Germany Starting At The Source Of The Danube

Country #3 - Germany

Not as flat as the book makes it out to be

September 4 to September 17, 2015

Cycling distance in Germany: 625km's
Total cycling distance: 713km's


The German part of our adventure begins after some knee busting steep climbs over the Swiss hills. We approach the border and I'm mentally picturing where I put my passport. We get to the "border" and are greeted by a raised rusty boom gate on the little country road. A sign told us that we were entering Germany and not a soul was in sight. We debated riding down to the highway so we could at least get a stamp in our passports. We decided against it and that was a good thing. As it turns out both Germany and Switzerland are signatories to the Schengen Area Agreement and stamps are just not available.

Heavily Guarded German Border

On we went over some steep hills and the signage for Donaueschingen all but disappeared. This is ironic since the signage for Germany's Donaueschingen was perfect while still in Switzerland but almost non-existent once we entered Germany.

After a few cold ones on a sunny terrace in Donaueschingen we headed for a lovely evening with our Warm Showers hosts Olga and Ralf. Olga is Mexican and Ralf is German. They don't cycle themselves but their daughters do. As it turns out they had done pretty much the same trip we were doing. Each week they switch languages between Spanish and German. I had a great opportunity to practice a few languages while being fed Maultaschen, beer and wine. We even got a nice little guided evening tour of Donaueschingen.

Olga and Ralf, Gracious Warm Showers Hosts

Put a roof over your bicycle. Not to be used in major wind storms.

First we had to see the "official" source of the Danube. Unfortunately it was under construction and we had to be satisfied with looking at it from above. There is considerable controversy here. Donaueschingen was apparently declared the source of the Danube back in Roman times, but others argue that it's actually up in the Black Forest where the Breg River has its' beginning. There was even a lawsuit back in the 60's between two towns to try and resolve this. Anyway, I consider the Donaueschingen source to be highly symbolic of the beginning of our trip and I don't believe that any river truly has a definite "source" since it's a collection of water from all over the place.

"Official" Danube Source, under construction in Donaueschingen.

The signposting throughout Germany is excellent but it's best to know what the next few towns are rather than relying on signs pointing to distant destinations. After all, one would not expect a sign on a highway outside of Toronto, pointing to Winnipeg.

First sight of the actual Danube

Swans Everywhere

Storks taking a break between baby deliveries

Germany is fairly densely populated, especially when compared to many parts of Canada. So even though we were covering large distances, there was a town or village every 1 to 5km's. Stocking up with food was simply never an issue ...except on Sundays where pretty much all stores were closed.

Danube Bike Path covered bridge

As the amount of water fed to the Danube from the mountains diminishes through the year the water level in the river starts dropping. Early on in its' course the Danube then vanishes underground into the ground and the riverbed is dry. We got to experience this and stood in the middle of the Danube while chatting with two young families who were doing a local trip of their own.

Standing right in the Danube

In Germany you will find just about anyone on the bicycle network. Young, old, fit, fat, and everything in between. It's very popular to clip on two panniers and roll from guesthouse to guesthouse, often with kids in tow. A large percentage of riders had E-Bikes and there were charging stations at various locations to juice up the bikes as you went along. When we were asked if we had motors I would proudly smack my rock hard calves and say "yes, a two cylinder engine". Even though cycling is immensely more popular, accepted and respected in Germany we were still a bit of an oddity with our front and back load, looking like two modern day gypsies on two wheels.

Typical southern German village

Danube Valley

The Danube Valley is one of the most beautiful areas along the German Danube. The river gets forced into a narrow valley and karst formations tower above, with little castles perched precariously overhead.

The Donauradweg (Danube Bike Path) through Germany mostly doubles as the Eurovelo 6 bike route, which itself goes from the Atlantic Ocean in France to the Black Sea in Romania. In Germany it consists of a mix of paved and unpaved paths and agricultural roads with little to no traffic. Some sections are on regular roads but again with very little traffic. Drivers were generally very cautious and respectful. A delightful way to travel.

