Summer European Bike Trip 2004

Patrick and Dad

June 10-28, 2004

831 Miles

The Red was the actual trip. The Blue was proposed return to Frankfurt

Another and maybe the last extended bike trip..for me at least. I wanted to do something special for Patrick for his Owen High School Graduation. Since Barbara and I had made several trips with Montreat groups, Colleen had backpacked all over Europe for three months with her college roommate and Kevin toured with the musical "Grease" over much of middle Europe, I thought it was Patrick's turn. He was only 3 months old when we made our last Montreat group trip in 1986. So I saved up for 1 1/2 years to take Patrick on a similar trip to the first bike trip in 1974. Patrick and I took a bike trip in 1997 when he was in Middle School from the Top of Mt Pisgah to Charleston, SC. for about 350 miles. This trip would be a little more ambitions at almost 1000 miles.(At least that was Plan A. More on that later)

Planning this trip was a whole lot easier than in previous years because of the great tools of the Internet. We bought the tickets, found camp grounds, calculated mileage, found entrance fees and later sent e-mail from Austria during the trip...all on the Internet. We had to move back the trip a week because of added snow days which lengthened the High School year, then Patrick had to attend the UNC CTOPS  registration at UNC. This extension also pushed up the price of the flight several hundred dollars. BUT... the day after Patrick got back from UNC we began our summer saga.

US Airways was one of the few airlines that did not charge for bikes as long as it was one of the two checked baggage. They also had a direct flight from Charlotte to Frankfort. So we boxed up the bikes and put our sleeping bags, pads, bike tools and helmets in the boxes with the bikes. It actually made good padding for the bikes too. We carried on the tent bag and the three saddle bags, so the only thing we had to check through was the bikes.

So here goes the day by day account of our summer 2004 saga.

Day 1 Thurs. June 10 Barbara drove us to the Charlotte airport where she dropped us off about 3:00 for our 4:30 flight. The first thing we did was check in at the Domestic counter rather than the International counter of US Airways. GREAT!! so we had to push our bike boxes and drag the three bags clear down to the other end of the terminal for the International Check In. Not a good way to start the trip! But we made it and Patrick got a window seat for his first flight (that he can remember). Several crying babies, just a few seats away. One cried pretty much the whole way. Thank goodness for the earphones to watch the movies...yes that is plural. This new airbus had individual monitors so that everyone could chose their movie or TV show or games or music videos...on demand. It was interesting to see all the monitors where everyone was watching something different or maybe the same movie at a different place.  Of course frugal me just got one set of earphones for Patrick. I thought that I would sleep. Well.. it turned out that we watched a movie together sharing one earphone each. The interesting part was that we had to start our two movies at the same time to get the voices in sync. Mine was just a little off. (On the return trip, I bought my own pair since Patrick was across the isle from me). Nice flight, beautiful sunrise. Got a little sleep.

Day 2. Fri., June 11 (65 miles) Landing a little after 7:00 AM we find the bikes in OK shape though the boxes themselves were opened by the security. The ropes that we had around the boxes were mostly missing. Only two small pieces were handing on to one of he boxes. That wouldn't have been so bad, but these ropes were going to be used with the red tarp to create a foyer in front of the tent to put the bikes and bags. So we put the bikes together and in about an hour were ready to go. I asked about storing the boxes for our return trip home, but they wanted $3.50 a day for each box, so went up to US Airways and asked whether I needed to reserve the boxes for our return home. The agent said the universal "No Problem!" they always had plenty of boxes available and they were free.(See end of this diary for an update on that "No Problem"!!)  I got a city map from the Avis counter and we were off.  

9:00am at Frankfort Airport

We were surprised to find ourselves on a designated "Radweg", bicycle path most of the way out of the city. In our 1974 bike trip, there were very few Radwegs. On this trip we used them about 80% of the time. Many paralleled the road, but others wound through fields, by backyards of homes, through forests and along streams and canals. Many were former  narrow gage railroad beads. Most were paved, others fine gravel. We had our first of many Wurst, senf (mustard) and Fanta (citron drink) waiting for the ferry to cross the Rhine to Oppenheim.  

Lunch at Ferry Crossing at Rhine River

Ahhhh. The fruit of the vine!

We were really pumped up and cruising to make our first camp site at Heidleberg.  

We made a stop at Worms to see the Martin Luther memorial where he was tried. All his protesting friends surrounding him, Huss, Wycliff, Savonarola, and Valdo on the four corners,.

Rested on the lawn there and had a $2.00 Limonade (I did not know how much it was until it was time to pay!) 

After taking a peek inside the 11th Century St. Peter's Imperial Cathedral in Worms, we head out for Heidelberg.  

The first of many gray sky afternoons.                                    Now how does this camera work....oops!

While I stopped to read the map, Patrick found this very long  sculpture of the salt mines on a side road

The  rolling hills of this first day  made our muscles remind us that we probably could have prepared a little more than the two trips into Black Mountain, which is actually one more trip than we usually make to prepare for a long bike trip! In all the previous trips to Europe, we usually landed just before noon. Since we were scheduled to land at 7:00am, I figured we would have plenty of time to cover the planned 66 (really 76) miles to Heidelberg. What I did NOT take into account was that we would be coming into camp at 3:00AM EST. So we went to plan B and camped on the Rhine in Mannheim. Probably the worst of all our camps. This first night did not begin well.  

Happiness just before we found out we had to move!

