Day 27: Horlach to Lauf (near Nurnberg)

May 26, 2014

The more I looking around our guesthouse (Gasthaus Peter) in Horlach, the more impressed I was. It seemed to be a very new construction, and every detail was immaculate. It was kind of a solid, but modern style, for instance with solid marble staircase, and fine woodwork trim. The kitchen was all gleaming stainless steel, and of course the whole place was spotless throughout. I learned from the owner that the building was in fact ten years old. The family also runs a farm, so the whole operation is doubly impressive.

While I had the ear of the owner, I also took the opportunity to ask about fire wood. Throughout this trip (and previous ones) we have noticed how terribly neat the people are with stacking firewood. This comes from their general built in neatness, but they are also helped by a little trick. All the wood piles are comprised of split wood which is about one metre long. Long pieces are much easier to organize than the customary 14-18 inch bits we are always stacking at home.But my question was do the people all use one metre deep stoves? The answer, which I got today is that first off, the logs are bucked to exactly one metre, using some sort of measuring stick. No sort of approximate bucking, like we do. Next the rounds are split, using a vertical hydraulic splitter. No random flailing at the pieces with a maul, like we do. Finally, after a year or more of drying in neat stacks, the split rails are cut to length with a circular saw.

Stacked long pieces of wood.This is not the neatest or biggest stack, but the photo still shows the general idea.

Dodie mails postcards to the kids outside our gasthaus

The map we had yesterday showed that our stopping place was just north of a rather large forest. The name of the forest was the Veldensteiner. "Stein" means stone, and we soon learned why this was in the name. This is an area of what back home we might call "hoodoos" - columns of stone left behind by erosion. These make for an interesting landscape, and no doubt are enjoyed by rock climbers. The forest itself was extremely pleasant to cycle through, particularly as the weather was perfect. We noticed areas of selective cutting, which we felt did not affect the overall enjoyment of the forest. We surprised a fox in the middle of the road. He looked at us in horror for a bit, before scurrying off. A beautiful pond, with lilly pads, added to the overall peaceful impression.

Toward the end of the forest, our route began to loosely follow the Pegnitz river. The river would be our companion for the rest of the day. All along, spaced at about 2 km intervals were little villages. These were not quite like some idealized mountain or forest villages, with huddled crooked houses. Rather they had attractively clustered substantial and nice houses. It still made a pleasing impression.

At the town of Neuhaus, we happened to stop at a bakery - Backerei Fuhrlbeck. The girl behind the counter spoke no English at all, an ideal situation for trying out my one year old level German. I found out that though no sandwiches were on display, she could make us some. I understood what she proposed to put in, and told her that I preferred the buns with seeds on the outside. I also negotiated a mozzarella and tomato one for Dodie, who finds these to be highly yummy here.Just for research I got an erdbeeren schnitte to eat right away. An finally, two "danishes" for later. The danishes were for one, a quark tasche (cheese danish) and the other was a nut spiral (nuss schnecken). These just got tossed in the pack.

Hours and kms later they got pulled out. Wow! There is food, and there is art. Both of these were art. The cheese danish particularly. I have been a cheese danish fan for about 45 years. This one was the best ever. I was really sorry to not be there to shake the baker's hand. He or she was clearly a master. There was no email address on the bag. I guess the person will go uncongratulated. I have one more regret - there was also a muhn (poppyseed) danish there. I will never get to try it!

Today, as with yesterday, we were faced with the choice of following radweg signs on the road or following radweg tracks in our GPS. We did a combination, but all in all spent a certain amount of time either staring at the GPS or staring at the signs.On four occasions when we were doing this, a man on a bike would appear (not the same man of course) out of nowhere and ask if he could help. Two of them undertook to guide us for a few kms. These two spoke not a word of English, making it a little puzzling as to where we were going and just how long our guide intended to stick with us. It worked out, though, and we enjoyed making contact with a local person, no matter how limited the conversational exchange was.

One of the hoodoo like stones in the forest

Dodie checks out under the stone - looks like a great wild camp spot.

We are out of the forest and into fields

Neuhaus says it is the land of castles, caves, valleys, and mills

But is seems to be the land of breweries

This was just purely a research schnitte. This one seems really plain, with plain white cake and not much quarky filling.

The weather forecasts have been threatening big storms for days, and toward the end of this day dark clouds and some raindrops had us scurrying to put on our rain gear. Since we are now totally spoiled rotten, these little drops also put us in mind of again looking for a guesthouse. When we got to the town of Lauf, about 15 km out of Nurnberg, we told ourselves that if we would fall over a guesthouse right on route that looked good, we would reluctantly consider going in.

Our first guide of the day leads the way

We have joined the third Radweg of this segment of the tour

Lauf had a lot of traffic going through it, cars we guessed were commuting out of Nurnberg. But there was a stone tower gate (the Hersbrucker Tor) leading into a pedestrian only old town. We ducked through the Tor and found ourselves in a large market area that featured the old rathaus, the Johanniskirche, and down by the river, and old mill and something called the Judenturm - Jewish tower. Also in the market area were several guest houses, all in beautiful and interesting original buildings. The town itself dates from the 12th century, but the buildings around now are new construction - more like from the 16th century! We randomly chose the Hotel Wilder Mann, not because their wild man logo looked like me!

I am not quite sure if the building is from 1414 or 1628, but it is old! Dodie loves it, and me too, though I admit to being just a little spooked, threading my way around medieval balconies and corridors trying to make my way back to our room. There is only one staffer, an old old lady. She is actually very nice. There is nothing (nothing!) to be spooked about here!

We left our room (threading our way, and so forth) and went out for a look at the old town. The key bits are the old rathaus, the church, the mill, the tower, and so forth. We picked up pamphlets discusssing each one, but all are in German and we have made little headway with them. I checked the internet - it is all covered there - in German!

I can give you the overall impression though - old, and restored to be beautiful. Have a look at the photos.

One other thing about our old town walk - eis. While a fancy eis cup costs 5-6 euros, the normal price per scoop in a sugar cone is 1 euro. We are generally talking about "gelato" here. My previous favourite flavour was strachiatella, but now I have switched over to Bacio - that is chocolate hazlenut. There are at least three eis places on our block here!

Oh, it is pouring rain now. We are quite glad we are not in the tent this time!

Epilog - about 9:30 p.m. , now it is really pouring and thundering. Dodie is commenting that it is way better to be inside, writing the blog in the warm and dry, than to be out in the tent. I asked her if she was not spooked by the thunder and rain, in this old castle like building. "Not as spooked as being out in the rain", was her practical reply.

Outside Lauf, heavy traffic must be related to Nurnberg. However, following the German rule, there is always a bikeway beside the road, so the traffic is not a concern for us.

We have also inadvertently joined the Pan Europe radweg!

Leder (leather) hosen in a store window. These cost about $200

Today's ride: 59 km (37 miles)
Total: 1,546 km (960 miles)

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