Distance: 83 km
Elevation: 326 m
Duration: 4:50 h
Weather: very sunny and hot (but not at 7:30 in the morning), 7 - 25 C
After the suffering in the heat yesterday, today I got up seriously early and managed to depart at 7:30, when it was still so cold and damp that on top of my cycling t-shirt I needed to wear my Castelli ROS jacket!
But what a nice morning riding through the valley that the Danube abandoned some 70,000 years ago!
For the first hour I saw more deer than humans.
I passed an other castle in ruins and a cave that was already inhabited by prehistoric settlers (as well as cave bears, cave hyaena and cave wolves)
When I hit the Donau, my official goal of this trip (so technically from now onwards I am on my way back) I took a break for my second breakfast at a solitary lake with some water birds.
Only here I took off my warmer jacket and then continued. Unfortunately the cycling path in that area is behind the dam of the Danube, so I was happy that I had seen the nice landscape while having breakfast.
Only at around 9:45 other cyclists started to appear, but then en masses! But nearly all of them riding the Donau downstream. Kind of makes sense, but I “need” to ride back into the direction of the Netherlands so I need to ride it up.
Here at the Donau there are many competing cycling routes, and well indicated.
At Leitheim I stumbled across this luxurious hotel with a superb view of the entire valley. Probably there was going to be a wedding later in the day, but as I had started so early they were just starting with preparations.
Around 11:00 I arrived at Donauwörth, which is a proud, ancient town. Since at least the Roman ages it lies at the confluence of two major traffic routes: the Donau and the Via Claudia Augusta.
At 11:30 the city’s carillon sounded a very elaborate chime. A little bit later I took an other break eating some old sandwiches and a piece a Brezel I had from yesterday in the shadow of the church tower.
At around 12:00 I departed again towards Höchstädt, where I had planned my afternoon break. I made it to Höchstädt just about. The route between Donauwörth and Höchstädt at least initially was mainly across fields, with little or no shade. It got a bit more shady closer to town. In Höchstädt I first looked for a place to have lunch and found an ideal Biergarten with old trees and a lot of shade. The food however was “so so”. But well, I got nourished.
The afternoon I spent as probably the only visitor in the castle and museum of the city. I had no idea, but it seems that the region around Höchstädt was the scene of an important battle in the war of the Spanish Succession, which didn’t end well for France and Bavaria (the battle, the war itself kind of ended better for both of them). The museum explains the building up, the actual battle, which only lasted one day but killed over 25,000 soldiers, and the aftermath in good detail.
On the first floor there is also an other huge museum about faience
Finally after a piece of cake I departed and made my last few kilometers into Dillingen, where I had booked a hotel for the night. Unfortunately my external battery didn’t work today. Not sure if it was because of the heat, or maybe I hadn’t charged it correctly last night, but poor Garmin did run out of power so the last kilometers are recorded directly in Strava.
After checking in I went again to a car wash trying to wash my bike (dusty this time, not too dirty actually) but worth the pressure washer that wasn’t easy. Much better a normal garden hose. On my way back I had dinner in an Italian restaurant. Again “so-so”.
While during the day it’s really hot, in the evening it gets quickly quite cold. So if dinner outside, really one should finish around 20:00 and not much later. But the service in the restaurant was incredible slow, so that wasn’t possible.
For tomorrow the hotel already prepared my a lunch bag, so o can have breakfast early and depart early again. Need to put the alarm clock to 6:00…
No comments:
Post a Comment