Babylon, Czech Republic to Nittenau, Germany
The light rain came again in the wee hours of the morning but the sun was out and drying our riding clothes that we left out while having dinner last night and were wet from the dew. By the time we had everything packed up our clothes were dry enough to wear again. We wished Ted and Bianca safe travels and headed for the German border. Dinner last night ate up almost all of our Krones but the few we had left we tried to spend at a rip off border store. The border guards seemed a little puzzled by us but then figured out that since we had our passports stamped coming into the country, they should probably stamp them for exiting it. With that taken care of, we made our way to Furth im Wald where we visited the info center to try to get more info on a cycle route that we wanted to follow. They didn't have any better maps than the one we already had but they were helpful in pointing us in the right direction to find the route. These cycle routes follow the back roads and even gr!
avel double track roads. It was hard for us to spot the tiny signs directing the way. Sometimes the signs would be past the road you were supposed to turn on. It was quite the challenge and we were lost several times. Once again as the day progessed the thunderheads built. We had lunch in Cham under the cover of a shelter as claps of thunder surrounded us. In the fairly large town of Roding we missed one of the camoflaged bikeway signs and climbed a long hill before deciding at the top that things just didn't look right. We cruised back down the hill to the tourist info center and were directed to the trail. And wouldn't you know it, there was the sign that we didn't see right where they said it was. We were told that we would climb up to a church, and man, they weren't kidding. The first part of the really steep climb was paved but after reaching the church the steep climb continued on dirt. This was more than we had bargained for since the man at the info center in Fu!
rth im Wald told us the trail was paved most of the way except for a f
ew short stretches near town and was flat! The view from the top was very nice and the cruise down with one 13% section and one 15% section was thrilling (you had to watch out for the pine cones covering the dirt road). Following all of that the stretch to Nittenau was very nice following the Regen river. We had some trouble finding the campground in Nittenau. Again we asked a couple of people and they didn't know where it was. Finally we got the help we needed from a woman working in a gas station. She didn't speak English well enough to give us directions, but she showed us a map and called her English-speaking son on her cell phone and he directed us. Now that's going above and beyond! At the campground a couple from Stuttgart, Germany pulled in on a tandem. We talked with them while cooking our dinners together at the picnic tables. Yes, this is a first. This campground actually had 2 tables for tenters to use and they are covered in case of rain. They ge!
t a gold star!
Kms 77.39
Time 5:12:42
Avg 14.8
Max 37.4
Total 1682.5
No comments:
Post a Comment