Bad Kohlgrub to Nesselwang: Mud Baths and More Rolling Hills
We enjoyed our family owned hotel last night. What a going concern. The building contains the hotel, a physiotherapy practice, and of all things, mud baths! Our bikes were stored in the mud room (another pun) and we got to see first hand how it worked when we went to retrieve them.
Here is the mud, which is funnelled down this trough from a huge tank in the room. It heats up in the tank. I have no idea where the mud comes from, but the owner said it is good for the joints and the skin, and will make an old woman young. Keith told me to jump in!
It is put in these tubs, which are on wheels...and beautiful as well. You can tell from my body language I am a bit skeptical! In the background you can see the mud bath room being prepared for the next client.
Last step, the tub is wheeled in the room, which also holds a conventional tub and shower area, so when you have had enough of wallowing in the mud you can get clean. When we were paying for the room people were coming in for their mud baths. A couple of women arrived in their house coats. Why not?
I would love to know where the mud comes from, but my German is pretty much non existent and his English wasn't up to detailed explanations. I did learn the German word for mud though. That might be useful some day.
We started out with a climb, and that would set the tone for the day. Just after Unternogg the Bikeline map, and Keith's Galileo indicated the main route and an alternate one. We were actually a kilometre or so up the paved alternate route when we realized it, and decided to go back and go with the main route as it was shorter. We can't comment on the alternate route obviously, but the main route was, well, an experience. On a mountain bike it would have been fine. Not on touring bikes. I personally feel it is a miracle I have a filling left in my head. It was a very rough gravel route that we kept thinking would get better. It didn't. It seemed to go on and on, but that was because we were doing 8 to 10 kph a great deal of time...you just couldn't go very fast and there was a lot of climbing. Several times my GPS went into pause mode because I had dipped below 4 kph. It was actually starting to approach type 1.5 fun!
Just as we left the hotel we saw Victoria bikes. I could have used the e assist and the seat suspension on these today.
A lovely trail side friend. He was well looked after, friendly, inquisitive, and had a mane and forelock full of burrs. It looked like he had dreadlocks. I don't envy whoever has to try and comb them out.
Kathleen ClassenTo Mike AylingThe mystery is solved! Thank you so much. We come from logging country (Vancouver Island, Canada) and we haven’t seen that here, but we don’t bike up the logging roads. It could also be because we get a great deal of rain here. They don’t call the woods a rainforest for nothing! Thanks again for writing and fingers crossed we will all be out touring again soon. Reply to this comment 4 years ago
The rolling hills continued. When we got to a small village we both felt like lunch. That is when I realized we hadn't bought sandwiches this morning. We found a likely looking shop, but he only had cheeses and meats in his deli case. We asked about sandwiches and he suggested a fresh bun with exquisitely fried fish that we gobbled up on bar stools in the shop. Yum yum! Then we carried on towards Fussen. The climbing settled down for a time and we had a fabulous cruise through the valley towards Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau.
Another trail side beauty. This horse caught our attention because we were cruising through a tidy and beautiful little village, and there he was, in a little field, pretty much in the middle of town.
No Dallas Road cliffs for these guys. They take a chair lift up to the top of the hill where I could just make out a platform, complete with wind socks for them to take off from. What a blast that must be.
We have been there, done that, so we just admired from afar. It was actually on that trip to Europe with our kids that we first had the idea of cycling in Europe. It just looked so amazing, and you know what, it is!
After Fussen the climbing started in earnest. Even Keith conceded that we did a pile of uphill in the last 20 km. At one point I really felt like I was on top of the world. There were lots of ups and downs, so our legs would get a short rest between climbs. It was so beautiful though, and we saw so much. The little farming communities are so interesting, and the people so friendly.
A bike we passed. Interesting concept. I wonder how it would make out if it was windy??
This was one long hill, and the picture just doesn't do it justice. The lovely people further down gave me lots of encouragement. This area is full of hikers.
We stopped to check out these deer? reindeer? venison? It was steep enough here that we both had to do a little circle to get going uphill again. We were almost at the top, fortunately.
Perhaps the funniest part of the day came at the end. We saw a grocery store as we came into Nesselwang and decided we should replenish our feed bag. Right next to the store was a food truck selling roasted chickens, potatoes and salads. Man, did it smell good. Keith and I made an instant 'dinner in the room' decision. So, I went to order half a chicken, and Keith said to get a whole one. We have no way to keep left over chicken...I thought it was a mistake. Well, after we got to our room, after one last hill, we devoured that entire chicken in record time, everything we bought to go with it, a huge number of grapes and a chocolate bar for dessert. I couldn't believe how hungry we both were. We didn't even bother to shower or change until after we inhaled dinner.
We are relaxing now happily in the Hotel Alpenrose, after the chicken dinner, a textile free sauna and wine. It was a fantastic day.
I said to Keith when he took this "That's not fair!" This was the final short, but ridiculously steep hill to the hotel. There was a fork in the road and I followed Keith up. He had just called to me not to ride up any further. He thought he had gone the wrong way. As it turned out, it was the right way, but there was simply no way for me to get started again. It was that steep. So I pushed.