"Cooking" a meal at a Pension in Beuron

We were hoping to camp but what was supposed to be a campsite just before Beuron turned out to be just a big damp meadow belonging to a youth camp. There was no one around and we decided to head on to Beuron and get a room.

Bed and Wine, Beuron

The Pension in Beuron was simply lovely but we now had no cooking opportunity and no food was available at the Pension itself. Unfazed, Patti the camp cook extraordinaire, went to work after the nice owner offered us the breakfast area to eat our dinner. There's nothing like a meal of cold canned chili after a long wet bike ride :-)

My new castle in the Danube Valley

Germany is wurst (sausage) country. There seems to be a wurst for every occasion. Youngest daughter getting married? We have a wurst for that. Your dog just came out as gay? No sweat, just head to the wurst department at the Supermarkt and you'll find just what you need.

A Wurst for every occasion

Wow!

Castles, monasteries, burgs, and villages too cute to be real dotted the landscape as we rolled on. It's easy to get into a dreamy reverie while cycling on Germany's bicycle path. Luckily there are practically no cars and the drivers seemed to be used to wayward awestruck cyclists too busy looking at the postcard landscapes.

Water your horses here

We finally managed to find some camping in Ersingen at the Tennis Club. Later on we discovered that going to the local Kanuklub (Canoe Club) was where we would find the best and most affordable camping spots, ranging from 12 to 16 Euros/night. All with hot shower and toilets but not necessarily WIFI.

Get out of my kitchen

Scrumptious camp meal

You're cycling along the Danube eh? they would ask us before we left. Well that's great! they said. It's a river which obviously flows downhill, they assured us. So it'll be a flat ride all the way, they speculated. WELL, THEY WERE WRONG!! Oh sure, it is indeed downhill when you look at it from start to finish. But no one told us about the 20% grades we had to conquer along the way.

It's a flat route they said

We then passed from Badener land to Schwaben land. It was funny encountering a little "Swabian for Beginners" poster at a bicycle rest stop. I recognized a lot of the words from how my father used them.

Swabian for beginners

One of many cyclist rest stops

Like it's been done for hundreds of years

On day 3 of the Danube part of the trip we passed through Ulm, a city of 122,000 people. That's considered to be a large city in Germany. We walked around a bit but didn't do the touristy things. I had already been there in the past and was a bit jaded and somewhat churched and castled out to begin with.

Ulmer Munster

Riding through a city of 122,000 inhabitants in Canada or the USA is usually a hair raising, nerve wracking experience. Here in Germany, Ulm specifically, we had a nice paved path along the Danube which simply took as along the edge of the city and all we had to do was follow the signposts.

Patti makes new friends in Ulm

So we stopped outside the walls of the historic Centre of Ulm and Patti quickly made a canine friend. The owner later came over and started talking to us. She was originally from Greece and wanted to know if we knew about the Jehovah's Witnesses as she handed us a pamphlet. I must confess that she has quite a nice little setup. Have cute dog approach stranger, dog befriends said stranger, JW moves in with friendly banter, and WHAM! unsuspecting stranger is saddled with brochure and doomed to join the Witnesses :-)

Pedal powered floating contraption

Day 3 took us into Gunzburg where we camped at the local Canoe Club for 12 Euros. This was after we had ridden about 10km's return to a campground in the countryside which was closed due to the owners being on vacation. A stop at the local police station proved to be very useful when the young and hip officer went to check online to see if the Canoe Club indeed had camping.

On the second night at the campsite we encountered a man who was travelling with his friends young son. They had built a "bicycle boat" from an old tandem and a couple of surfboards. Their plan was to ride down the actual Danube as far as they could get with the time they had. Unfortunately that same evening they were taking the contraption apart and had decided to continue on the tandem and leave the floating part behind. What a great adventure nonetheless.

Gunzburg Canoe Club Camping

We had two days in Gunzburg and set out to do some administrative stuff and arrange a rental car to drive down to Schloss Neuschwanstein (Newschwanstein Castle).

The car we ended up renting was an Audi A3, yup one of those involved in the emissions scandal. The cost was a whopping 100Euros for the day. But I've always wanted to drive on the Autobahn with no speed limit. I had researched this beforehand to make sure that this stretch from Ulm to Fussen would qualify ...it did.