The young manager told us to set up between two trailers, which we did. Just as we had finished setting up and putting our bags in the tent, the owner came by and said that he had made a mistake and that we had to move, because three big trailers came in to use our spot. The young guy was apologetic and the owner not happy.. neither were we. So we moved to the end of the park. By this time, it was almost dark and beginning to rain. We had not eaten yet so we headed out to town, but in about 20 feet, I realized I had a flat rear tire. It was a very small thorn. After a quick patch job in the rain, we went into town and found a local bistro and sat outside under a large umbrella and ate Rigatoni. Our waiter was a Josh Grogan look-a-like and had been a high school exchange student in Idaho.  By the time we got back to the tent, it was dark and we just flopped...very tired but happy to finally be on our big trip. We both slept well!!

Day 3. Sat, June 12 (55 miles, avg. 11mph) After a shower...in the worst bathroom on the trip, we found our first Backeri and started our tradition of eating a big sweet roll and a bottle of Fanta for breakfast.  

We sat on the steps of an old church where they were getting ready for a morning string concert. Someone was tuning a harpsichord for the occasion. Our rear ends felt a little bit better today. In the rush and excitement of wanting to get on the road the first day, we forgot to put on our padded riding pants. Today we did not have the wild shirts, helmets or shoes of the professionals, but did have the padding where it counted.

 An hour later we were riding down the main street of old Heidelberg. Lots of tourists strolling, many Japanese. Some local lady was not happy with Patrick riding by her in this pedestrian mall. It probably was a good thing that he did not know the German words that she directed towards him. Self inflicted punishment for riding down this pedestrian mall was that it was all cobblestone! I think I lost a couple of fillings in my teeth from the jarring!  

Had a banana and grapes in the market square at the end of the main street.

After a view of the old castle, we had a nice sunny ride paralleling the Neckar River to Eberbach where we had Wurst cooked by a local group

. While we ate, we struck up a conversation with a couple and asked where we could find a phone to make an international call. There are several different kinds of public phones, some require a phone card, some coins for local calls, a few where you talk to an operator and a very few that can take a Visa card for international cards. The man was very nice and said that he would call Barbara for us on his home phone and let her know that we were doing fine. (He did call and we heard his phone message when we got back) However, on the way out of town we found a phone that took the Visa card and called Barbara. We stopped for a little bit to watch a bunch of 12-13 year olds play soccer. Patrick said that they probably could have beaten his Owen High Soccer team. Farther along, we watched a high school game, but they were not as good. Started to rain again, but after going through our first tunnel (illegally, as we found out later) it was clear on the other side. Since we were still catching up on our jet-lag, we decided to stop early in Gundelsheim about 4:30 set up tent then into town to eat at a Greek restaurant. While we ate we watched Greece beat Portugal in the first of European Cup soccer games.

Day 4. Sun. June 13 (55 miles) Cold shower, no token. Patrick saw his first no nonsense sink wash by a very old man in his birthday suit. Not a pretty sight! Breakfast a Gundelsheim hotel backeri since all the other Backeri are closed on Sunday. A visit to a Bakery was to be our ritual each morning. Lots of bells ringing, but not much evidence of people heading towards the churches.  

Rained off and on as we followed the Jagst Radweg (mostly flat) along the Jagst River all the way to Bad Mergentheim. Sometimes along river, sometimes through wheat and barley fields.

Since our bodies were crying out for "carbs" we ate in the first of several Italian restaurants during the trip. Our waiter was a very funny Italian and could speak Spanish, so Patrick was able to converse with him. Very jovial guy.

Went into an Abby with many many confessionals.

   Canoes down the Jagst.  Had to stop in a bus stop for a shower to roll by. Old couple peddled with us for a bit asking about out trip, then kept trying to make us stay in Dorzbach for cookies and coffee for only 1 Euro. Rolling hills started when we left the river at Dorzbach. Ate at a small town before Bad Mergentheim where it began to rain hard. Patrick was impressed with the fact that the room where we ate also had the bar and the sink were the lady, who cooked our meal, washed the dishes while we ate.  

I

It's not possible to see in this picture, but of all the Maypoles we saw, this was the most ornately carved.

Camped outside of Bad Mergentheim at the same place as the 74 Bike trip. Damp, but dry in the tent. I believe we were the only campers that night. 30 years ago, we saw very few trailers, but lots of very nice tents. This trip, we saw VERY FEW tents, but lots of trailers. Since Europeans take their Vacations in July and August, we had very little company in most of the small camps.

Day 5 Mon. June 14 (42 Miles)  Each morning, no matter where we were, there were jillions of birds that started singing VERY LOUDLY about 5:00am. The trees seem to be full of all kinds of songbirds. In Black Mountain, we live in the middle of the woods and hardly hear any birds any more. We seemed to have far fewer birds or much more introverted type songbirds.  

Do I HAVE to peddle in the rain today? Can't we take the train today???

 

Our favorite morning stop. A couple of large sweet rolls and a 5lb loaf of bread for lunch with, of course, the required Nutella spread

THICKLY on the bread.

We followed the Radweg along the Tauber River after leaving Bad Mergentheim, but made a wrong turn at Weikersheim following another river. So instead of following the

Tauber all the way to Rothenburg (a relatively flat route!) we had to make a turn at Vorbachzimmern and follow the "rolling hills" route.  

 The first part of which was a 2.7 km, 14% percent grade. While I chugged up in the lowest gear, Patrick (alias "The Hulk" waited for me at the top

 

It was a long haul up, but I made it.

And there were more, ups and those glorious downs! Just before Rothenburg it started to rain hard, so we stopped at the top of a hill for lunch at 3:00. Ordered Sauerbraten and noodles. The noodles turned out to be two huge noodle balls.  

It's rather hard to each your meal with those two huge noodle eyeballs staring at you.

