A short, drizzly day of flat lanes across farmland and alongside invisible rivers. I left my campsite somewhere around eight, reducing its active population from 1 to 0.
Breakfast was at Verden Aller, in the six-euro shape of a pain au choc and coffee in a Bäckerei, provided by a friendly and impeccably-dressed middle-aged woman. She looked very much like the sort of friendly and impeccably-dressed middle-aged women who would run a Bäckerei.
There wasn’t a lot to detain me in the Old Town, apart from some mysteriously horse-themed cycle racks.
I carried on, out along more misty, rainy, flat, deserted paths. One house generously provided free apples for passing walkers and cyclists. I was clearly in Northern Germany now, flat expanses, cottagey farmhouses, windmills and all.
Shortly further on, I come across another pleasant surprise. Here was yet another Planets Trail, the third that’s accompanied me in the last few days. This time I only caught Neptune and the Kuiper Belt, because I was taking the quicker Alternative Weser Trail, not the D9. No doubt the Alternative Trail is vegan and off-grid and earns its living as a crystals-based life coach.
This urgency and shortcuttery was all to get to Bremen, because I had some online admin and PC-based stuff to do. I stopped at Lidl in Achim for a sandwich and succeeded in arriving early too well: I was in Bremen at two, well before the hostel reception opened.
So I explored the centre a bit, which wasn’t at its best this wet and dull afternoon; it all seemed a bit overbearing and stern. I snapped the iconic statue of the hen standing on a cat standing on a dog standing on a donkey, which sounds like a very old-fashioned circus trick that would be banned now. However, I was more interested in the drain covers, which sported a bicycle motif.
Once the hostel opened its doors I could stash my bike in its cycle-shed – quite excitingly, a shipping container, which took a lot of lever-wrenching to open and close – and settled down for an evening of catch-up work over a beer and lasagne.
Miles today: 35
Miles from Füssen: 709