Driving on the German autobahn made me realize how sloppy and careless we Canadian and US drivers are compared to the Germans. Everything here seems to move at a much faster speed in general but it seemed vastly safer and definitely more predictable than back home. My regular "just puttering around speed was about 150km/h with burst of 180 and even a very short stint at 210km/h on an empty straight stretch. Since the roads, drivers and cars were vastly superior to back home, it didn't feel much faster than driving on a four lane in Canada or the USA. German drivers seem to much more alert and aware. After all, you have to be lest you end up in a crumpled heap in a field amongst the cows and sheep.

Neuschwanstein Castle

Neuschwanstein

Schloss Neuschwanstein was quite wonderful but so much busier than I remember it from my visit in 1995. The crush of people was getting to me and I was glad to be back in the car driving back to Gunzburg. We took country roads for a more relaxing ride after the Autobahn had been crossed off my bucket list.

We stopped at a Vaude outlet store. Kids on ziplines buzzed overhead inside and outside of the store and it was all basically big box country, German style. Patti found some Gore-Tex shoes for the increasingly wet conditions.

As we drove through one of the numerous villages all traffic came to a stop. I peeked ahead and immediately pulled over. What greeted my eyes was startling to say the least. A large herd of cattle was heading down the village street. We sat there for several minutes while Patti was filming and I was wondering out loud if we had cow coverage on the rental vehicle after one of the beasts came within centimetres of the rearview mirrors. Soon the herd passed, along the the stick wielding male and female shepherds on bicycles.

Bicycle tube vending machine

Germany has vending machines for various purposes. Thirsty after long ride? no problem, the campsite has a beer vending machine. Of course you can also have a cancer stick with your beer from another vending machine. Travelling with kids who can't yet partake in beer and cancer sticks? no problem either, the candy vending machine will delight their little hearts. Got a flat tire from being too heavy after all the beer and candy? Well guess what? we have a vending machine that will have you back on the trail in no time at all with a new bicycle tube.

Pretty flower, the ones on the ground are nice too

It's mine, all mine

Germany has no shortage of bakeries and pastry stores. Great for hungry carbohydrate craving cyclists. Not so good for sedentary types.

Camping at the Donauworth Canoe Club

Break Time

Come on in for a cold beer, cyclists

As we stopped to check on my brakes which were making some strange wailing sounds, up came two cyclists on folding bikes with small plastic trailers. It was a pretty cool setup. The bikes fold up then fit into the trailer which acts as a suitcase. No airline bicycle surcharges for them. Fulton and Tracey were from Vancouver and had started in Donaueschingen but were going to head into the Czech Republic after Regensburg. We rode with them for a while until we stopped for lunch. Our lunch almost always consisted of roadside food from the grocery stores, theirs was restaurant food. Tracey told us about the great deals to be had at Chinese all you can eat buffets. I had no idea they existed in Germany as they do back home.

Fulton from Vancouver, BC, Canada

We had another lovely camping stay at a Canoe Club in Donauworth. When we packed up in the morning it started lightly raining so we quickly dragged everything under a covered area and packed up. During my morning "preventative" visit to the bathroom I spotted a plugged in phone charging in the bathroom. In these little campgrounds things are fairly safe and I often see items charging unattended.

Donauworth

Donauworth

Over hundreds of years the Danube has been diked, dammed and otherwise prevented from following its' natural flow. So much of our riding further along was on unpaved dike trails. I came up with our new team name for now. Dikes on Bikes on Dikes. The dikes make for great riding with no hills and no traffic but they can become a bit monotonous after a while.

Dikes on bikes on dikes

This is the only time so far where we didn't ride the bikes but took a boat instead. While we could have ridden we would have missed the Danube Breakthrough Gorge. It was a bit of a tourist boat but quite worth the trip through the narrow waters.

