Raindrops keep falling on my head

Limpid green river

reflecting tall trees, grey sky -

limestone towers loom.

We are currently enjoying a couple of days in Passau, a lovely old city on the eastern edge of the German Bundes Republic, apparently where the Nibelungenlied was commissioned and composed. And we have been working on a saga or two of our own.

This blog post has been written and re-written several times over the last week, each time we have tried to find an internet connection. Each time circumstances have knocked our attempts on the head.

My slowly disintegrating saddle has been another saga of it's own. And the hunt for an inflatable camping pillow to replace the one I have had since Dublin, whose valve packed it in last week – I have been using one of our collapsible water sacs which did an admirable job in the circumstances.

And the weather – well, it has been a saga all on it's own. Central Europe is having it's wettest summer in ten years.

After more than two weeks of rain, we finally saw the sun again yesterday. The rain jackets have been put away (for the moment) and short sleeves and sandals have come out again. Muddy campgrounds are still drying out and we're still cleaning mud and dirt out of our panniers and off the bikes.

So, going back a few days since our last post...

Just near the start of the Danube



Friday, a week and a half ago, as we were about to leave Donaueschingen, the source of the Danube, Neil realised (after we had packed all our gear onto the bikes) that the bike mechanic had put his rear tyre on back to front when she replaced his wheel. Hmmm. Then the rain started. Not an auspicious start to our journey down the Danube.

Petersfelden cliffs - the start of the stunning gorge.

Nevertheless, we set out, hoping that the rain would ease during the day. It didn't, in fact it got heavier, raining solidly all morning until we arrived in Tuttlingen. Just when I had had enough of being wet and cold, ready to give up for the day, the sun came out. So we continued on, after Fridingen entering the spectacular narrow valley where the Danube flows between tall cliffs of limestone.

Along this section of the Danube the 300 metre tall cliffs are peppered with castles, ruins of castles and churches. Our route ran, for the most part, along the valley floor, next to the river, under the shadow of the Petersfelsen cliffs. Although the morning's pouring rain had eased, we were still treated to occasional showers and the cliffs and their heavily forested slopes disappeared from time to time behind curtains of cloud and mist. Absolutely stunning.

More limestone towers.

Upper reaches of the Danube, another cliff top castle.

Our peaceful camp by the river in Hausen.

We camped that night in Hausen, in a campingplatz along the river, a lovely peaceful place overshadowed by cliffs and the ruin of Wagenburg castle on the opposite bank. Neil took his back wheel off and put the tyre on the correct way and we both cleaned the muck off our bikes. Again.

As the sun set insects chorused and bats and birds flitted about above us catching their evening meal. We were also treated to a glimpse of what we think were two beavers, gathering grass for their dam. Either that or rodents of unusually large size.

Bike tyre tube dispenser.

Saturday we had a short day of riding, along the last section of the narrow rocky valley to Sigmaringen. Short but tiring, involving quite a few hills as we had to veer away from the river at the narrowest parts. We stayed two nights in Sigmaringen, spending Sunday relaxing and exploring the lovely old town. The castle has amazingly spindly stone turrets that look like they could have come straight from the brothers Grimm. Even the smaller houses in the town had painted decorations on walls and around windows.

Sigmaringen castle.

House decoration, Sigmaringen.

Monday saw us leave Sigmaringen heading east then north with the flow of the river – and for the first time in ten days, it didn't rain during the day. We even had a few minutes of sunshine! As the valley opened up, the lansdscape became similar to central France – small farming communities between fields of corn, wheat and hay. The buildings are shaped differently though, squat rather than tall and the rooves have a bit more of a pitch to them. Lots of solar panels too - it's not uncommon to see 20 or 30 solar panels arranged on the south side of a house or business roof. Church bell towers rise above the lansdcape, topped by onion shaped domes, squat domes or steeples, often with colourfully glazed tiles.

The Danube kept widening little by little as we headed downstream, meandering along but flowing quite rapidly in a northeasterly direction through Germany. But it's not blue at all – it is a deep slime green. From Sigmaringen we cycled to Munderkingen, a mostly flat day's ride with a couple of hills just to spice things up. In Munderkingen we stayed at a zeltplatz – a camping area just for tents. As well as cyclists, there were a group of canoeists – we saw quite a few canoeists in the upper reaches of the river.

The countryside opening up - still grey clouds.

Riverside picnic.

Super strong touring bike stands outside a supermarket.

Awoken by a musical chorus of church bells that continued for at least 20 minutes, Tuesday dawned a lovely sunny day. After Ehingen we took a detour off the main Danube trail to the town of Blaubeuren and the source of the Blau river. Blau means blue in German and the Blautopf, the spring where the river emerges, is an amazing turquoise. Next to the spring, situated at the head of the valley in what must have been an extremely tranquil setting, especially when it was founded in the 1100's, was a Benedictine Abbey, it's huge church dating from the 1400's.

