131.5 km, 180 m vertical, average 21.1 kph
Breakfast at 7:30, another hard-boiled egg. Maybe that isn’t accidental: maybe only the decadent city-dwellers eat soft-boiled. The young woman and I had quite a conversation – too bad I only understood about a quarter of it. She admitted that my Deutsch was better than her Englisch, but didn’t demonstrate.
Low ground fog, chilly again. Wore the tights all day. Steaming along doing just fine, when at Heber, I got a flat tire. Rear tire, of course; Murphy’s law applies everywhere. Harder to repair under any circumstances, and especially with the back end encumbered with panniers.
And it was a tube failure, the stem torn loose. This is the second tube that’s failed that way – I wonder if there’s a sharp edge on the rim. Admittedly, the tires took a hell of a beating yesterday on the cobbles, that awful bike path, the tracks, but still…
I now have no spare tube. If this happens again, I’m in big trouble. I’d better find a bike shop and get another tube.
The fog lifted a little, at least enough that my glasses cleared up and I could see the Heath – which isn’t very special, just fields and forests, flat country. Not obvious why it’s a distinct region, except that the farmers need a gimmick with which to advertise their Heidekartoffeln.
Met a guy cycling the other way. Wearing a backpack; in the backpack a dog, chin resting comfortably on Master’s shoulder, enjoying the ride. A dog’s life isn’t so bad!
Came upon a war cemetery, row after row of white stones. Since the only sign I saw was in English, it’s possible that this is for British or American war dead. Didn’t stop to find out.
Just opposite the NATO base north of Bergen was a tank warning sign. And I actually met a tank, the first live one I’ve ever seen. Stopped at a supermarket in Bergen for a couple boxes of Müsliriegeln and a snack from the Bäckerei. The cashier was no more friendly than if she had been in München. Welcome to the store – now get out!
Celle is quite the prettiest town I’ve seen on this tour. Started off with a Schloß, of course.
Left the bike and wandered. The sun came out, and it was just noon. Stopped at a Bäckerei for lunchables, cheesy croissants. Wandered up one street, down the next, munching, enjoying. Kiosk signs advertising an upcoming performance of Brahms’ Requiem. I like this town. |
Everywhere, old half-timbered buildings with overhanging upper storeys. Lots of people on the streets – they can’t all be tourists, surely! |
The way out of town led through a park; I liked the planter this tree was in.
And even the urbs, the first kilometer or two, were half-timbered buildings. It’s not just the tourist-trap Centrum. True, many of the timbers are merely painted into the stucco – after the second world war, it’s naive to expect old buildings to be authentic – but it’s still attractive.
Now for Braunschweig. After my experience in Hamburg, I’m worried about large cities, but perhaps Braunschweig isn’t all that large. We’ll try it.
With the sun came the wind. Here’s where I really appreciate the strips of woodland bracketing the roads. Major road, lots of traffic – and I’m getting spoiled by these separate bike lanes. Not really as much fun when the bike lane disappeared and I had to ride five kilometers on the road itself. My biggest objection to the separate paths is the crossings, and when you get out here in the open, there just aren’t very many; the other problem is that in Bavaria, the bike path is likely to wander off away from the road. Here, the bike path stays with the road, and your road map is as reliable as a road map ever is.
About ten kilometers out of Braunschweig, my knee started hurting. The left one; that’s unusual. It’s usually the right one that acts up. Don’t know what the problem is. Geared down, took it easy. Pretty painful. Will I be able to ride the Harz mountains tomorrow?
Braunschweig was easy, no hassles getting into the town. Nice looking center-city. Don’t know where the border is, but I’m now in Niedersachsen. Ok, I’ve heard of Saxony, though I’m not up on all its variations such as the nieder part.
Stopped at a bike shop, got a tube. They didn’t know what a Presta valve was, so I opened the box and looked at the tube. You get the valve as a separate component here, assemble it yourself. I hope I don’t have to use this tube: it’s so big and fat there won’t be much room left in the tire for air!
Now I need to find a hotel. Not as easy as it sounds. Didn’t even try the shiny new Mövenpick in the center of everything. Considered going out of town to the south, finding something, walking back. But there was nothing to be seen for quite a ways, too far to walk. Decided if I want to spend the evening in the city – and I do – I should just go back and find something in the city. Came upon a Holiday Inn. Went in – the posted price was DM 180 single! Plus DM 20 for breakfast. Foof! – I can surely do better than that.
