Somewhere today, around Hann. Munden, I passed the halfway point of my German End to End. I’m enjoying it so much I’ll come back to do a Side to Side, which will therefore intersect this route somewhere around Hann. Munden. By then I might have learned what the Hann. stands for.
It was a bright and very cold, finger-numbing morning. The outskirts of Kassel were Sunday-quiet, but I found that reliable German Sabbath option, the petrol station shop, for my morning coffee and pastry. I clanked on wooden bridges over chilly, birded lakes and through empty parks.
I should have nosed around Kassel’s historic centre, really, but was impatient to warm up with some riverside miles. As always the paths were wide, smooth and car-free, sociably plied with leisure riders. The weekend road cyclists were out, so for once I wasn’t the only non-e-bike in the village.
My camera was still playing up, sometimes refusing to retract the lens when I switched it off, causing a jam from which it couldn’t restart. Eventually I fixed it, using skilful techniques familiar to engineers everywhere no doubt: pushing, shoving, banging, and swearing copiously.
I worked out the problem: it occurred when you tried to switch it off with the lens extended on telephoto setting. Reset it to the compact wide-angle position before turning off, and all was fine. No excuse now to buy a new camera. Shame.
This was lovely cycling. A gently bending river, emergent sunshine, a lovely cycle path, and a few fellow bikers gliding past. There were even a few cable ferries across the river here and there, much like there aren’t in England.
I got to the perplexingly punctuated Hann. Munden in late morning. I’d already had a coffee and pastry, so thought it was time for another coffee and pastry.
I sat on the patio table of a friendly little city-centre bakery and patisserie with my flat white and quark-berry-streuselkuchen thing, admiring the timbery old buildings and the young father bonding with his toddler in a bike trailer.
Here at Hann. Munden, the river I’d been following so far – the Fulda – joins the Werra to continue as the Weser (after which the northern half of the trans-national D9 bike route is named).
A monument at the confluence marks Hann.’s status as a ‘three-river’ town. (I reckon the Ouse in York is similar namewise, starting at the confluence of the Ure and Swale. Historians may disagree, but how many of them have cycled the length of all of those rivers? Eh? EH?)
Anyway, considering the excellent progress I was making, I didn’t seem to be going all that fast. At Gieselwerder, a place consisting of a campsite, restaurant and local market, I had a pizza. It was so large I managed to squirrel away a few surplus kilograms into my pannier for dinner use.
Then it was a long routine sequence of roadside paths (which were very good) and flat-farmland paths (which were also very good). I got to Bad Karlshafen at half twoish with an ice-cream much on my mind, and even more on my stomach.
I stopped to look at its historic Graduation Tower, a kind of vertically thatched giant fence that extracts salts from trickling water by evaporation. However, in the election run-off between inspecting a hedge-shaped saline factory and eating an ice-cream, my tummy’s casting vote proved decisive.
I found the ideal spot to have a cornet, at a patio cafe overlooking the river. Unfortunately so had about ten million wasps. No wonder everyone was inside. Ah. Sitting by the river for my refreshment was a non-negotiable, so I went for Plan B, a substance which the wasps had no interest in. It was supplied by the only open shop in the touristy but rather underwhelming old town, a Portuguese supermarket: a small bottle of Super Bock beer.
So I sipped it by the riverside wasp-free, before my last leg today. This was five miles of lovely ride on more flat smooth riverside path with lots of other cycle tourers. My bed for the night was a sole-use dorm at the boat club in Beverungen. I nipped to, yes, a petrol station in town to fuel up with beers, and dined happily at a riverside table with my leftover pizza from lunch as the sun went gently down.
Miles today: 58
Miles from Füssen: 463