, with his cane and a fly swatter.
