Sept. 27 Update

We have have left the Romantic Road far behind and made it as far as the Bodensee in Germany. The weather has not been very lovely, in fact today it was 5C for most of the morning.

The cute walled towns of the Romantic Road were fun to visit and one of the towns, Nordlingen, was in the middle of an old meteor impact crater. We got to ride through the old rim of the crater - read challening and hilly - but it was nicely forested and made for interesting viewing when we climbed the church tower.

We are now planning to cycle three countries in three days. Germany, Austria and Switzerland all boarder the Bodensee.

A Beautiful End of the Day

I don't know exactly where we are but we are at roughly 49 14.14N 011 27.135E which is some where along the King Ludwig canal which runs between the Danube and Main rivers in Germany.

The day started out rough - more rain and the nice hard packed gravel path we've been riding has been softened by all the rain making the riding both dirtier and more difficult. It was hard to focus on the nice river valley of the Altmuhl with castle towers, chateaus and churches up on the hills above the valley and not on the rain, the mud and the headwind. After lunch, spent sitting in the hall outside of a closed tourist info where I looked at maps through the window, we headed to Berching a nondiscript town where we hoped to find an open tourist info to help us decide which canal to ride to Nuremberg. After lunch was over it was back out into the rain for the short ride to Berching. As we pulled into town the street was torn up with construction - looked like sewer work to me - so we had to get off and walk along the side. We crossed through an arch and continued walking as Stacey was worried about the wet cobblestones. The sign pointing to the tourist info turned us left and over a small cobbled bridge with a statue of some unnamed saint. Dead ahead was a 16th century town gate. Words are going to fail me but it was a beaut. The building above was decked out with planter boxes and where the buildings stopped old town walls continued. Several towers could be seen reaching up over the gate. What a surprise! One of the delights of bicycle touring is stumbling onto what you other wise wouldn't have seen and Berching was a real delight.

The woman in the tourist office was quite helpful. Her English was sparse but she managed to convey that the old canal and not the new was the way to go, called ahead to make sure the camp ground on the route was open and had showers and even told us where to find a grocery store. After pastries and a walk around the town square we headed off to find King Ludwig's canal.

This one shouldn't have been a surprise but it was. What we found was beautiful. The canal, built in the mid 1850s, was lined with huge old oak trees and beyond that stretched a forest of firs. The rain had stopped and our moods were bouyed by both the surprise of the town and the beauty of the canal. All too soon we had come upon the campground and the day was over. Fortunately the canal was still waiting for the next day.

Wurzberg am Main

Another update from the parents. It's another beautiful fall morning. Stacey and Erich are sleeping in after our long ride, 80km, yesterday. I'm sitting in the bright sun by the Main river catching up on my journal and enjoying the morning.
Yesterday we rode into Wurzberg on the Main river from a small town named Obertheres where we we also camped on the Main. The last several days have been beautiful fall days - cool mornings warming nicely by midday, we've even been able to ride in shorts. Yesterday the temperature even hit 22 and it was very sunny. But, the leaves are starting to turn and there is chill in the morning air. We don't expect it to last so we'll be heading south toward longer and one hopes, warmer days.

A Notorius Location

We're now at 49 25.35N 011 7.25E and tonight on our way back from
eating pizza we rode past a rather infamous parade ground. The weather
has cleared so the night was beautiful and the fading light gave the
grounds a rather spookyh feel if one thought about its history.

Where is Erich now?

Following rivers.

Well here I am following the second river of the trip. I am currently
riding a schiffahr, a big tourist boat, named the Kelheim because it
is based in a town called Kelheim up the
Danube. We started in Munich and saw 4 churches and a museum of art
and a beer hall. The next day we rode 37.11 miles through the rain
jacket soaking rain alongside the Isar river to the town of Landshut.
In Landshut we saw the world's tallest brick tower. The next day we
rode a stifling 51 miles to Straubing and we crossed between river
basins. The one we left was the Isar river and the one we came to was
the Danube. Today we were supposed to follow the Danube but the trail
actually took us through a bunch of farmers fields and when we did
follow the river we where on the other side of a dike so we couldn't
even see the Danube. We went into a store with my parents and bought
lunch and we sat at a bus stop for lunch and my Dad and I were betting
on which cars where doing to turn at the stop light and which weren't.
I ended up 39/63 and my Dad was 26/57. We spent the next day touring
Regensburg. Then we went to a campground outside the really small town
of Poikam and camped right next to the Danube. The day after that we
went on a touring boat up to a monastery from a town called Kelheim
and from there we rode up to our campground. And yesterday we camped
in an even smaller town and woke up and rode along the beautiful Donau
Main canal to Nuremberg and camped there and here I am today in
Nuremberg sitting in a brat house and we just finished lunch.