To Eisenach: a couple of hills and following the Wera River
Last night just after getting into the tent, the rain started...and in the morning again frost on the tent. We decide to head for the golden arches at the bottom of the descent from the campground before continuing with the bike route again. We had resisted before now thinking it way to early to be missing familiar food...but the hot coffee and an egg McMuffin on a early Sunday morning was nice.
We continue on R-7 until changing to following the Wera Valley Bike Route. We cross the line where the Iron Curtain divided Germany until 1989. There was a pyramid of barbed wire at the side of the sign.
We reach Eisenach mid afternoon and find our warmshowers host for tonight. Carlston and Anna have done lots of cycle touring, one trip 15 months until they had a little girl. Anna has fixed a perfect cyclist dinner of lasagna! After dinner, they drove us to Wartburg Castle...one place that would have been difficult to visit on a bicycle. Castles are always on the highest hill!
We have asked is it is okay if we took a rest day tomorrow and they graciously said yes.
We could no longer resist the temptation of the golden arches..... Kidding, but the coffee and free wifi early on a Sunday morning when just about everything is closed in Germany makes us stop here for a while.
We have reached the old iron curtain location. Growing up in Europe in the 70's and 80's it was unimaginable to go past this line. As a young drafted soldier, Patrick remembers peeking over a wall onto East German guard towers. Now there is a monument and more Germany beyond.
Our hosts drive us up to the "Wartburg", a castle overlooking Eisenach where Martin Luther spent time translating a New Testament bible from Latin into German. The Catholic church did not like this at all, their preference was to keep the general population dependent on the priests interpretation of scripture.