Stumbled across the TI, got a Stadtplan and a hotel listing. The woman told me the university quarter was a likely neighborhood to find a coin laundry. There was one hotel in that area, a cheapie, DM 48. Old building, rooming house more than a hotel. (So I’m arguably maintaining my tradition of staying in rooms rather than hotels: at least it has turned out that I always have a one-on-one relationship with my hosts, rather than just being one of a hundred overnight guests. I didn’t plan it that way, but I like it. More personal, more friendly, more interesting.)
Another new term I’m learning: Hotel Garni, which seems to designate a hotel without a restaurant. Do you suppose this is really a “Hotel mit gar nichts?”
This one had no shower; only after I indicated that it was a deal-breaker did the landlady offer (for DM 3 extra) the use of the shower in the cellar. When I didn’t fuss and complain about how modern and classy it wasn’t, she got considerably more friendly, helped start the water heater for the shower, showed me on the map where to find a coin laundry.
Borrowed soap from the WC for my shower. Nice. Loaded up my collection of laundry and went out. The leg pain feels like a tight quad when I walk – maybe I just haven’t been walking enough. If it’s a sore muscle instead of a joint problem, I’m probably ok. I hope.
Next challenge: working my way through the German-language instructions in the laundromat. Back to the hotel, spread out the damp things, dampest on the rad.
Out: do I eat first, or explore first? Well, it’s already dark, so there will be no difference in photo opportunities. Let’s eat!
And straightaway I came across the Teratai Indonesian and Chinese restaurant. Mostly empty, no smokers around. Hefeweizenbier (Erdinger, no less!) and Indonesian buffet. The flavours distinctly sweet, slightly hot. I hotted it up some more. Pretty good! Then out to explore.
Only three areas were floodlit (if there were others, their towers weren’t high enough to see): first was the Katherinenkirche, dating from around 1200 AD. Second was the whole area around the Dom. The Dom was open; very stark inside, with truly paleolithic murals on the walls.
And finally, the Andreaskirche. So I saw something of the town, and a nice town it is. According to the bumpf, Gauß came from here – remember him from electromagnetism theory? Schimmel and Steinweg pianos. And Til Eulenspiegel, he of the merry pranks. Who wrote that music? One of the Strauß people, perhaps? Have to admit I only heard it once or twice, and it didn’t make much of an impression.
The leg loosened up – we’ll see how it feels tomorrow.
76.6 km, 380 m vertical, average 16.1 kph
Windy overnight, and I thought I heard a burst of rain just before dawn. Sure enough, everything was wet. Breakfast was as expected: bare bones. One slice of cheese – still in its plastic wrapper from the supermarket! One slice of lunch meat. One egg, medium hard-boiled. Not much, but it gets me started. Well, this place doesn’t pretend to be fancy.
By the time I left, it was misting, then raining. Stopped at the Altstadt Markt for a picture.
Started getting speckles on the lens, and there’s nothing worse than a speckled lens, so I didn’t spend any more time wandering around Braunschweig, just headed out.
There’s a marked bike trail to Wolfenbüttel; and very pretty it is, going along next to streams and lakes. The rain stopped, my leg didn’t hurt, and it looked like becoming a nice day. But when the path made a 1-km out-and-back loop just to go under the Autobahn, I decided to take the roads instead. That’s stupid!
By the time I reached Wolfenbüttel, the knee was hurting again. It’s a gradual climb toward the Harz mountains, but certainly not hilly country. I kept the gearing low, tried to use the right leg for power, idle the left one. But it didn’t help. I suppose I’ve torn the muscle. The old battleship has lost an engine. Actually a great relief to have to walk a kilometer or so through a road construction project – walking doesn’t hurt.
The pain made me a little sick, that and the concern that I’m exacerbating the damage. Stopped at the outskirts of Goslar to check the street map kiosk, noted where the Bahnhof was, headed for it. Goslar is guarded by a pair of Breittürme, round, short, and very fat, probably been there a thousand years. Looked like a nice enough little town, worth exploring on another day, but today I wanted a train.
Got a ticket to Göttingen. I really, really, really hate doing this, but I think I’d better. I was so confident of my ability to handle this tour that I didn’t even bring along my Bahncard.