Patrick had Wurst and a HUGE, GIGANTIC, LARGE plate of French Fries!  As we left the restaurant, we were bemoaning the fact that we still had some hills before Rothenburg. The owner/waitress/cook was very nice and gave us an easier route down hill to the Detwang campground in the valley below Rothenburg. Great ride DOWNHILL. Since we got in early at 4:30, we set up the tent then rode...ok...I pushed my bike... up to the town of Rothenburg and we rode all over the town. I saw more of the town this time than on any of the other trips. Patrick made note of the many Japanese tourists and NO Black tourists. It would be the same for the rest of the trip, The few Black people that we saw later, were US military persons stationed in Germany.

This is the much photographed and painted corner of town called "Plonlein", with the Siebers Tower on the left and the Kobolzeller gate down to the right.  We were able to see a lot more on the bikes, but I think I loosened most of my dental fillings riding on all  those cobblestone!!!!

A rest in front of the Old Forge, before heading back to camp to write our first (and last) postcards back home. 

 

The Gardens at one end of the town Taken from the gardens across the valley

Back at camp

Home Sweet Home! We used the late sunlight to write 10 postcards .The next day day we found that it cost over $1 to send a post card. I also sent a small pack of guides of the places we had already had visited, thinking that it would save weight on the bike. Well, when I got the receipt for $20 to send 10 postcards and the one small pack, I decided to tough the rest of the trip out by carrying all our guides and maps!!!

Day 6, Tues. June 15 (81miles ,Our longest ride) We packed up at 9:30am and headed back up to Rothenburg to go through the Criminal Museum. Finger screws, metal humiliation masks, swords for beheading, dunking gizmos and many other ways to kill and maim people. After our compulsory sweet roll and Fanta drink, getting more cash from an ATM, we left at 11:00 for Dinkelsbuhl. The sun was actually shining when we left.  

You can tell with all the rain, that we went a little crazy when the sun actually came out.

 On the Radweg, three older bicyclists whizzed past us, with the "Alpha Male" pushing the other two. They must have just started out, because we passed them later on.  

Our first major stop of the day was Dinkelsbuhl. Another walled city along the "Romantic Road" from Wurtzburg to Fussen. Settled back in 800 AD. Most of the buildings along the main street were similar to these large buildings built in the 1500's. The town was saved from destruction by Swedes in 1632 by children pleading with the Swedish General. A play is staged each year now to commemorate that act. 

We ate our lunch of 4 kinds of meat, and two kinds of cheese and of course a bottle of Fanta in a small garden that had a bench. While we ate a small mechanized street cleaner went slowly by on our Bike Path. Can you imagine a municipality spending money to clean a BIKE path, much less a street in the U.S.?  On the way to Nordlingen, we met a couple that was cycling the whole Romantic Road and were staying the night in Nordlingen. We took turns passing each other on the Bike Path that wandered in and out

of  small towns, sometimes there were no signs to tell us where to go at an intersection. They had a much more detailed map than ours and helped us out several times.. even to the point of waiting for us to catch up to them at several unobvious turns.

Well, our sunshine lasted to Nordlingen. Since it was getting late and we still had 25km to go to our camp in Donauworth, we ate wurst and spaghetti in Nordlingen We pulled into camp at 9:30 and had the best showers yet, long, hot and FREE! 

Caught up on our journals by candle light. Lights out at 10:45.  After 81 miles in 7.15 hours of actual pedaling, even our thin Thermorest pads felt good. 291 total miles so far

Day 7, Wed, June 16 (68 miles)  Left at 9:30am and rode on a quiet hard sand path by the Lech Canal towards Augsgurg. Straight and level. Ate great sandwiches at Langweid and supper in Furstenfelbruck . Interesting sights, but nothing spectacular today.  

Disregard the image of me. Patrick was trying to get a picture of the gentleman in the background. He had the traditional lederhosen, felt jacket and hat of the old Bavarian men. This was one of the few we saw on the trip. Even in 1985, there were many people, men and women that still wore the traditional Bavarian dress. This was a another Greek Restaurant and while we ate, we watched the Greek soccer team beat Portugal. (The Greeks actually went on to win the

European Cup by the end of our trip.

Had a hard time finding directions out of Furstenfeldbruck (where I used to go swimming in their indoor pool back in 1957.)There were no bikes allowed on the road to Dachau from Furstenfeldbruck, though it is not marked as such on any of my maps. Had to ask many people. We were routed through alley-ways, down back streets and finally one man said, "just follow me" and got us going in the general direction.  The camp near Dachau is the same one we have used in almost all our previous group trips.  Sat outside on the patio next to the lake and wrote in our journals as we watched a beautiful sun set over the lake.

Day 8, Thurs., June 17 (29 miles) Not many miles today, but lots to see. Got to Dachau Concentration camp at 10:00 and saw the German language Film. It must have been student day, because the place was swarming with middle and high schoolers. All came into the theater laughing and making jokes, but not a sound while watching the atrocities of the camp. Patrick was really affected by the movie. And even though I  lived in Dachau and have over the years have been back and seen the movie many times, it still is difficult to believe what went on in this and the other concentration camps all over Germany. We walked through the museum, through the remaining two barracks and through the crematory, by the blood ditch and the mounds of ashes of hundreds of unknown prisoners. Everyone in the world needs to see what humans have actually done to other humans. The motto of the museum is "Never again".

We were able to view our old home in the camp easily since they have moved the fence down the middle of what used to be a divided road. Now one of the roads is outside the compound which is now a German Police training camp. The enlisted men's quarters are now private apartments on the other side of the fence. We had the left part of the Duplex. This used to be the home of the doctor who was

head of the experiments that were done on the prisoners. Testing to see how long a person could stay alive in ice water. Giving them disease, etc. I told Patrick how I used to climb out of my third story window on the left into the room of my friend on the right.   On previous trips, I had to do a lot of talking to get in the gate to see the house

We went in to see the Old Dachau and ate a late breakfast of bread and lots of Nutella in the town square next to a shoe shop. Patrick had said before the trip that he wanted to buy a pair of Birckenstock shoes, so we went in and a very nice lady helped him buy a pair. He saved about $40. So he was a happy camper.  

