Day 82: Hanau to Miltenberg

May 10, 2025

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We left as usual quite early and so were able to experience the river with the glass like calm that bodies of water have in the morning:

Our own calm did not last too long, as we quickly came to the German version of the Route Barreé. The Germans do not bother with much signage, but they do put up scads of red and white rental barriers. But just as in every country, whether barricades actually mean anything is up in the air each time.

In this first case, we opened the barricade and barged on through.

It turned out the workers had dug a dangerous trench beside the path, for about 1/4 km. They were using this to bury fibre optic cables, or gas pipe, or the like. The photo shows just the end of the open trench, followed by where it has been filled in.

While the open trench was arguably dangerous, it was no more dangerous, I was thinking, than riding the white line on a busy road. In both cases, big trouble awaits the cyclist who wobbles more than about a foot.

And now onward, for now, on the idyllic Main Radweg.

After about 15 km we drew abreast of Seligenstadt, and decided to go in for a look. Seligenstadt turned out to be one of those villages rich in fachwerk houses, which are so wonderfully attractive.

We really liked this one, and would come back to it for some more photos.

With our short planned time in Germany, there are two food items that I have set my heart on. One is schnitzel, and the other is the erdeberen schnitte. This latter is a quite simple pastry, with a maybe cookie like base, then white cake, and a topping of luscious fresh strawberries under a gelatin like glaze. It's super common this time of year, but of course you have to go in to the bakeries and look for it.

After appreciating the fachwerk houses for a while, I found the first bakery, and dove in. Yup, there were the schnitten. But now I had two glitches. The first was that I was not actually hungry. And the (related) second was that these things are too gooey to practically take along on the bikes. So, no schnitte for me. Maybe tomorrow.

While researching the schnitte I of course drooled over the great breads.

Some more shots of that decorated house.

The town had a market ongoing in its square, making our visit really fun.

Towns in this area have these sort of May poles, depicting their professions and activities.

Not sure what activity this is - being a hungry student?

A little bit further up the river, we encountered a crew practicing with river rescue equipment. There were several trucks and boats. As with garbage trucks, Germans do not seem to be short of fun equipment.

They later played at zooming up and down the river.

While we again were off on the idyllic path.

As we cycled along, we noted the various crops - rapeseed, hay, wheat, oats, and shown here, barley. Barley, we figure, is important for malt, for beer.

Referring to the path as idyllic wore thin, as we encountered another of several barricades for the day. This time it was just that they had chewed up the road for about 1/2 km.

At the end of the chewed area, for which they had wanted us to take an elaborate detour, was a sign explaining that they are working on stuff. There are lots of names at the bottom, in case we want to shout at someone in the federal department of transport.

We reached Aschaffenburg, which boasts the giant Schloss Johannisburg

We and the many other cyclists on the trail stopped for the photo op.

and stopped again, to gawk at the thing.

We didn't have time to go into the town, or to look more closely at the schloss, but we did stop at a sort of beer garden that had lots of spare shady tables, to eat our sandwiches. I went to look for something to buy from the beer garden, to help justify our holding down a table, but (paradoxically?) all they had was beer!

While we are at the table, a (to us) young man came up, and began to chat about cycle touring and what our route had been. He is planning a tour in Brittany, and we were able to give him tips about the route and about route finding. But as has happened now several times on this tour, the conversation ranged more widely - to Costa Rica, for example, where his son is heading on a one year exchange. We also covered many aspects of Canadian geography, from Vancouver Island over at least to Ontario. The man, whose name was Gerd, even branched into conflict resolution and how his marriage had survived a kind of mid life crisis. Cycle touring sure does allow one to meet people, and to have conversations that might not otherwise happen!

Further along the road now, a tractor plowing a field was attracting a lot of storks.

And the storks attracted a lot of cyclists, who are also thick on the ground today.

Not every town is a fachwerk masterpiece. Niedernberg, for instance, is attractive but plain:

The Main, like the Rhine in spots, or the Mosel, has steep banks in places just face the sun just right, and so become sites of steep grape plantings. We found that, near Klingenberg. As always, these plantings are interesting and attractive.

We also found on this warm and sunny weekend, lots of people along the banks at small beer gardens.

All along the Main, geese continue to be seen in quite large numbers. Usually they are walking on the shore, but here are some swimming Egyptians.

On the other hand, these Graylags are hanging out in the grain.

Now begins a rather remarkable story. It demonstrates just how amazingly gormless the Grampies can be. Our destination for today was "Miltenberg", and I'm sure when Dodie booked a place there it was just a name, and was distinguished by both being on our track and being not too far from Hanau. From my point of view, as we approached "Miltenberg" I was wondering if it would be a rather big town, and a little hard to deal with as Hanau was, or if it would be just a small hamlet. I had no idea, whatsoever!

So I was pleased as we rounded a corner and found the quaint town for which I snapped my first photo, below:

As we entered the town, we could see that it was not only picturesque from a distance, but was full of beautiful fachwerk buildings, and had a nice two tower church beside its main square. Ok great, some more photos:

We were pleased again when it turned out that our hotel, the Schmuckkastchen, was on the main square, as was one of those beautiful fachwerk buildings.

The hotel has an ornate wine oriented hanging sign.

We checked in, and found that our space was a large bedroom, a sitting room, and another sitting room that is in one of the turrets that contribute to the building's style.

Now it came time to see about that schnitzel. We took ourselves into the square and began to walk down the portion of the main street that we had not passed through on our way in to town. We read some menu boards of restaurants along the way, and bypassed others where the seating was too sunny. Now in the near distance, standing in a fork in the street, was a large and very decorative building. Dodie read on our town map that this was "Zum Riesen" - the Giant Inn - "Germany's Oldest Inn". With that a little light, and I mean little, flickered on in the Grampie brain. We drew closer, and I framed up a nice photo - this one:

You can see from the photos how close we now were - how close until the lights finally came on in those grizzled heads. We had stayed here! We had noticed the place and its claim to fame, and busted open the piggy bank for a quaint room in the attic! It was 2015, and we were still camping, but we had some euros reserved for emergencies. Coming across this place ranked as an emergency, and though at 90 euros it exceeded our 80 euro maximum emergency budget, we went for it. What's more, we had already seen the hotel Schmuckkastchen, but had been able to resist staying there.

We then wrote up the whole thing, including about the old lady and her daughter that ran the place, what our room was like, what we ordered at supper, how Dodie shouted at rowdy people in the street at midnight, and what the old lady and her daughter came up with for us at breakfast. In short we were all over it. And now, here we were sitting in Zum Reisen in 2025, with me ordering schnitzel (again! as it happens) with me reading our 2015 blog to Dodie in amazement. It's not that nothing has changed, however. That time Dodie ordered the schweinbraten, and now for some crazy reason, schnitzel, like me.

And this photo of the inn's hanging sign - of course I had that too, in 2015. For a laugh- go read that 2015 account, here.

Two schnitzels, no schweinbraten - surprising how things can change in 10 years!

Walking back to our current hotel, with the light a little different, we can present a couple of additional photos of the main street:

We were so stuffed, that the steps up to the door of the hotel looked like quite a challenge. The 2015 Grampies ate their schnitzel and schweinbraten, plus gelato! We really are weakening.

Today's ride: 78 km (48 miles)
Total: 2,935 km (1,823 miles)

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