While I was waiting for the train, an Indian fellow came up, spoke to me in English, tried to talk with me about my adventures. I’m sorry to say I was a lot less open and friendly than I should have been. Not his fault – he had no way to know that it was a real low point for me.
Short three-car trains, the end cars with motors and cabs for the drivers. A little confusion with the guard, when I didn’t understand what he told me about where to take the bike for on-loading, but it was okay. Then it turned out I had not bought a Fahrradkarte, even though I had asked for one. (When I did this again later, I realized that the ticketing system is so complex that the clerks themselves don’t understand what they’re doing.) Again, no problem: the guard just sold me one.
Only took a little over an hour to get to Göttingen. No Harz mountains, too bad. Majk said they’re really pretty, and I had been looking forward to seeing them.
As I got off the train, an ICE-train destined for München arrived on another track. Sure was tempting: go home, crawl into a corner, lick my wounds.
Stopped at the Deutsche Bahn info desk. Yes, I can take a bike, even on a Wochenendekarte, for a DM 12 Zuschlag. But I would have to change trains five times! The route with an IC train would cost DM 130 but I would only have to change trains once. Changing trains is no big deal, except with a bike.
I still have a few days of vacation; there’s no point in just giving up. There are places to see, adventures to be had. If I’m still far from München on the weekend, I’ll worry about it then. Got a printout of the regional Bahn connections; maybe I can make use of the information over the next few days. Meantime, I’ll ride shorter days, do as much as I can.
So I went on into Göttingen, tied up the bike, wandered around.
I’m learning that a sure way to get into a discussion is to stand there looking at a map. If you want to just ponder alternatives, you should seek a certain amount of discreet privacy. Thank you, friend, it’s nice of you to offer to help, but please just go away. I don’t know where I want to go.
Found a Deutsche Bank Geldautomat to fatten the wallet.
Since I’m off the boundary of my Schleswig-Holstein map, I looked for a more detailed regional map, but all the cartographers split their maps down the middle of the country. I would have had to buy two or three maps and worry about crossing back and forth across the boundaries. Not a good deal: maybe I can manage with the low-resolution maps.
Took a look at a couple of the hotels on the list I picked up at the TI – not impressed. And Göttingen is a university town, which means it’s not as classy as I’d like. I won’t regret spending the night somewhere else.
Back on the bike, headed south. The one-way streets were a nuisance, but the city is mobbed with cyclists, and none of them seemed worried about the one-way restrictions, so with due caution, I didn’t either.
Riding the train had given me enough rest that the leg wasn’t hurting. Had a crossing tailwind, flat country – never saw the Harz mountains at all – made pretty good time.
I was looking for a Zimmer Frei sign. Although I hadn’t planned it that way, I’ve already had enough good experiences to make me prefer that approach to the impersonal hotel stay. Not much luck, though. Friedland had two hotels – one was well off the road, a beautiful location. But they were closed until 5, and it was only just a little past 4.
Rode on to Reckershausen. There was a Zimmer sign as I came into town; hunted around for the street, couldn’t find it, asked someone, found the place; a sign in the window said Zimmer Belegt. Too bad. Considered going on yet again, but the knee was beginning to hurt again, the sun was sinking, it was getting chilly, and who knew what was up ahead?
Back to Friedland. The Biewald hotel was pretty, attractive. Expensive, by the standards I’ve been using – DM 78 – the most I’ve paid yet. Two hundred meters back off the road, on one side a street full of little kids on their bikes; on the other side a stream with ducks. Another hundred meters back, an ancient stone schoolhouse. The door to my room fit so poorly that it didn’t make any difference to lock it. So I didn’t bother. I’m not the paranoid type anyway.
Out for a walk. Found The Store (groceries, clothing, hardware, tires, anything else you might ever want). Got an apple and a couple of bananas. Maybe my muscle problems are a result of eating nothing but meat and cheese for breakfast.
Across from The Store is The Industry – a Ziegelwerk. A word not in my vocabulary; but the yard was piled with their product, so I went over in the dusk to find out: it’s a brickworks, brick and red tile.
Hotel, shower, restaurant; Weißbier and the Große Gemüseplatte. Not bad, but not as Groß as it might have been. Although the menu advertised it as vegetarian, there was cream, butter, cheese on it. This is true in general; I wonder how hard-core vegetarians eat – probably from grocery stores.