Patrick came very close to turning in his bike for the many super cars we saw EVERYWHERE. At our first camp site in Mannheim there was a Porsche and a Ferrari parked next to each other amid some old trailers.

We finally had a full day of sunshine for our quiet ride into Munich down the same tree lined road our school bus took every day. Just a few blocks away is a super highway. Dachau used to be a nice little country town. now it is a bustling suburb of Munch.  We were able to bike through the main areas of the 1972 Olympic site. The mound where all the rubble of the war was piled is now a grassy part of the site.

Down in the main Marian Platz, we played tourist and viewed the Rathouse (missed both performances of the glockenspiel at 11:00 and 5:00), ate cherries in the platz, went into the Frauenkirke, then of course..

a meal of wurst at the Hofbrauhaus. We got there for the last two pieces of the "Oompah band just beside our table. Our waiter was just in from Slovenia.

After our late lunch at the Hofbrauhaus, I wanted to find out directions to Perlacher Forest Housing Area where we lived, so we went to the Main Train station where the most amazing part of our trip happened. Patrick stayed with out bikes in front of the main door where hundreds of other bikes were parked. When I came out after 40 minutes of waiting in line to talk to the information desk, Patrick was a little anxious about waiting so long. As he unlocked the bikes, he dropped his camera on the pavement, intending to pick it up after adjusting the bikes. We rode about 40 minutes down to the camp site on an island on Isar River. After setting up the tent and washing up, we got ready to go eat and Patrick realized he did not have his camera. He had failed to pick it up by the bikes. He bought this really nice Sony digital camera the day before we left with graduation money he received from many good friends. He was sick! I gave no hope of ever seeing it again, but he wanted to give it a try, so we "booked" it back to the station in 20 minutes. 

No camera anywhere.  We looked for a lost and found department, but found only an office where you can store your bags for a few days. We asked the two guys to the right if by any miracle any camera had been turned. They very calmly asked when and where we lost it, then the older fellow slowly reached over to the shelf and handed us a package and said, "is this it?"  WOW...AMAZING....definitely a MIRACLE.  We thanked them profusely and had a big spaghetti dinner to celebrate. We think the person who turned it in was a fellow who was standing by the main door holding a sign with 666 in one hand and Christ in the other. He watched us, but never said a word. He probably saw Patrick

leave the camera. It was dark as we rode the paths back to the camp were we slept well, UNTIL those blinking BIRDS started up at 5:00am!!!

The camera must have fallen right between our two bikes in the foreground

These are the two guys in the Baggage Storage Office

Day 9, Fri., June 18 (47 miles) We had our rolls and bread in a park near my old Munich American High School, now a German School. The former hospital across the street is now a German Patent office. Tall trees pretty much hid all the buildings that had NO shrubbery when we lived there. But the faithful elephant in front of the school was there among the bushes.  

The 2004 model of the Munich High Elephant which changed colors each time a sports team from out of town played us. You know... I never figured out why we had an elephant in front of the school, when we were the Munich Mustangs! ???

All the former officer's quarters were landscaped and looked very nice, EXCEPT our former home pictured here. It was a dump compared to the rest. Kinda sad.Trash in the back yard, and car port.

We headed out towards Chiemsee. Because the rain came and went in heavy bursts, we stopped in a home's open garage, an auto dealers lot, a country barn and finally in a three sided bus stop out in the country to wait for a hard rain to pass over. While we were napping with the rain pouring down, a guy on a small motor scooter, joined us. We rode in and out of the rain for the rest of the afternoon, stopping to take our rain gear off and on. The ride from Rosenheim through the country was beautiful, but 'rolling hills" again.. long up hills and long down hills. Soaked, cold and tired, we decided to stop at the next restaurant to eat. It seemed like our longest up hill of the day, when we saw a very nice Gasthof at the top of the hill. So before we swooped down the valley into Prien at Chiemsee, we stopped for supper.

We were drenched so we dripped and squished our way into the main dinning room and splurged on hot soup and a very nice Wiener schnitzel meal. Our table allowed us to look out the big picture window at our first view of the Bavarian Alps (when the clouds lifted every once in a while. After a great coast down into Chiemsee, we camped south of Prien in a very crowded campground. We were put in a little grassy (looking... hard gravel underneath, so hard that the owner gave us a sledge hammer to pound the stakes in) spot in the middle of a bunch of trailers. We could see the lake between the trailers. Took LONG, HOT and FREE showers! Tent and most everything dry...for now.

Day 10, Sat, June 19 (40 miles) In the morning, we got to the boat docks at 9:00, just as one was leaving for Herren Chiemsee Island. We took the bikes with us, because I thought we could make up some riding time, by continuing by boat to the far side of the lake after our time at the castle. The sun came out every once in a while.  

While we were eating our breakfast of course... bread and Nutella, the fountains came on. While we were sitting there, three Japanese ladies came up to us and

asked about taking pictures. I thought they wanted us to take a picture of them at the fountain, BUT  they wanted pictures of US. Did we look that gagged?? One of them put her face up behind us while we sat next to our bikes. We had been laughed at, yelled at, but never asked to have our picture taken.

These were the three ladies in the Castle shop after the tour. Japanese tour groups were EVERYWHERE.

