August 24, 2018
An easy day to Lensen
With so many small places it has been hard to get accommodation that isn't either too far away our too close. Today was one of those days and we had booked at Lesen and certainly should have gone on about another 20 or 30km.
We knew that to cross to the East side with no normal ferries running we had to call the man running the small cycle ferry. It all seemed a bit difficult so the most sensible thing seemed to be to stay on the West side. There are only very few bridges on this part of the Elbe a result I imagine because for a long time it divided East and West Germany. The bridge we were heading for was 80km upstream from the one we saw yesterday. This was a good decision, down the hill we came and sped along a beautiful path often on a bank above the river. It is hard to imagine that this bank is required for flood protection when you now see what looks like a little sluggish river below. At one stage we felt like a couple of drops of rain. I thought 'I hope it doesn't rain' but then looking at the burnt off grass all around I wished it would. During our ride to the bridge the farming looked magnificent. The farmers were busy at work cutting maize for silage and that sweet smell of silage filled the air. At last we saw barns containing cows and there even were some out in the fields.
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Over the new bridge we went into Domitz and it was immediately obvious that we were in the old East Germany.
The streets were cobbled (however those Tour de France riders coped with the cobbled section in this year's Tour), there were a lot of empty shops and overall things didn't look quite as neat. We found a Backerie for Kaffee and Kuching with the usual charming, happy Backerie lady (I think it must be in their DNA). She looked at our shirts in somewhat amazement and saw we came from New Zealand then gave us a big bag of beautifully ripe grapes from her garden. After that we crossed the canal where much to Kens delight we saw an elderly man refuelling his Trabant.
Then it was back onto the track, now it was fine gravel but quite a different story from the horrors of yesterday. We dawdled around realising that we were far to early for our check in at Lesen. There were lovely old half timbered, thatched houses along the way and we were amazed by the size of them. We stopped at a roadside cafe for our lunch of more koffe and Kuching
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Our accommodation tonight is at a Pension, there was a lovely old church and a good supermarket to stock up wth chocolate
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It is surprising to us how the remnants of communism are remaining in these small towns. We were through this area 9years ago and really nothing seems to have changed much.
Today's ride: 51 km (32 miles)
Total: 177 km (110 miles)
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5 years ago
Love
Tricia
5 years ago
You seem to be having a wonderful tour so far! Looking forward to the rest of your journey.
We will be leaving for a tour of our own tomorrow. First to Salzburg and from there we will follow the Alpe-Adria bike route to the Adriatic coast. I won't be posting while traveling but hope to catch up when we are back, in two or three weeks.
Suzanne
5 years ago
5 years ago