The day started badly. Very badly. Stirred early by abbey bells, I blearily groped for my smart watch in a half awake stupor to check the time. The screen had moved round to the iPhone music controller so, instead of peacefully revealing the time, it fired up an amazing Iron Maiden guitar riff at full volume from my phone by the bed. Easy as it was to turn it on, in my panic I failed to find the off control! It was bad enough for me, but Anne was deeply asleep until that point. She sure wasn't now; it was 6 am!!
Breakfast was the best so far and almost embarrassingly good considering we were the only guests that morning. We left, initially on the wrong road, until Mr Garmin pointed us in the right direction, and spent a day (well, half a day really) of pretty lazy easy cycling on flat paths and country roads through farmland and past massive cement works. The latter prevail in this area due the the limestone geology that predominates. We did not follow the Danube today as a much better diversion took us to our destination up the Schmiech valley which was really very pretty. A brief look around the town of Ehingen was followed by coffee at a small cafe by the roadside in the village of Allmendingen. To put another black mark on the day, Anne was stung by a wasp. But happily we had, just one, after-sting wipe to fix that. A visit to a pharmacy later caused me to be stung for €9.90 for some spray which I'm not sure is even the right stuff for stings! Hydrocortisone spray? Hmmm.
We arrived at Blaubeuren at lunchtime and put bikes in the hotel garage, had a welcome beer and got changed. We went for a wander up to the blue lake, which is fed by a karst spring, from which the town gets its fame and name (as well as for the prehistoric artefacts found in local limestone caves), and after, explored the amazing selection of old buildings, some dating back to the 15C. Then it was back to the hotel to check in, chill out, and have another beer/wine.
A mere 19.5 miles at 10.1 mph avg. 1hr 56mins to ascent a tiny 145m
No comments:
Post a Comment