The only day of climbing in the whole trip today: up to 500m or so, as I crossed the hilly country north of Würzburg. The prospect hadn’t exactly been keeping me awake, but I was aware of it, shall we say.
What did keep me awake, though, was a man shouting, singing and arguing with himself outside somewhere all night. In the morning the context became clear: he lived in a small group of tents in parkland opposite the hostel, and clearly had, as they say, issues.
At least being up early gave me the chance to do some trip-planning and accommodation-booking. My travel window is about two or three days ahead; I don’t book further than that so I can stay flexible around weather forecasts and how much I want to dawdle.
My half-seven start was just as well, given the slow and laborious route out of town thanks to roadworks and patchy detour signage. At least I got to see some of the excellent riverside cycle path, with its parallel pedestrian channel.
I had my now-customary morning coffee and pastry at an Edeka somewhere along my diversion. Then it was a long, steady, easy day of flat, flat, flat riverside and wide smooth tarmac. No more Romantic Road – that finished at Würzburg – but I’m back on the D9 route, which doesn’t finish until the North Sea Coast.
Progress was fast thanks to a tailwind, and the use of my bike’s big chainring – something normally as untouched as my dusters or ironing-board at home.
I stopped to admire Karlstadt’s central square briefly. I remember it mainly, though, for the huge sign saying KARLSTADT made out of people-sized letters that so many places put up nowadays with a canny eye on free Instagram PR. I look forward to when they do similar for Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogoch.
And then it was another sequence of back lanes with some views, upping and downing its way through villages up to the last, long, shallow, main-road climb to the village of Kothen. (Not ‘Köthen’, the town where Bach wrote many of his major works including the Brandenburgs, the Violin Sonatas and Partitas, and the Bad-Tempered Clavier.)
I saw some heartwarming sights on the climb up, such as that of jammed traffic at a standstill on the A7 motorway that vaulted over me on a viaduct.
The sun was out at last, and my Kothen campsite proved to be a gem. I had a delightful pitch on the little lake and enjoyed a pizza from the bakery opposite and some agreeably cheap and flavourful wine from the campsite reception. A relaxing end to another very satisfactory day.
Miles today: 60
Miles from Füssen: 297