Day 85: Ochsenfurt to Schweinfurt

May 13, 2025

Heart

Comment

We decided to take a spin through Ochsenfurt old town. Actually, we also had to do it to get onto the bike way that would take us north. We had the pamphlet listing the sights, but the first thing we encountered was the Scheckenbach bakery. The bakery seemed to agree that erdbeeren schnitten are the name of the game, because they had a big poster on them outside.

It says "Strawberry Time!" and (approximately) "Count on us for the yummiest taste of Spring."

Dodie went in and came out with a research sample. We found some key differences, compared to yesterday's effort. First off, the strawberries were fresher. The custard was revealed as yellowish custard, while in yesterday's I was unsure if the whitish stuff was icing or whipped topping or ? One difference deemed irrelevant by Dodie was that today the gelatin topping was clear, while yesterday's was red. I prefer red, but they taste the same. And finally, neither had a crust under the cake part. And overall, today's version was less sweet, deemed a plus by Dodie.

Do you think this level of concern for the details of a de facto strawberry shortcake is over doing it? Just watch me! We still have some time left in Germany!

With the bakery research done, we could turn to the other things of note in the town. But wait, not so fast. Laura Seidita has written in the Comments that she misses real German pretzels. We callously reacted by buying some more today. This bakery had a choice of styles:

And they even had a pretzel door handle.

Later we had a close look at the pretzels we got - which were the traditional type:

OK, now we can look at some other stuff in the town:

Here is the rathaus- the "New Town Hall"

The "New Town Hall" was started 1475 but only completed in 1513.

The turret above the town hall has the oxen that are part of the town crest. There is also an astronomical clock. When the main clock chimes, windows open and some figures peek out.

In front of the rathaus was also the sign show here below. It celebrates 80 years since the end of WWII, and 80 years of peace and democracy. The note on the bottom says we will continue to strive for this in the future as well.

The next things we noticed in the town were the many artistic hanging signs.

In front of a church, we also had a dragon being (rather unfairly) slain:

With a final appreciative look at the handsome fachwerk houses, we headed back to the river. On a tower nearby, we found the high water marks for the river. They were amazingly high!

1784, the highest year, looked to be 20 feet up.

Leaving the tower that had the high water marks, we cycled down to the river. You can see Dodie in the photo below, and the river beyond. It's amazing that it could rise from there and be 20 feet up on the tower behind us!

What we had seen of the town so far was housing and retail. But up the river a bit there was one plant, which we think is refining sugar. It makes some sense, then, that sugar beets are in the field in front of it. The company is Südzucker AG, the largest sugar producer in the world, with an annual production of around 4.8 million tonnes, presumably not all at this location!

Finally we could just take to our cycling path, which as can be seen below, as straight, smooth, and flat.

But before very long at all, we came to Marktbreit. We knew this to be the birthplace of Dr. Alzheimer, and it also figured to be a cute place. But we couldn't look through and photograph every cute town on the Main Radweg, right? Right?

Here is some of the Marktbreit story:

This is the crane they were talking about.

If we go into the town, it could be for a quick look. Here is the map. We are near #1, by the river.

The yellow building was the Schloss, is now a hotel.

The inside of the gate gives one of the nicest arrangements of buildings.

Back outside the gate, facing the river, is the "Golden Ship" guesthouse, from 1568!

Of course their hanging sign shows a golden ship.

It says this was a guesthouse for raftsmen, boatmen, and fishermen.

Back out along the trail, we ran into a large field of peonies. That's a crop we have not seen before. Are they for cut flowers? Or will they be dug up for sale as roots?

On the river side, we now observed an Egyptian Goose pair with super cute newly hatched young:

Our reservations about going into every town then evaporated again, as we drew close to Kitzingen. How quaint it looks from across the river!

A golden sword - represents an older Christianity, not Leo XIV surely!

This Eis cafe proved too tempting. I got tiramisu, Dodie, cherry.

For the rest of the day we were seriously in an area of grape cultivation, up very steep slopes overlooking the river.

At one point, we observed high on the ridge, some kind of device descending between the vine rows, climbing back up, and moving over to descend again. A tractor was with it at the top, and we felt it must be descending on a cable. But the photos show the device to be a sprayer, and it moves up and down with tractor treads.

Down at our level, we were avoiding breathing in white fluff that was coming from certain of the trees.

We had occasional picturesque views:

Around lunchtime we arrived at a Benedictine monastery. How do we know? Just read the sign!:

Lots of other cycle tourists had noticed the shady benches as well.

I ducked into the monastery gift shop, ands found it to be large and well organized.

Benedictine's are known for gardening and herbal potions. Here is a selection of what they had. (Sorry, the labels are hard to read, but I like the "Monastic Coffee"!)

Across the street was a flat out Benedictine pub.

We carried on through orchards and grapes, and with the occasional lovely sight, like a Maria chapel among the vines.

The Catholic pilgrimage church of Maria im Weingarten is located above the Franconian wine-growing town of Volkach on the Main River in the Lower Franconian district of Kitzingen . The late Gothic church is nestled amidst the vineyards of the Franconian wine-growing region on the Volkacher Kirchberg hill.

This is the perfect illustration of German cycling: A car road, but with a dedicated cycle path beside, and cropland beyond.

The track took us on a short ferry crossing. 1.5 euros each.

And then, more of the same standard bikeway configuration.

For Schweinfurt, I rather expected a muddy section of riverbank, where the swine could come and ford. But so far I have seen a rather big town, looking like below.

Our hotel, too, looked big town, not at all cute.

But it was super clean, and the room large.

We had lots of sandwiches and other food, but got attracted by the Germn restaurant next door. They had Spargel, one of our target delicacies.

Spargel with schnitzel. That's a tangy Hollandaise sauce.

My choice was jäger (hunter) schnitzel, which means in mushroom sauce. We had a quick panic discussion on how to pronounce this, and fortunately I had pulled Google translate and listened to it, just as the waitress arrived. I tried it out -"yeah, gaa", and it worked!

Tomorrow, we see if the swine really have any chance to cross, at Schweinfurt old town.

Today's ride: 77 km (48 miles)
Total: 3,172 km (1,970 miles)

Rate this entry's writing	Heart	2
Comment on this entry	Comment	0