Our early boat trip allowed us to beat most of the big tour groups, so our English tour through the castle had only Patrick and Me, another American couple and a Japanese couple that did not want to be with their big group. The castle is still impressive, but was relatively dull under the cloudy skies. When the sun comes out, the gold covered and mirrored rooms, look quite different. The castle was never completed inside because Ludwig ran out of money. He actually stayed in the palace only 10 days and slept in his lavish bed room only ONE night! It was costly for the Bavarians at the time, but all his Castles are a great income for the Bavarian Government now a days. Our ticket included a Museum of Ludwig's things brought in from the Nymphenburg Palace. Caught the 1:00 boat to Chieming. Nice ride across the lake. Had two wurst and bread on the boat to tide us over until a good meal in Salzburg. Rained continually all the way to Salzburg. No more border stops.. We went in and out of Austria in 5 different border crossings with no stops. Guess the new European Union has something to do with that. Patrick was disappointed that he did not get his Passport stamped except once when we arrived in Frankfort.

We sloshed into a Wiener World and had a great meal, don't know to this day, what it was, but it was a nice picture in the menu that we pointed to. A whole busload of Japanese were in the next room.  We sloshed into the camp ground at the north end of town and tried to put up the tent without getting it too wet. Even with all the rain we had on the whole trip, this was the only time we had to set up in the rain.  We did a pretty good job putting it up using an extra tarp over the tent as we set it up, but taking it down in the morning in the rain was a disaster. The tent weighed about 10 lbs more wet. Fortunately, Patrick was the one carrying the tent. Speaking of rain...  

This is Patrick's cure for a leaky "waterproof" jacket. Before we left for Germany, he wanted to take his good and rather bulky rain jacket. I convinced him that this extra jacket was lighter and just as waterproof. Well... several rips in the seams on the shoulders and arms appeared and he was soaked most of the time. So he put on a thin emergency plastic rain jacket under the coat, which helped a little.  The lightweight rain hiking pants I bought just before we left were GREAT.

They were breathable and truly waterproof. On cool days in the mountains, they were wonderful wind breakers.

Day 11, Sun, June 20 (25 miles) We slept in until 11:00 thinking the rain would stop and we could dry out a little, BUT...our day in Salzburg is the only day that it rained ALL day. So we went into several of the many churches of the city. Salzburg is known as the city of churches, but very little evidence of many people attending any of them. cruised around the main alleys and small crannies. Patrick bought a CD of a lone classical guitar player that was playing in one of the archways.  Most stores closed on sunday, but found a small cafe on the path up to the fortress. We parked our bikes in the cemetery at the base of the fortress cliff. Sat beside the portable heater as we ate our ....of course  Wurst and potatoes.

Patrick's ankle was hurting and neither of us felt like pushing our heavy soaked  bikes up to the fortress or the Nonnenburg convent, so we headed out to Hellbrunn down an absolutely straight, flat, tree lined pathway. I could visualize imperial carriages going from Salzburg down to their palace in Hellbrunn. This was pathway was used in the Sound of Music film where the kids were hanging out of the trees. On this same path, we also passed the gate where they filmed the von Trapp family pushing the car out of the gate to escape.

The road up the valley to Bertchesgarden was really pretty even in the misty rain. We got to the Salt Mine entrance at 3:30, but our group did not go in until 4:30 (the next to the last tour of the day) Only about 20 people at a time can ride a small miners train into the mines.  

We put on the traditional heavy pants and jackets of the minors along with a leather seat pad for sliding down slides in the mines.

We got on the miner's train and rode into the mountain, but had a little different method of getting out of the mountain.

The pads are for whizzing down these slides to get to another level. One was 70 fee, another 130 feet. They have added colored lights and music as you float across the underground lake of brine. At each stop, there are electronic speakers for English, Spanish, French and Italian while the guide speaks in German.

This is a picture of various deposits of salt that have different minerals in them, It is also a memorial to King Ludwig II. We found his name everywhere in Bavaria, even inside this mountain.

The other exciting thing that happened on our tour into the mountain is our ride out of the mountain, This little train has about 5 cars that you straddle. The walls are only a foot or so away from your head. Our little train stopped while we were still about a 1/2 kilometer inside the mountain and would not start. After waiting for about 15 minutes, the guide informed us that we would have to walk out. So the 20 of us made like the 7 dwarfs and "hi hoed" out of the mountain.  When we finally got outside, the rain had stopped. A little into Bertchesgaden, we found a small restaurant, only a couple of tables. The waitress sat us at a round table with another other couple. It was rather awkward, since the other couple hardly said a word to each other and hardly even looked at us. Hadn't they ever seen two rain drenched, soggy, smelly bikers before??

After leaving the restaurant, it was getting dark so we decided not to try to make our planned destination about 15 kms down the road, IT WAS A GOOD CHOICE! So we peddled about 5km up the valley to the Konigsee campground. Mountains all around, coo coo birds and fresh cool mountain air. These were the nicest HEATED bathrooms on the trip. While we took long hot showers, we spread our wet clothes and bags all over two rooms. Then stayed in there drying us and the rest of our stuff until about 11:00 catching up on our writing. There was only one other tent across from us. Two Australian young ladies touring Europe for 4 months.

Day 12, Mon., June 21 (53 miles, total of 580 miles with a maximum speed of 36mp coming down the pass)

In the morning sun, while our tent was drying, our Australian friends invited us over for a cup of coffee. We had a good time trading traveling stories, then they went off for their hike of the day and we headed out through the valleys and passes of the Bavarian Alps.

 

Still a little overcast as we pulled into the little town of Ramsau. Just a few minutes before, the sun cam out on the mountains behind the church.

For the rest of the day, it was GORGEOUS.  

It was a long steep ride up to the camp that we had planned to stop at the night before. It was a good choice to stay in Konigsee because we would not have seen the mountains all around us... and would have had a very tough time making up this steep back road at the end of the previous day. That's me at the right making the turn puffing

up in low gear. This was one of the very FEW times that I had to push the bike a few hundred yards,

Most of our day was along a bike path paralleling the main road 

We were on back roads or paths most of the day, so no cars. through villages with views to die for.

