What an amazing day! Started out with a glorious cycle through flat fields with absolutely no one else around.
Unless you count the storks, which were all over the place. Standing sentinel in the fields and nesting on top of pylons and church spires. They were just everywhere.
Gorgeous medieval villages with timbered and painted walls.
Stopped at Munderkingen for breakfast and chatted with a father and son who spoke English perfectly. I get the impression that Munderkingen is a rather moneyed place.
The locals were certainly keen on the storks and everywhere there were models of them, and I mean everywhere. Iin people's front gardens, the town squares and gardens. All different designs, and I really like the one that was holding a baby.
There was a short 20% gradient with a rest stop dedicated to cyclists at its summit. A lovely old dog just hung around there and all the locals stopped to pet him. I picked up the rope and started playing with him. so nice.
Then onto Enhingen which was super lovely. I bought a beer and then a pizza at a very fancy resto on the square with a fountain that I recognised from guidebooks.
Then set off in the direction of Ulm and eventually found my campsite which was set up in the garden of a local kayak club. Took a bit of finding as I worked my way through huge parking lots full of very fancy mobile homes. As I set my tent, I got to chatting with my awesome neighbours Marc and Anne.
I am meeting so many more people now, and it was so nice to sit and chat over a few huge pizzas. Turns out they Marc and Anne had been on a couple of short cycle trips before and this time they were heading north to Heidelberg. We laughed a lot and spent a ton of money, but that's what it’s for. We found it quite hard to locate anyone that would take our money for the campsite that night, but in the end we just gave it to the barman who said he would pass it on. I did wonder, but he seemed honest enough.
Things that are lovely on this trip so far down the Danube are manyfold. The views are serene, bucolic and the roads so good, it is like cycling on velvet at times. As expected, I often meet up with the same faces at campsites and it is a very friendly community, one in which family life is most definitely at the forefront of most people's lives. So many young couples with large families of friendly, charming kids. Their parents just show 'em on the back of their bikes in a variety of methods and get on with it. In the evening, the kids excitedly play whilst the parents, uncomplainingly just carry on. Everyone speaks English so well, by and large. And if not, they try and are always smiling. What a smashing bunch the German people are. Really lovely. I haven't met a single English person yet, which is strange although perhaps Covid has reduced our numbers.
This part of the trip is much nicer than the first part. France was harder going and visually not as stimulating. Roads not as nice and lots of looking at google maps. The villages there were frankly rather uninspiring and as I think I mentioned elsewhere, the few shops were always shut.
However now it has become much easier, all you have to do is follow the cycle routs signs and no need to think about much, apart from the meandering river that you crisscross, often via cute wooden bridges and as you do, it sometimes sweeps out at you,
Lush, green, fecund, bucolic. I find myself singing the song from Tomorrow Belongs to Us from Cabaret, which is not entirely suitable. The Germans are such an outdoorsy people.
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