We spent another night at a campground attached to a little guesthouse. We were once more the only ones there. As we set up Patti couldn't find her phone. We unpacked very single square millimetre of her belongings and it was nowhere to be found. I called the campsite from the previous night and they went looking for it. When I called back they had found it. If you haven't already guessed, it was the one that I had earlier seen plugged in and charging in the washroom.

Danube Breaktrough

Kilometre marker

Happy captain

Another Burg by King Ludwig the First

As it turns out Lederhosend and Trachten are not a thing of the past in Bavaria. Some people still wear them on special occasions such as weddings. We were later to learn when we were in Regensburg that modernized versions of Dirndl dresses are making a comeback. They're actually quite pretty.

Lederhosen and Trachten Time

The Queen of Cycling Lunches

We were now approaching Regensburg on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. The bicycle trail leading into the city was jam packed with recreational cyclists. Basically the Galloping Goose Trail on steroids. The campsite is about 4km's before Regensburg and we decided to stay for 2 nights for a forced day off and some time to return to Donauworth to retrieve Patti's phone.

Bicycle rush hour, entering Regensburg

Made by real Italians

A bus took us into Regensburg. What a lovely city and too bad about the hordes of tourists charging through the streets in clans organized by language. The clan leaders were holding up little flags with numbers so the herd would not get confused and accidentally wander into the Italian or Spanish clan.

Definitely an amazing little city worth a visit. Most of the buildings in Regensburg were not bombed during the war and are therefore still original but restored and maintained.

Regensburg Ivy

While crossing a bridge we noticed a large number of padlocks on the railings. They had initials and names. I stopped a young couple and asked them about this. It's apparently a European custom for lovers to put their locks on bridges. He proceeded to tell me that they apparently had to cut a bunch of them from a bridge in France because the added weight might have affected the structural integrity of the bridge.

Bridge of Love, Regensburg

Regensburg Church

Danube in Regensburg

Regensburg courtyard

It was now the early afternoon and Patti treated me to a Burger King meal at the train station. At least it wasn't wurst :-) We had agreed that due to the language barriers I would go back by train to Donauworth and pick up the phone. A quick phone call to the fellow who had the phone and he insisted that he would meet me at the train station with the phone so I could hop on the next train back to Regensburg. It was a 4 hour return trip. I love the German rail system. You fly through the countryside at 130km/h they even tell you which side of the train you'll disembark and even remind you that the side of disembarkation is in relation to the direction of travel, just in case you're tired and confused.

Two women?

So on we went towards Passau, our last night in Germany. In Passau is where we had our first experience to do with the whole migrant thing happening in parts of Europe. Some people have referred to it as a crisis in Europe but I quite frankly don't see it that way. While it's difficult to suddenly receive 10's of thousands of refugees from a different culture and language, the real crisis is in Syria and whatever other areas they're coming from.

While we didn't see any migrants we did see a small convoy of police buses and numerous police officers setting up at the train station. We later learned that they were waiting for a trainload of migrants.

Michelle at the end of the day

Danube in Passau

Fortified walls in Passau

We were once more camping at a Canoe Club in Passau. Getting access to Wifi in southern Germany was a veritable chore and most nights we had no luck. This is quite surprising given that Germany is one of the most technologically advanced countries in the world. Tonight we had better luck. Wifi was available when the owners were home and only in a small spot in the driveway. We set up our folding chairs and went to work. After a little while we had to move so they could get their car out.

During the night I was awoken when Patti let out a bit of a startled sound and told me that something was in the food basket which we had shoved under the fly of the tent. A little porcupine had taken a liking to our nectarines. After the obligatory photo ops I attempted to get rid of the spiky little critter. The way a porcupine defends itself is to roll up into a prickly ball. So that makes it pretty much impossible to touch it. That's when I saw Patti's flip flops. They served very nicely as I rolled the little munchkin out of the tent area like a ball. For good measure I tossed out the chewed on nectarines as well. Patti had actually touched the porcupine in the dark but did not get hurt.

Prickly nocturnal visitor

Passau Canoe Club Camping

This is our last day in Germany and we're off to a bit of a later start than usual as we make our way to the next country, Austria. More wurst, bread and beer, different German dialect.