Landkreis Heidenheim

Tuesday September 13th
In Which my Eyes are Dim, I Cannot See

After a day off from the bikes, it was time to get back on two wheels to resume our cycling Odyssey. The Maritim Hotel in Ulm is certainly an impressive establishment, but it really is not my kind of place as we seemed to be swallowed whole by the enormity of it. I could not help but feel we had temporarily lost our individuality and were simply "Room 802".

On our first night in the hotel we had tossed and turned all night in the heat. I tried turning the air conditioning down to 5C, as low as the dial would go. Then I opened the window as far as I could to let in any breeze. It was still hot. The air conditioning seemed to be about as effective as the gust of air from a butterfly's wing. We sweltered the whole night long.

The next morning I went down to reception to complain about the poor state of our air conditioner. The smartly dressed young man behind the desk looked at the old man in the crumpled shirt (ie me) and calmly asked "Did you have the window open ?". "Of course", I replied. "Well shut it !" he suggested.

How was I to know that a secret switch in the window disabled all air conditioning? I went up and locked the window and, hey presto, the vent started spewing cold air. I wondered why the hotel did not see fit to put a small sticker on each window to advise their guests of this critical fact. I later discovered that most of the others in our group had made the same mistake.

We cleared out our room and carried our cycling gear down to the bike garage. Many of the others were already there, unloading the bikes. I helped by knocking my bike over and very nearly starting a chain reaction to send all the carefully aligned bikes to the ground.

A few minutes later we were all outside on the lawn, getting ready to ride. I donned my helmet and gloves, but where were my cycling glasses ? They were nowhere to be found. Since I hate losing anything, and since they were a brand new pair of Rider glasses that I bought for this trip, I started to get concerned. I retraced my steps to the foyer. I went back up to my room. I searched the garage. No glasses.

By this time the others were getting restless and keen to get underway. I resigned myself to not having the glasses for the rest of the trip. Not a great way to start the rest of the ride. It was at that point Maggie started waving something in front of my face. It was a pair of glasses very much like mine. Hang on, they were mine ! Apparently I had dropped them on the ground about 2 metres away from my bike. Oh well, panic averted. We could start the ride.

The day itself had dawned exactly the same as the previous 16 or so days we had spent in Europe. It looked like it was going to get quite warm, so we were grateful that the ride followed the shady left bank of the Danube as we rode in a long procession out of Ulm. It certainly made for an impressive collection of yellow clad riders, probably one of the largest groups the locals had seen all season.

About 10 km further on we assembled the riders and gave everyone a chance to select whether they wanted to be a "bolter" or a "dawdler". This divided the group into two roughly equal bunches. Once again I found myself with the slower group. I had no desire to spend my time on this ride charging along at the expense of missing out on all the wonderful experiences along the way. For me the journey is always so much more important that the destination. I also find that, in warm weather, it is best to ride at a conservative speed to keep the air moving, but to also avoid getting your core temperature overheated. Thus we rolled along at around 15 to 18 kph while the others quickly disappeared out of sight.

The paths often took us into cool shady forests where the air was fresh and clean. In fact it was amazing just how much cooler it was under the tree canopy. This was the sort of riding that everyone adores and is one of the reasons that thousands of people come from all over the world to ride this path.

Our first major milestone of the day was the sizeable town of Gunzburg. We were surprised to find the main street packed with people and cars. We had arrived on market day. That was both a blessing and a curse. The throng of people made it quite difficult to get a place to sit down for a drink, but the market gave me a great idea.

"Let's all buy a collection of food so that we can have a picnic", I suggested. So that's what we did. Some time later we were laden with bags of raspberries, strawberries, cheese, peaches, fresh bread, drinks, etc. We felt like excited kids as we compared our bulging bags of treats.

But before we could leave the town we had to spend a few minutes viewing the huge church. It looked fairly basic from the outside, but inside it was one of the most ornate churches we had seen anywhere. It had obviously had the benefit of a complete recent makeover as everything looked like brand new. Looking up at the brightly coloured painted murals on the ceiling it was hard to imagine the amount of work that must have gone into building a place like this.

We finally retrieved all the members of the dawdlers and then resumed our ride. We had to continue for an hour or so before we found the ideal place for our picnic, but the wait was well and truly worth it. Deep in the forest we discovered a tree surrounded by a circular seat. It was cool, quiet and secluded. Of course someone had to spoil the atmosphere by raising the topic of ticks and Lyme Disease. It didn't worry us one bit, we were too busy eating and laughing.
After an extended lunch break we resumed our ride and rolled into the hotel in Dillingen at around 3 pm. All were still feeling good and commented that they had enjoyed a great day on the bikes.

That evening the hotel prepared a delicious meal for us which we enjoyed under the stars. It was our first outdoor meal of the trip and the almost full moon added that extra element of romance to the night. The conversation flowed long after the meal was finished.Read more