Day 32: Dinkelsbuhl to Harburg

May 31, 2014

The quiet lake at our not so quiet campground - Dinkelsbuhl

If you bang into a Canadian in the street, they will apologise. That of course is a gross generalization, but generally, it's true. So yesterday and today the Canadian grampies were pushed around just a bit, and yes, they did nothing (much) about it. Now we are asking ourselves if we need to be so wimpy.

The first was at the post office yesterday. The lady behind the counter impatiently rushed Dodie as Dodie tried to figure out which grandkid souvenirs could fit into what sized standard box. Dodie ended up with a too large (and expensive) box. She then had to tape some kind of plastic padding inside to keep the contents from rattling around. The box comes with four pieces of tape for sealing. Having used up two, Dodie had to ask for some more for sealing. Only after a lot of apologetic asking did the lady finally disgorge two pieces of tape.

The second was last night. Adjacent to the tent ground two truckloads of volunteer firefighters were sitting by their trailers. They made a campfire and proceeded to talk and laugh loudly - until 4 a.m. ! The grampies did ... nothing.

Finally today in a bakery, noting that the number of bakery photos has been low in the blog of late, as we were making our reasonably substantial purchase of sandwiches and pastries I snapped a shot of the bread shelf. This triggered getting reprimanded for breaking a no photos rule. So, with the above two cases in the background, I said sarcastically to the lady "Are you afraid my family in Canada will use the photo to steal your bread arranging techniques?" The lady replied "Well maybe, and besides the boss says no photos". So I ... left it at that. However , I intend to write to the town tourism commission, and anyway - here is the secret bread photo, so there!

We started the day by leaving the campground and cruising through one of the five or so gates to the walled altstadt of Dinkelsbuhl. All around are standing beautifully decorated five story houses. There were also five bakeries in one block (it was my luck to choose the unfriendly one), and goodness knows how many in the whole place. The town brochure shows two dozen buildings, gates, towers, monasteries, and churches of interest to look at. However, being a little "Rothenburged" out, we merely did a quick cycle round. One thing we briefly checked out was the tower of the St George's church, which is open to be climbed. Later we learned that we are in the middle of a giant meteor crater and that this tower affords one of the best overviews of the thing. Oops - we passed.

Although Dinkelsbuhl is often compared to Rothenburg - both have complete walls and old towns within - we noticed a subtle difference that seemed in the end quite important. In Dinkelsbuhl, all buildings seem freshly, maybe unnaturally, decorated. Moreover, every building has the name of the business within written on the front in the same old Germanic script. It all seemed uber cute and forced. Dodie came up with a good analogy - if there would be a town in England where everything was called "Ye Olde" - like Ye Olde Pizza Shoppe and Ye Olde Muffler Repair. That's Dinkelsbuhl.

Another thing we noticed was that there is no pedestrial zone. That means that cars are always getting in the way of tourists who are on foot or bicycle. Worse, parking is permitted, so cars are stacked up in front of every otherwise picturesque shot. Why dress up the buildings so well only to spoil their appearance with a giant parking scene?

This is not to say that Dinkelsbuhl lacks real credentials - the darn place goes back to the 8th century, and most of the buildings are from the 13th to 16th century. This is the real thing. Maybe the Grampies were just a little Grumpy.

By the way, I checked back to our blog of three years ago to see where we camped in Donauworth. The entry for that day says the Grampies are Grumpy - again because of boors at a campground. Either the Grampies are always like that, or camping in this region is somehow always like that!

Here are two bakeries side by side, just two of many. We chose theone on the left.

Stork on a roof above Dinkelsbuhl. They also had a stork cam and a monitor at street level.

Cars messing up the view at Dinkelsbuhl. They also made it hard to get around by bike or foot.

The countryside out of Dinkelsbuhl continued with lush green farmland and gently folded hills. There were places where we pushed the bikes, to be sure, but overall it seemed fairly normal and enjoyable. Part of the reason was that we again plotted out some shortcuts that avoided the hillier bits of the official route. The ways we chose were perfectly safe and fine, reinforcing our suspicion that route planners sometimes just think hills are fun to put in.

A photo of a wall reconstruction, from a roadside display. Seemingly this wall was put there by the Romans to keep out riff raff, but the display did not explain about that (we think)

Erdbeeren schnitte remains dubious here. This one did have a graham crumb base and a layer of icing between two layers of white cake. Still looking for the really great ones we seem to remember!

Another typical path, with dodie in the distance and riders approaching

Some collectible tractors happened along the road

There is a radweg for everything. This one refers to the fact that this whole area is the scene of a meteor collision 15 million years ago. The crater has interesting minerals and land forms, and is the subject of the Ries national geological park here.

Nordlingen has nice buildings too, though not so concentrated as a Dinkelsbuhl. These are obscured by construction.

In principle we could have reached Donauworth, since hills and trail conditions were not too much of a barrier, but when we got to Harburg (17 km short of Donauworth) we were seduced by a guesthouse in the middle of the quaint little town by the Wornitz river. It is called the Gasthof zum Goldener Lamm. It is very reasonably priced and has large immaculate rooms. Interestingly, it was built in 1591 and we found a list showing each owner since that time. There are only 17 different families in the list. For example, th Bergmullers owned the place from 1790 all the way to 1900.

Despite the age and history of the place, our room is fresh and modern. For example, one thing I note each time in Europe is the quality of the plumbing. Look at this shower control: One knob for water volume, one for temperature. What could be simpler? And the unit serves as a shelf for your shampoo! Also look at the shower enclosure - the two glass doors seal with each other and with the floor by magnetic rubber squeegee seals. The area enclosed is large and the whole thing is both elegant and totally water tight. If you look over by the toilet, you may also see there is a large flush and a small flush button - of course!

The really advanced and logical shower control

Shower stall and toilet - German plumbing is the greatest (but there is never a bath tub!)

Today's ride: 61 km (38 miles)
Total: 1,780 km (1,105 miles)

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