The valley was quite narrow, cycling on the flat among the fields was warm in the sun but at the base of the cliffs, a refreshingly cool moist breeze seeped down from the forested slopes. Among the cliffs are caves where stone age remains have been found. From there we then cycled through busy Ulm and continued downriver to Riedheim near Gunzburg.

Blaubeuren, peaceful break inside the monastery grounds.

Swan on the Blau.

Blautopf - the source of the Blau river.

Wednesday was another warm and sunny day but after battling with headwinds for a couple of hours in the afternoon, we decided to treat ourselves to a hotel stay in Donauworth – our first bed  in four weeks! Donauworth is another pretty town and we stayed in the Post Hotel Traube near the centre of town and the cycle route. We also treated ourselves to a restaurant meal in the hotel biergarten – they had a special menu of pfifferling (chanterelle mushroom) dishes that day. They must be popping up in abundance after all the rain because we are seeing them everywhere in the shops at the moment.

After a rather hilly, hot and humid Thursday morning we were treated to a massive lunchtime thunderstorm. Luckily we missed the hail but we saw drifts of it by the roadside a bit later. After the storm we were cycling through forest where the trees and the path were shrouded in mist as the rain evaporated. Forests here are quite dark and dense, not so light and airy as the forests we know so well in France, so cycling through the mists really added a fairytale dimension to our travels.

The Danube, getting wider, twin nuclear reactors around the bend.

Another cool town wall tower- Gundelfingen.

Roman temple ruins on north side of Danube near Lauingen.

That's how many kilometres to go to the mouth of the Danube.

Friday we enjoyed a day off in Ingolstadt. Ingolstadt was the easiest city to get around so far, with a great network of bicycle paths. Germany as a whole seems extremely well serviced by bicycle lanes on roads, bicycle parking outside shops and public buildings and thousands of kilometres of well sign-posted bicyle routes criss-crossing the countryside. Even vending machines that sell bicycle tyre tubes in case you have a puncture. Actually there are vending machines for all sorts of things even in the smallest villages from cigarettes (!) to chocolate.

Switzerland and Germany have really pulled out the stops and showed us what a joy a summer storm can be. Unfortunately our day exploring Ingolstadt was cut short by another huge thunderstorm and downpour that lasted nearly all afternoon. We got to see a (huge) bike shop, an outdoor shop and an Aldi supermarket before getting drenched and retreating to our tent once more.

Saturday dawned cloudy and humid and we had a rain-free morning as we rode from Ingolstadt to the Monastery of Weltenburg where we caught a boat down river for six kilometres through the tall limestone cliffs of the Danube Gorge to Kelheim. Past Kelheim the river becomes navigable for barges and we started to see more working boats.

Hops vines, Barvaria.

Danube Gorge at Weltenburg.

Just out of Kelheim the rain started and continued steadily all afternoon as we cycled along by the river to Regensburg. Much of the afternoon was spent on dirt paths so we had another session of cleaning muck off everything that night.

From Regensburg the Danube turns south east, heading for the Austrain border at Passau. Sunday's ride from Regensburg to Daggendorf was almost rain free, much of the day was spent riding along levee banks covered in wild flowers overlooking the Danube. We passed the huge Worth castle, Walhalla (a replica of the Parthenon), as well as numerous spectacular ruins and churches nestled  in the hills of the Bayrischer Wald along the northeastern bank of the Danube. For once though, most of the rain was after we set up camp.

Regensburg.



Near Worth.



Everything a growing child needs...

Near Deggendorf.

Vilshofen.

And now we are in Passau, relaxing by the bank of the river Ilz, just before it meets the Danube and the Inn rivers and enlarges the Danube even further. Monday we had a rain free day and even saw the sun again on our pleasant day's progress from Deggendorf. We have covered 2700km since Dublin – pretty much halfway to Istanbul !

In the last few days we have seen more and more cyclists of all ages, going in both directions. Last night we were camped near an older French couple, a middle aged New Zealand couple, a middle aged German couple and two young families from Yorkshire. There was also a large group of canoeists and many other cyclists – 37 tents of all different size, shape and colour.

Yesterday (Tuesday) we spent the day wandering around Passau, up and down the cobbled lanes, looking at the interesting old buildings, checking out the bakeries and finishing a couple of sagas. I have a new pillow, a new Brooks saddle (Neil is happy – he has been nagging me to get one since Dublin) and the weather was lovely and warm. Didn't quite get the blog post organised  though – I uploaded the photos but messed up the word file and couldn't get it to work at the internet cafe.

Our German has improved muchly from being able to say “yes”, “no”, “hello” and “goodbye” to “excuse me, where is the campground?”, “we would like to stay here for two nights” and “we will share the dessert”. Unfortunately we can rarely understand the replies, but we're working on it...

*

words - Gabby, images - mostly Neil