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.