Almost as good a view as off our front porch.

This was part of the "Wanderweg" Meandering Path. Not meant for speed, but certainly for enhancing the quiet, beauty of the area. These paths allowed us to hear the bells of the cows, smell the flowers and even the farm yard "aromas"

Tyrolean houses, like the Bavarian houses are all clean, neat and picturesque.

    As we sat in the little town of Lofer, an elderly group of cyclists went by. They were all retired fire fighters. One asked where we were from...USA,  where?.. North Carolina...what city?...Black Mountain. With each answer, the guy got more excited He had just visited his friend in Asheville. He couldn't get over that he had just met a couple of guys from the same town.  Neither could we. After Lofer, we stopped at the pass with gorgeous mountain views around us and found a phone booth that took my visa card. So we call Barbara. (When we got home and I got my VISA bill for the call it was for $44.90. I could not believe it. We made three other calls during the trip that cost at most $4.40. I called VISA and asked if perhaps they put the decimal in the wrong place. NOPE... since the phone booth was out in the country, it used a SATELLITE connection. After much "crying and gnashing of teeth" (in a nice way) and saying that I did not know it would cost so much, etc etc, etc, the agent said she would remove this one charge from our bill as a customer courtesy. WOW. )

After coming down the pass, we sat outside a cafe and across the street from an outside restaurant where there was some live music. A mixture of German  folk music, Italian and American old time songs. Lots of sing along songs. The across the street gang paid more $$ and did not have the view of the mountains that we did sitting at our little table eating.... yep.. more wurst and Applesaft. Camped in Scheffau While we were sitting on a bench taking in the view, a lady came walking by with her two collapsible walking sticks (as most hikers have these days) and said that she takes this hike from her home every day. I told her I was envious. She told us the road down to the camp site was all level.

The Tyrolean view of what is "level" is apparently quite different from our view. Fortunately, it was mostly down hill.  

At the Scheffau campsite, we set our tent so that our morning view would be something to get us up and going. This was probably our second worst camp. When I informed the young lady at the desk that there was no toilet paper, she shrugged like, "So??", We finally came to an agreement that maybe it was a necessary thing to have and she gave me a roll. At the camp on Chiemsee,

you had to buy your own.  These two were of course the exceptions.

I conked out early, but Patrick sat on the camp patio to write in his trip diary. Every few minutes he had to wave his arms to keep the motion light on.

Day 13, Tues., June 22 (56 miles)  At the Backeri, Patrick got a gigantic pastry. It was the end of a long strudel and apparently had not been cut correctly. When Patrick asked if it was the same price as the other smaller pieces, the lady looked into those big blue eyes and said, for you..OK.  A cool morning, but an awesome, long, fast (37mph) down hill ride to Worgel in the Inn River Valley. We went through two tunnels, one 200 meters and the other 1400 meters. Though they were well lit, it was scary. Once in the valley, it was smooth flat riding to Innsbruck, only a head wind slowed us down a little. Just as we entered the town of Schwaz, I heard a PING and felt my rear wheel rubbing the frame. We stopped a the first Gas station where the attendant said there was a bike shop just a couple of blocks away. The young fellow at the bike shop took us right in and not only put in the new spoke, but gave both our bikes a general oiling and adjusting. Every time he would adjust something, he would say that it needed to be replaced, but may make it for a few more days. Very encouraging words since we had another hundred miles of mountains to traverse.  Actually, the flat the first night and the broken spoke on the thirteenth day were the only two mechanical problems we had (both on MY bike) . Patrick lost two screws that held his water bottle, but I had two extras that fit. Then I lost two screws that held on my back rack. One replaced in Rothenburg and one in Lofer. My front wheel already was not "trued" and wobbled just a little, but with the new spoke in the back, the young fellow could not get the back wheel to be round. SO... for the remainder of the trip, I felt like I was riding a merry-go-round horse, bouncing up and down. Speeding down a mountain was especially exciting...like riding on a cobblestone

road at 30mph.  

Patrick made friends with most everyone along the way, even this straw farmer and his horse.

The nearer we got to Innsbruck, the more it started to rain. So we had to stop twice to let the rain go by. The last time was at a bus stop right next to a tourist information office where I got a map of Innsbruck. We rode along a nice bike path by the Inn River till we got to the bridge that went into the Old city. Both of us had our full rain gear on and felt a little odd as we followed a young lady on a bike with a white pants suit on and did not seem to be getting wet from the puddles.  

We went right to the old platz where the Golden Roof is located. Since the rain had just stopped there was not many people in the platz. This picture was taken from our seats at an outdoor restaurant with a view of the Golden Roof and the Mountains in the background. Everyone else was inside smoky restaurants. That's what made our kind of trip different.

Later we went to the main train station where I got tickets for the next day for a train from our campsite to the top of the mountain. It was worth the $4.25 each to not have to peddle up that 16% grade that nearly did in most of our bikers back in 1974. Then we

went another 5 km to our campsite in Kranebitten. After our showers, we joined a bunch of people in the camp restaurant to watch the Sweden and Denmark soccer match.

Day 14, Wed, June 23 (31 miles, 672 total miles, 30 mph max speed, 9,8mph average) We got up an out quicker than on any other day, since we needed to catch our train at 8:49 and European trains are ALWAYS on time...except this day. It was 15 minutes late. The small train stop was UP the hill and took 30 minutes to get there.  

Our very talkative camp registrar happened to walk by on the way to his morning hike. He had a habit of talking in your face, no matter how far you backed up. He stayed with us until our train came. The trains have one car marked for bicycles. You just push them on and pull a strap around to hold them. The $4.25 each

included the price of carrying on the bike.

