The route out of Ulm was complicated but we made our way without incendent. We stopped by the Danube and walked into the old city to see the Ulm Cathedral (pic in separate post). There was a youth choir festival in town starting this morning, so we stopped for a while and listened to middle-school-age girls singing German songs very well. As we resumed riding along beside the old city walls, quite a few rowing shells were out on the river for a Saturday workout.
Our route diverted away from the Danube yesterday up to Blaubeuren. When we rejoined it this morning, the river had grown up. It is now navigable by small boats and about 100 meters wide.
There have been many swans in the river all along; today we came on a pair with chicks nearly obstructing the bike path and hissing at us. Besides an assortment of ducks we also see many great blue herons, those here are a little lighter color than the ones at home.
This was another cold day. 40's in the morning, 60's in the afternoon. OK when the sun out, but kept arm and leg warmers on all day.
The route today was another mostly flat stage, through woods and fen land with occasional small towns.
The Danube Cycle Path is actually pretty hard to follow. The signage is fairly good but leaves many opportunities to go off course, which we did twice today. The first time was a 3 km excursion on gravel roads beside the Danube. Much of the official path is gravel, by the way. Later in the day we reached a point where our guidebook called for a turn onto a path which absolutely was not there. After a lot of searching and head scratching we set off on our own with Google Maps following roads and whatever paths we found along them. Got to our objective town, Lauingen, without fuss.
Sandy has been fighting a stiff back this week, but felt much better today.
We are now in Bavaria; previously we were in the state of Baden-Wurtemburg. All towns in this area are named ...ingen. This one, Lauingen dates from medieval times but has unsentimentally updated many of the old buildings. Our hotel is thoroughly modern, but its building is 400 years old.
After dinner tonight we stopped for ice cream at a spot with a large screen TV and a dozen or so fans watching Germany vs. Sweden's World Cup game. Germany scored the winning goal at the last minute, and although we didn't care who won it was fun to share their celebration.
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