Day 49 - Ulm to Bad Buchau - Planned Spontaneity

August 8, 2018

Day 49 - Ulm to Bad Buchau

Whew !!

In the morning when we got up and had breakfast, there was a farmers' market going on outside our window

Once again, we felt very lucky to have had the chance to rent room #1 in this hotel. Once we were packed up and ready to go, we headed for a telecom store I had identified the night before. I was feeling very anxious about our internet access situation because I had read about how impossible it could be to get mobile data in Germany without being a resident. Sure enough, after waiting quite a while for my turn at customer service in the store, I was told no, there was no way they could sell anything to me. They did suggest I try the O2 store close by to see if they could help me. The O2 clerk/manager I got spoke very good english and understood exactly what I needed and told me that if I could show that I was staying at the hotel that day he could sell me the SIM and prepaid data that I needed. After a bit of hunting around (I was getting flustered at the sheer worry of meeting the requirements) I found the correct receipt (what Marvin neglects to mention is that in his panic we unpacked a couple of panniers, pulled out all the receipts from the trip and had me go through them twice, had me cycle back to the hotel so see if they could print another receipt and then, when I asked if he had checked his handlebar bag he was not sure. I opened the bag and found the receipt within seconds! - Erika) , showing our name on it and that we had checked in the day before and payed for one night's stay. He said "That's all I need" and went and got the SIM, took a copy of my passport, activated the SIM, added the data contract to it and said now that I was registered and activated I could top up the data if needed any time online with my credit card. You can imagine what a relief that was for me. That is why this entry is subtitled "Whew!"

For those who care, I got 5GB of data with a fully functioning phone SIM for 30 days for 25 euros and I think 10 of that was the initial cost of activation. If so, the data was 3 euro per GB which, if that is the price for an additional 5GB, should I need it, is very competitive.

I haven't tried putting it in my phone, but if I did, I would have a German phone number. However, skype has been working really well for us, we have been calling landlines both here and back home using either my computer or my phone and as long as I am in range of the towers and haven't let the pocket hotspot battery run down, it has worked like a charm.

However, after being held up for one night because of the combination of using up my previous contract and hotel wifi being flakey, we then proceeded to a town where cell coverage was very weak and I couldn't get more than a 2G connection, so I lost another night on the blog. Sorry about that.

Once on our way we headed for Biberach via the Donau-Bodensee radweg which starts in Ulm and follows the Donauradweg to Donaustetten where we had been the day before.

I can see we got off track a few km before Donaustetten and eventually found our way back right at the Donaustetten junction. Then we got off track again at Achstetten and had to work our way back to Laupheim

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It was on display outside of the areas history museum.

How cute is this? We want one with the right number of seats for all of our grand-kids. (Marvin is referring to the painting on the house of the tandem)

The towns we were going through were very much agriculturally based.

For the most part, the paths were very good today

Little gutter canals in one of the towns

Look at this corn! If "the corn is as high as an elephant's eye..." that would be one really big elephant.

We had a section of rather rough track today, but it didn't last for more than a couple of kms

The day was sunny and around 30 degrees all afternoon

This was an interesting example of a modern building built in a kind of old style

Erika and I love interesting store decorations like this

And then there are truly old houses leaning all over the place. On this one the base is much closer to the neighboring building the the roof edge is.

So we spent some time in Biberach trying to find accommodation (the tourist info gave us a book with a lot of listings but made it clear they would not help us or make any calls for us). We phoned around finding pretty high prices and finally settled on pedalling another 15 km out into the country to Bad Buchau where we settled for the night. But the wifi was weak and slow way out in the countryside, I guess.

There was lots of threat of thundershowers developing in the hot late afternoon, but as we headed for Bad Buchau, we had this beautiful break in the clouds. As we were getting there we could see a rainbow in our rearview mirror and when we got to that town, there was evidence of rain on all the parked cars, but we never had any.

Finally, on this day we find out what happens if you don't pay attention to those warning signs that I have been finding so funny :)

Today's ride: 74 km (46 miles)
Total: 1,968 km (1,222 miles)

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Steve Miller/GrampiesI am confused about why your hotspot did not work for you, sending you eventually to O2. However the O2 price is half that of onesimcard.com, which would is about 50 euros for 5 gb for 30 days.

What does data through the hotspot cost, assuming it is working?
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5 years ago

Marvin PaxmanWell, I was purchasing 12GB of data at a time, good for 28 days and the data was provided by the UK company 3.com. They will only do top ups if you have a UK bank account, so when the 12GB ran out I was faced with getting a brand new order from the company that was selling the package (out of France) and it means that I have to have a new SIM sent each time. But sent where? It can take up to 4 days for delivery although it can arrive in about 2. Last purchase I had anticipated needing one more SIM before the previous one would expire its 28 days, so I timed it to arrive at the Glauer's before we arrived there for a 2 day visit.
What I wasn't expecting, silly me, is that I would burn through the 12 GB before the end of the trip. So that is what happened. I was considering as a last resort, having them send a SIM to Bernie and catching up with it after a few days and having it for the last few days of our trip. But the O2 solution is the best one yet. While we are at Bernie's I am going to try ordering 5 GB more on this new SIM and see what it costs. (then if I don't need it, I'll not finish the order). Then at the end of this trip I can report exact costs per GB etc.
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5 years ago