The view out the train window was actually more enjoyable than having to look through sweat covered glasses trying to peddle up that mountain .

We got off at Scharnitz at the Austrian-German Border and also the top of the pass. 

it was another wonderful downhill ride down into Mittenwald, Where we followed this river for a bit. In Catholic Bavaria, one can find many of these crucifixes out in the middle of fields. or in this case on a bridge. 

where we made our daily Backeri stop.  On the counter was the morning newspaper with the banner at the top of the front page containing about 15 women with their bare bosoms blaring. I asked the lady if it was a normal event to have nudity on the front page. She was embarrassed to answer. The Text below them was that they were "against" something. but I could not translate the word. She would not translate for me and said it was just a joke.  We never did find out what they were protesting, but had an interesting time guessing.

From Mittenwald, it was more downhill through a wooded bike path to Garmish. But for every down hill there is always a payment later and we got that as we turned Oberau and began a long curvy uphill 10% grade to the Monastery in Ettal. It began its regular afternoon rain while we were inside the church. It was a fairly easy ride to our camp at Oberammergau. We learned to cringe at any  town that began with Ober (upper) and looked forward to those beginning with Unter (lower) because it always gave us a hint at whether we were in for an uphill or downhill ride.

Other than the windy uphill to Ettal, this was an easy day of only 3 hours of actual peddling. Since we got in relatively early, we were able to browse through some of the shops. It was rather disappointing to see how the shops are crammed with identical "so called" local wood carvings. It looked more like mass production items. But they were still charging the high prices. We bought some small gifts for Barbara, but when we asked to have them shipped back home, the lady laughed and said it would cost three times as much to mail them as their original cost. So she wrapped them in a pretty sturdy little box and Patrick made room in his front bike bag. We ate Italian spaghetti at the camp, all the restaurants in town were much too expensive, Then went back into town to solve a craving I had for an ice cream cone. It was about 9:00 and the town looked dead. Not a soul in the streets, shops closed except for one ice-cream place that was just closing. We got our cones and began roaming the streets until we came to the only other establishment that was open...another ice cream shop. They had a TV outside where one other guy and us watched Germany loose to Chezch Republic in the last few seconds. So it was a late night (11:30pm) onto our pads.

Day 15, Thurs., June 24 (48 miles)

After a trip into town for the daily supply of bread and meat, we get an admonishment from a local to be careful.

We had a nice bike path ride by a crystal clear stream from Oberammergau through the valley meadows to Linderhof, Ludwig's favorite getaway place. This was the only one of his three castles that was actually finished. He spent two weeks of month here by himself. Never had any visitors. Slept during the day and roamed around at night. Called the moon king.

The fountains were turned on just as we walked up to the main building.

As we got to the front of the building we saw that it was just a huge canvas PAINTING, just like the canvas that covered Brandenburg gate in Berlin that we never did actually see. Only a Painting on the canvas cover. But the restoration that they have already done was beautiful.

This piano was made especially for Richard Wagner, who never visited this or any of the other castles. So it sits unplayed by Wagner.

After leaving the main building we went into the Grotto up the hill and then the Moorish Tea House. There is a plastic barrier to the tea house now so you can not go in an browse around.  We started to eat our sandwiches at Linderhof, but decided to wait until we got to Plansee. GOOD CHOICE

It was another one of those WONDERFUL  8.5km downhill wild rides. from the Austrian Border to the Lake. Up to 36 mph on my bumpy wheels! I didn't want to even think about what would happen if another spoke broke.  We had a great lunch here on a bench looking at this scene. I thought about jumping in, but decided better of it. There was a very cool brisk breeze which turned out to be straight into our faces all the remaining 4 km around the lake.

Another 20 kms and we were at Ludwig's last fairyland castle of Neuschwanstein.  

Very little of this model for Disney's castles was completed. Ludwig slept in his bed one night here. He downed in unknown circumstances in Starnberger Lake before he could enjoy the fruits of many of the areas artisans.

All this for one man! Actually BOY. He never did grow up having fantasies about being like his idol King Lewey XIV or fighting in wars of Wagner's operas or just living in his lonely dream world

Unfortunately Ludwig slept only one night in this room that took 14 sculptors, 4 1/2 years to complete.

We had to wait several hours for our English tour to start so Patrick tried out some cool looking hats.

While I watched the Japanese in the court yard take a Jillion pictures of each other

 

After the tour, we went into Schwangau to have a great noodle supper WITH... and get this...  ICE WATER!!!!! and we did not even have to pay for the water!  I think the waitress must have been new. Then down the road another 4 kms to our campsite on the Bahnsee. We used this site for all of our group trips and there were many tents. This time

there was probably two other tents besides ours. Most of the rest were semi permanent trailers that are used as vacation homes. The manager had a little difficulty trying to decide what he should charge two bikers with a small tent.  After our showers we watched Portugal beat England in a double overtime, then a shoot out. The great David Beckham actually missed his shot at the goal which ultimately was the deciding factor in their loss. The front page of the papers the next day, had his statement that it was his fault and it was the worst day of his life. Finally back at the tent by midnight after a very full day of mountain riding and two castles. A good day...no rain.

.Day 16, Fri., June 25 (50 miles, 765 total miles,  Max speed down to Plansee 30.5mph, 4.5 peddling hours, avg. 10.9mph)  Tired from the full day yesterday, we don't get started until 10:00. The morning skies look gray, but no rain...so far. But at our first little village of Buching where we get our usual bread and meat for the day, It POURS. Nice elderly couple from Cologne standing under cover with their bikes. They were impressed that as Americans we had traveled so far on our bikes. They flew down to Fussen and were just biking around the local area.  We set out in the drizzling rain, but the sun came out just after we past the end of the Bahnsee. Rest of the day was nice. We took some pretty rolling hills back roads to the beautiful Wies Church.  

