Day 61: Hundham to Bad Tolz

June 29, 2014

Our waiter/host this morning was a strapping young man, in leder hosen. Despite his size, he seemed quite timid - or maybe he was just uncomfortable with the prospect we might speak English at him. For our part, now that we feel we have learned some of the ropes about guest houses, we asked for an egg each. This seemed to catch the fellow by surprise, but he disappeared into the kitchen, presumably to figure out how to boil an egg. After quite some time, two eggs did appear, but brought by a lady who we think got called on to save the day. It was all very sweet, and in keeping with the homey feel of the place, which was there despite its size.

The family whose house/barn we are in was (is) very big on horses, and always went on the St Leonard pilgrimage to Bad Tolz. St Leonard, we found, is the patron saint of women in labour, prisoners, and ...horses.

At our farm, one of the horses stands beside a sign tht explains the St Leonard chapel, in th ebackground.

We set off in the pouring rain, which had shown up even an hour before the forecasted time. The rain continued for the whole day, which was what we expected. What we did not expect was the type of terrain and place we were passing through. Yesterday I wrote that we looked on this section as a tough one, where we would be crossing terrain that would be both hilly and lacking in services. The truth of it, at least for today, is that we entered a kind of Bavarian wonderland - full of large colourful farmhouses, and including the super attractive town of Schliersee. We are drawing to a position directly south of Munich, and it is becoming dead on what we think of as "Bavarian". The houses here do not have fachwerk (half timber), which we also think of as Bavarian, but rather have smooth stucco exteriors which are decorated with fresco painting, as well as lots of balconies and flowers. The stores feature the most attractive dirndl styles - dresses which cost from several hundred to over $1000, many of which would be worthy choices even as wedding dresses. Maybe it's that as Canadians we share a European background and sensibility, but we can scarcely think of a more pleasant housing design and construction, clothing style, land, lakes, and gardens than what we are seeing here.

As for hills and lack of services - it's true we could have hit this today, had we followed the radweg. The route as set out went way up in the hills, far from towns and up and down hills - according to the chevron markings on our maps. What we did was to just stick to the road. In many places we found cyclable paths beside the road, and in others we just rode the white line. Drivers today (Sunday) all seemed to give us a pretty wide berth.

With the continual rain, and the fact that we are somehow a few days ahead of schedule, we figured on finding another guesthouse, in Bad Tolz, which we could reach before getting really totally soaked. Bad Tolz is on the Isar River, which runs down to Munich. There is of course an Isar radweg, but that is not ön the books" this time. Bad Tolz appears to be quite a large town, and unlike the houses that were so impressive to us earlier in the day, had builds that as we entered town were really very plain. The main street of the old town, though, is very pretty. The style of the buildings is perhaps a bit of a throwback to the Inn/Salzach style, with multicoloured pastel facades.

As usual, we know little of where it is we have cycled in to, and right now we only assume that the "Bad" part of the name indicates that the nearby hot spring is a big deal. That, plus the proximity to Munich, no doubt accounts for the large number of hotels, which look pretty expensive. The place we found - on the western outskirts of town - is a quite new construction with perhaps six rental rooms. It is clean and nice, but nothing special, and costs 80 euros as compared to the 68 euros of yesterday's farm house. Noe of these prices are close to the 50 euro target mentioned by Tricia Graham in considering guest house touring vs camping, We are clearly in a major tourist area here, and that no doubt accounts for higher prices.

When we knocked at the door of our current house, we no doubt looked extremely bedraggled. The lady handed us the key to the bicycle garage, where we stashed the bikes and returned with not only ourselves but some of our dripping bags. The lady produced a pile of towels and a large tub too. She asked us to dump our wet outer wear in there, saying she would hang them in the basement. She did not explicitly say anything, but I got the impression that this was not an optional offer, if we were going to enter her immaculate premises.

One of the advantages of our room was that it had a powerful heater in the bathroom - good for drying clothes that the lady had not taken away from us. Another item that needed drying was Dodie's bike computer. It seems like every trip one or more of these things dies, and often the cause of death is drowning. In this case, though, we opened the battery compartment and blew hot air in with a supplied hair dryer. After a while, it recovered, though it had lost its memory about today, and everything else.

Because we stopped early, we are able to join the rest of the country in watching soccer on the TV. We know little of soccer, but the interest of people around us is a little infectious. So right now it's Netherlands vs Mexico, and the score remains 0-0. Outside it continues to rain, but no doubt the lady will have us dried out in time to go back out in it tomorrow!

Bonus Feature: Ritter Sport

From time to time we have put photos of Ritter Sport chocolate bars into the blog, to show some new flavour that we have not seen before. This triggered a Guestbook comment from Lin, in which she first lamented being teased about all the Ritter Sport, but then reported that she had found a local supply. I checked it out, and found that Lin had access to 10 varieties. Once on the case, I also learned a little more about Ritter Sport - from the wikipedia entry, of course. It turns out they have 30 regular flavours right now. The "Sport" part of the name is not to imply that this will help you with your soccer or cycling (though it will), but only to say that the bars are sized to fit in your sport jacket. In fact, Ritter makes a big thing about the "square" and has some sort of art gallery devoted to it. Ritter is headquartered near Stuttgart - maybe we need to divert to go visit them?

About new flavours, they say:

From time to time, various special and limited edition flavours are released, sometimes with seasonal themes. For example, Marc de Champagne contained a truffle-like center with a champagne flavour and 'Yogurt ai Frutti di Bosco' contained a punchy sour berry center to complement the sweet milk chocolate. Three limited edition flavoured bars are released every three months according to the season. The two most successful flavours are carried on to the next year's seasonal release, while the third flavour is something new.

From this poster you may be able to see that we came down from the mountain (of screen at the bottom) and then had a clear shot up the valley. At the end we would turn right and carry on with another valley. As long as we stayed off the side hills, it was easy enough going.

Here we pause in the rain to mail postcards to the kids.

In an area of lovely houses, this one was slightly over the top - but not much.

Rather than stay on the road up the side of the Schliersee, we found this great path.

This is what the houses of Schliersee look like

In the bakery, not all schnitte is erdbeeren.

But yes, here is the erdbeeren schnitte! Note that the general price here for a piece of pastry is 2.60. That is a pretty hefty toll!

The houses of Bad Tolz are not the same as in Schliersee

The Isar River runs through the middle of Bad Tolz. Hop on this one, and the next stop is Munich.

Today's ride: 45 km (28 miles)
Total: 3,184 km (1,977 miles)

Rate this entry's writing	Heart	0
Comment on this entry	Comment	0