Remember, hills are your friends: Aalen to Nordlingen
Europe has the most wonderful scenery, bike paths and people. The hotels just don't seem to have wifi figured out though, so once more I am unable to post pictures. This is too bad, because the chief photographer took some really, really good ones. Hopefully tomorrow evening, but honestly, I am losing hope.
Other than Internet frustrations, it has been a remarkable day. We left Aalen and immediately started climbing. This felt like the hill that never ends. I started singing 'Stairway to Heaven' in my head. I couldn't sing it out loud, I was working too hard. Of course it did end, and we thought we were through climbing, but then the rollers started. Keith made me laugh when he said it was good training...and then he added that he wasn't sure what we were training for.
We had a coffee stop after we had a big swoop back into the valley. We met a couple there who spoke excellent English and told them we were on our way to Nordlingen. They said they would like to tell us the ride would be flat, but it isn't. Great! Actually, there were a few minor climbs, but after the first hill it certainly made everything else seem easy.
Our arrival in Nordlingen was hilarious. How I wish I could post pictures. Once every three years they have a medieval festival and this is the weekend. Can you believe it? Keith and I have a knack for stumbling into this sort of thing. Think the weinfest in Mainz and the one in Bad Durkheim. At any rate, tourist information told Keith there wasn't a room within 25 kilometres. Fortunately they were wrong and he found us a lovely spot through Trivago.
The medieval festival is a REALLY BIG DEAL. Many, many people from babies to the elderly are in costume, and some of the costumes are truly remarkable. There are demonstrations of medieval ways of doing things throughout the town. Among other things, we have eaten local food, watched a parade, listened to live music and watched a falconry demonstration. Now that didn't exactly go as planned, the birds kept disappearing and scaring the heck out of the resident pigeons. There was a Canadian flag on the main stage as Nordlingen is a sister city to Markham Ontario. We met the man who initiated that, and some Markham city councillors in the hotel lobby. We have now retreated to our beautiful room and I think it will be an ear plug kind of night. This town is rocking. It has honestly been a completely full, completely wonderful and completely unexpected day.
After the big hill we had some single track through the woods. It was lovely and shady.
We met these super people over beer in the beer garden (one of many). The young women on the far right is from Namibia and spoke excellent English. She has a future career as a translator I am sure.
Well, well. Look what is up on the stage now (besides a ton of people). A Canadian flag. This is how we learned Markham Ontario is twinned with Nordlingen.
This is the man responsible for the twinning of Markham and Nordlingen. He was absolutely lovely. When we told him we were Canadian he said "Then why don't I know you?" I was thinking well, it might be because I am from Victoria and you are from Toronto, but then I realized he thought we had come with the Markham delegation. We were in the hotel lobby relaxing before heading out into the mayhem again for one last beverage.
