Over the Hills and Dales to the Danube: Bad Waldsee to Ulm
Bad Waldsee is a terrific spot. With two lakes and historic buildings it is a beautiful little town. We spent some time exploring in the morning before heading for Ulm. Our impression is that it is big as a German vacation spot, but not on the International tourist bus tour route.
Our ride today began with hills, followed by more hills. I kept waiting for the big yahoo as we headed down, but it simply wasn't happening. One particularly long one was an eighteen percent grade. Our legs are strong at this point, but it makes for slow riding. At one point my GPS paused because it thought I had stopped. Nope, just grinding away in granny gear, and our ponies have a great granny gear.
Then we zipped through beautiful farm land with only one brief navigational hitch. We were impressed at the number of solar panels on the roofs in the villages we went through. It is really something. Unfortunately we didn't think to take a picture. In some communities virtually every house had the entire south facing part of the roof covered. It looks really neat and seems really smart.
We finally started the descent and then it seemed like it was downhill all the way to the Danube. Then as we were following the Danube, it was an amazing freewheel into Ulm. I tucked myself in behind Keith and we were flying. So much fun. We both stopped in astonishment when we saw a guy surfing on the Danube. We couldn't get a good picture, but these young guys in wetsuits had rigged up a motor that sits on the side of the river, then they walk several hundred meters down with their surf board and a tow rope, jump in, yell the German version of "Hit it!" and surf back up. I am not making this up!
Ulm is an amazing city with a huge pedestrian zone, and you know I love those. So after a good bike ride we walked and walked tonight. It has a cathedral with the tallest spire in the world at 161 metres. It is in the same lacy gothic style as the one in Strasbourg. It took five hundred years to build and there is still scaffolding on it...they are doing some restoration. We plan to make tomorrow a short day so we can spend more time here in the morning.
The gate in Bad Waldsee, right by our hotel. You can see the Gasthaus Rossle to the right.
Half way up a hill we met the sweet Missy, our Hund of the Day. She was so cute, and her human rescued her from a Romania shelter just two weeks ago. What a neat story. The two of them were out for a short ramble as her human had to get back to her sculpture course in Bad Waldsee. I think Missy qualifies as our luckiest Hund of the Day.
Our cozy hotel. There is so much to see here we have decided to stay two nights. The Surly ponies will get a rest but I am not sure about us. On so called rest days we usually walk tons of kilometres!
