In Mosbach: hiking the Hamburg loop

September 2, 2021

There are many riding opportunities about Mosbach, as we’re reminded by information panels scattered about the altstadt touting local day rides. That was our plan for the layover day here, actually - we intended to bike back to the Neckar and follow the radweg south for perhaps another 20 miles, maybe to about Heilbronn. We biked up the Neckar on our way from Rothenburg OdT to Heidelberg 25 years ago and I’ve lost the record of where we joined the Neckar so I’m curious to see what might look familiar to my dimming memory.

Our tails are both dragging though and this is the last layover day we’ll have for awhile so we decide to take a hike. We enjoy a leisurely morning, washing some laundry and taking our time getting underway. Finally about eleven we start off on an eight mile loop of the Hamburg, the low hill just north of the city. It’s a fine walk - very quiet, nice scenery, just the right level of difficulty for our ambitions today. And much better than that crummy hike Rachael took back in Trier.

We end the day as we did yesterday, seated at an outdoor table on the market square at Myrhos, the Greek restaurant we enjoyed last night also. It’s an excellent small restaurant in a perfect setting, but I think what I enjoyed most was our server, a Greek woman who speaks fine English but with a marked British accent and a cultured vocabulary. It’s been fairly quiet both nights so we were successful in drawing her out a bit. She learned English fairly recently from a British school or educator of some sort - hence the accent and word choices. She grew up in the same building we’re staying in now, the Schwanen Hotel; but back then it was a Greek restaurant. The current restaurant is owned by her brother, and she comes here to work in it during the tourism season and then returns to her home in Epirus, somewhere between Patras and Ioannina. And she lived on Naxos for five years, which makes us both feel very envious. I wish I’d thought to take her photograph - I wish I’d recorded her voice, actually - but perhaps I’ll remember her as a short, slender, dark haired middle aged woman with an excellent, erect posture.

I really like this town, particularly around the edges of the day. The old town is completely pedestrianized, so the primary sounds are the church bells and the conversation of folks sitting around the square beneath our window chatting away late into the evening.

The day begins with a view out our window at the market square.

Leaving Mosbach. The first half mile of the walk is easy, but we turn right and head up that slope on the right in a few blocks.

Brings to mind a song from an old musical.

Very nice, but shouldn’t it be half-timbered?

A Bismarck Tower, one of about 300 that were erected in Germany after Bismarck’s death in 1898 and before the commencement of the First World War.

Looking across the Neckar (out of sight beneath our ridge) to Obrigheim.

Old and new come together at Schreckhof. Also, on the wall below the sign is an EV charging station for bicycles.

In Schreckhof, a fine Hercules with all the essentials: a lamp, a bell, a milk jug.

To those lichen experts out there: what species favors leather?

Slugs make an excellent subject for the amateur wildlife photographer. Not at all skittish, they’re easy to sneak up on and bring into focus.

Surely no one will notice if just one goes missing.

Butterflies are a few steps up the difficulty scale from slugs, their distant relatives in the animal kingdom. Definitely flightier, they take some time, patience, and luck.

In Nustenbach: roses and a half-timbered house.

Rachael had one of the daily specials tonight: orecchiette pasta with shrimp and a feta and heidelbeer (blueberry) sauce.

Eating ice cream is such serious business.

Mosbach is serious about bicycle tourism. There are vintage bikes prominently placed all through the altstadt, many with information panels next to them describing suggested cycling routes.

The day ends with a view out our window at the market square.

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