May 23, 2014
Day 24: Lichtenfels to Bayreuth
We have been watching the weather forecast, which calls for a week of rain, but starting next week. So we were surprised to go to sleep on a sultry clear evening and to wake up around 11 p.m. in a roaring storm. This was your classical "sounds like a train going through the trees", tent shaking wildly, production. Of course I was sleeping right through it, but Dodie got the clothes off our line, zippered down the fly, and brought the raincoats into the tent. Despite the racket and the impression that our feet were lifting off the ground, we did fall asleep again. When our alarm went off at 4:30, it was dramatically still. At this hour, not even the birds were making a sound. Outside, the sky was perfectly clear, and except for some bicycles thrown down around the park, there was no sign of the storm that had been. So it looks like we will have clear cycling weather today, and for a couple of days more. Cooler would be nice, but now we are looking forward to two nights and one day in Bayreuth, just exploring the place with our friends.
We chose Bayreuth simply because it is the closest we will be to their homes, near Leipzig. Otherwise, we know absolutely nothing about the place. Well, one thing - it is pronounced Buy Rite. When I first spotted it on a map, I asked Sandra why Germany had a place called "bay root", like in Lebanon. This caused a lot of mirth back on the farm!
Cycling the Main Radweg today was ok, but not terrific or spectacular. We once again found ourselves either on road or beside a road. The river had now dwindled to a small stream, so there we no majestic boats to look at or race, and no dramatic old bridges. The towns, also, were small and not at all fancy. The route also went through a large number of twists and turns, and not being the one with the detailed map, I had little idea exactly where we were or where we were going next. With no big river that we were obviously following, it was a sort of boring matter of following the signs and/or Dodie. The signage itself remained good, but it is still the case that about three times in the day the GPS has to be consulted to help us get on track.
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At the small town of Kulmbach, we did have the satisfaction of reaching kilometer 0,0 of the Main. It's a little tricky. This is the point at which (looking upstream) the Main (already small) splits into two branches: the Red and the White Main. The White Main continues about 50 km up into the hills, to its source near Bischofsgrun, while the Red Main goes to Bayreuth and then continues to its source near Creussen. But the "real" Main starts at Kulmbach, so at that point we could claim we had cycled it, from mouth to source. On the other hand, the "Main Radweg" begins at Bayreuth, so we would have to wait just a little to declare victory on that score.
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From Kulmbach on in to Bayreuth the path continued as before: ok, but with on road bits and some rough surfaces, and some iffy signage. The part that seemed the most puzzling was that as he signs counted down the distance to Bayreuth, we did not see any church spires, or any other sign that a special place was coming up. When we were 2 km out, it was car dealerships. When we were 1 km out, it was hay fields. Craziest of all, when we were actually there, there still was nothing that seemed particularly postcard worthy.
Dodie succeeded in spotting the Tourist Information, after we had passed the new, and ugly, rathaus. At tourist information we found that the city was mostly booked up, for some sort of a beer festival. We still got a room near the centre, but it cost almost twice what we had paid in other places.
On out way to the hotel we passed through the main intersection and looked down the main pedestrian street. Again, it was nothing earth shaking, by European standards. Once in our room, and reading the tourist stuff we learned that the big thing here is Richard Wagner (and his operas) and the Margravial Opera House and palaces. Each year there is a Wagner festival, in July I think. The festival, however, that is giving us the knock in the pocketbook on the hotel cost is the Maisel's Wheat Beer Festival. Apparently this beer is hot stuff in these parts!
We did not go back out into the town to see more of what it is all about, because we have a full day of that set up for tomorrow. However we did go to the hotel restaurant. Dodie ordered Saurbraten again, so now we are becoming experts. This one had a unique gingerbread sauce, which was sweet and interesting. The red cabbage too was on the sweet side. So this was a sweet version, as opposed to a sour version. Both were very good, and there is no clear preference yet. We will perhaps have to hurry up and try some more, because all too soon we may be out of the sautbraten zone and more into schnitzel land.
Jumping ahead just a bit, our next step after our day in Bayreuth is to hop back over to the Romantische Strasse - Book 4 of the Grampies tour by the books. To get there we will make our way to Nurnberg and then to Rothenburg. We had plotted this ways with Google Maps at home, but now we see there are a number of "official" radwegs that can take us there. Tonight I will try downloading GPS tracks to help us follow these radwegs. They have names like the Pegnitz, the Pegnitz-Tal, the Funf Flusse, and the Biberttal. If we go on any or all of these, we could logically expand our count of the number of "Books" that will make up the tour!
Today's ride: 64 km (40 miles)
Total: 1,444 km (897 miles)
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