The last time I was there, most of the inside was covered for restoration, It was now finished in all its glory. 

This wooden figure of Christ is the reason the church was built. It is made up of pieces of several different statues. It was carried in festival parades until one day it was noticed the Christ had tears in his eyes. This miracle brought many pilgrims to the small house in the meadow. So the church hierarchy decided

to build this beautiful church. It is the only building in the meadow except for the the parking lot souvenir stands.

Had to ask a lot of people for directions. Signs would get us out into the middle of a meadow and then leave us at a fork in the road. So like Yogi Berra said, we "took it". We saw a lot of pretty country but probably added another hour to our day. We had a beautiful spot on top of a hill for lunch all by ourselves. Not a building or any evidence of human intervention in our huge panorama. A valley before us and mountains in the background and a nice warm breeze blowing and EVEN clear sunny skies!!!  We were lost, but it was wonderful. After we finally found our way to Saulgrub it was another great downhill to Murnau then pretty back roads to Seehaupt at the south end of the Starnberger Lake. where we camped. Another day of "Rolling hills" and we were tired. So at 6:30 we both conked out until 8:00 when we got up showered and at in the camp Italian restaurant. We each had a bowl of soup, a very big plate of spaghetti, then a pizza and then a desert. Did I mention that we were hungry? We ordered a "Pepperoni" Pizza, but found out it was a "Pepper Only" Pizza. with no meat, just peppers.  

Not only did we have our usual Apfelsaft and Fanta , I got brave and asked for "Normal" water, which the waiter gladly brought and charged me $1 each. WHAT... he said that they were not allowed to serve water out of the tap. HAH!!

Day 17, Sat, June 26 (41 miles, 806 total miles,  Max speed down to Murnau 20.5mph, 4.20 peddling hours, avg 9.5 mph)

Well, this is our last day of real riding as we head into Munich to the camp on the Isar River. 

The ride along the banks of Starnberger Lake was easy. We just happened to pass a cross just off shore and was told that it was the spot where King Ludwig II drowned. We arrived at the Main Train station at 1:30 and looked for the 666 guy to thank him, but he was not there. We bought a special weekend train ticket back to Frankfurt for only $15 a piece, which included our bikes. It was a beautiful sunshiny day and we had time so we roamed around town through the University of Munich, Schwabing, the English Gardens, and finally to Odeans Platz where there was an outdoor concert of folk singers and brass bands. The ride down the bike paths along the Isar river where thousands were laying out on the banks sunning, Some, as Patrick noticed, were not shy about sunning most everything. There was also group of guys near our camp that were "surfing" on waves made by a sluice way of the Isar River. Back at camp we washed and dried our stinky clothes since we had to bring them on to the plane with us.  We played a couple of games of ping pong on a concrete table with a metal net. It was rather weird to try a slam and have the ball zing back off that metal net into your face.Then we went looking for a place to eat and found another Wiener World (it was the first restaurant we passed)

We got in after dark, but had a hard time getting to sleep, because in the tent next two us, a middle aged sounding man was blessing out his wife just as loud as he could yell. She was whimpering her apologies and also giving it back to him, This went on for 55 minutes WITHOUT a break. I could pick up only a few words, but it was something about their day touring the town.  After they settled down, about 2:30am the phone rang in the tent on the other side of us   THREE times and we could hear the guy asking where

the other guy was, who finally came in about 3:30. Then at 5:00 the BIRDS started their choruses.

Day 18, Sun, June 27 (18.7miles, total 825 miles) So we got up left at 7:30 to catch the train at 8:37 exactly. Four bicyclist sat two seats away from us and loudly and constantly talked for several hours Changed trains in Nuremberg, and got in to Frankfurt and we followed a bike path through the city and parks and a forest to our campground in Morfelden just south of the airport.

Day 19, Mon., June 28 (10 miles , total 835 miles) up at 6:00, left at 7:00. Met a young lady who was having her morning "Sport" on her bike. She lead us through some back paths to get on the main road back to the airport, which we had been on the first day of the trip. We pushed our bikes up the escalator to the US Airways desk by 8:30 and asked for the bike boxes  

Notice that the box has American Airlines on it rather than US Airways which is the airlines we flew on. I asked when we landed in Frankfort if we needed to save our bike boxes. The agent assured me that they always had plenty of bike boxes and they were free. BUT  when we got to the airport at 8:30 for our 10:50

flight...NO boxes. Not even in the US Airways warehouse. So they went to American Airways and THEY had no boxes at the airport, but did in their warehouse. So an hour later we were putting our bikes in these flimsy boxes. But we had no tape or rope to secure them with. So I went to another airlines and borrowed some tape. Anyway... we made it through the three checkpoints to the waiting room with 1/2 hour to spare.

We had a smooth 9 hour trip back to Charlotte. Patrick sat next to a young German graduate school computer science student  who was on his way to a conference in Wash.

DC to give a presentation of his work. He talked to Patrick for hours...about every thing! In Charlotte, my good friend Norm Wilhelmi met us with our big van. Barbara had to give a presentation at the hospital that day. We waited and waited for the Bikes to come through. After an hour, the agents made a call and said they were still back at the customs desk. Several agents assured us at each check point that the boxes had already gone through customs. The first agent who told me that even call me by name, though I had never seen him before. He was the one who checked the bike boxes. Anyway... I had to be escorted back through three checkpoints to pick up the bikes.    We finally got home about 8:00 to end a WONDERFUL, AWESOME and sometimes WET trip.