Day 58: Seibersdorf to Mittersgars

June 26, 2014

Based on the idea that the way you call into the forest is how the echo answers (oft expressed by Dodie's dad), I tried communicating with the guest house lady better - by looking directly at her and trying to get and read some expression. This was unsuccessful. We felt a little better, though, because there turned out to be another guest - German speaking - and he did not seem to get a much warmer reception. He did, however, succeed in prying a hard boiled egg from the lady. We were not offered this, and didn't have the energy to ask. Instead we scraped by with the (by German standards) limited selection of cheeses, sausage, yogurt, buns, and fruit.

A few kms down the road we came to Marktl, which would have been our camping stop had we not stumbled on the guest house. We knew from our map that Marktl is the birthplace of Joseph Ratzinger, who became Pope Benedict XVI in 2005, the first German born pope in 428 years.

As we have visited church after church on the tour, we have picked up some of their literature - both free and by donation or for sale. Usually we like the guides to the art treasures in the churches, or the construction history. But a special category is Pope pictures, or as I call them, Pope trading cards. Only quite recent popes seem to be referenced in churches. Worse, to this point we did not have a Benedict XVI. So our minimum objective in Marktl was to remedy that.

We were not sure what we would find in Marktl in terms of Pope Benedict, so we had a close look at a panel outside of town that had some Pope photos. One that particularly caught our eye was the Pope admiring what looked like a 20 foot tall cigar. Weird.

We had thought that we would have to leave the marked radweg to explore the town, but in fact it led us right to the church where Benedict had been baptised. The baptismal font had also been pictured on the panel outside of town. We were the only ones in the church, and were free to look around and to check out the literature on offer. This included not only a Pope Benedict card, but a rare double pope one - being Benedict and Francis together. In addition, there were Benedict stickers - in three languages - and a book we bought called Benedict - Church Leader : Facts Pictures Feelings.

Finally, along one wall we found a pictorial review for Benedict's visit to Marktl in 2006. He came complete with Popemobile and was met by crowds. So now we could see the church interior which we had quietly toured, populated by scads of senior clerics and other people.

We walked out of the church, intent on checking out the bakery next door, which we assumed would be the Pope's bakery. We quickly were able to scope out the whole area, though. Across the way was the actual birth house, and near it was city hall, featuring a Pope souvenir store. An adjacent building housed a general museum, with a special Pope section. So in fact, this was a very convenient Pope central. In the city hall was a small theatre and film about the Pope. This included a video tour of the birth house - saving us some time and the admission fee! The souvenir shop had yet another Pope sticker, which we naturally snapped up. Also on offer for cyclists was a detailed map and description of the Benediktweg, which leads you around important sites in Benedict's life in Bavaria.

At the city hall and then at the bakery our reception was so different from that of the guest house. The bakery lady had been to Canada several times, and reminisced about her trips, while asking us about our route in detail. Then when I stood on the steps for the "Pope's bakery" for Dodie to take my photo with some presumed Pope pastries. the lady came out and put a bottle of Pope beer in my hand, to enhance the effect. She then lined Dodie and I up for a photo on her iPhone.

So we left Marktl with much more than the hoped for one Pope picture - both in terms of weight of other paper and in the friendliness of our reception in the town.

The baptismal font at the Pope's church in Marktl

A crowd admires the "cigar" (actually - meant to represent a scroll)

The Popemobile - in front of the bakery - with the yellow and awning. In a photo below you will see me at the same bakery

People of Marktl with a banner showing the famous baptismal font

My shot today of the rather lonely birth house and cigar statue

Cigar detail - it is actually meant to be a scroll with religious symbols

See the bakery and the pope's church behind

Steve at the pope's bakery, holding some Pope Beer and pastry.

Now came the time to actually make some progress up the river. Again we found quite a mix of paved path, gravel path, dirt road, etc. with things mostly level, but with a fair number of short hills as well. The signage at first was good, but then it devolved to a confusing mix of signs that said Inntal Radweg (Inn valley) and /or Innschliefe. We had no idea what schleife meant. Our dictionary now gives us "lanyard, loop, kink, and bow". I guess they meant "Loop", but what did that mean?

Well, no matter, really, because in due course even these signs became erratic or, we felt, pointing in the wrong directions. Hooray for our Bikeline maps, GPS, and bikeline track, because without that we would be nowhere!

FLASH: As I sit here typing this after 9 p.m. in the little town of Mittergars, I hear singing coming from "downtown". I assume that means Germany beat the US in their world cup soccer match!

Something else with the potential to put us nowhere was my chain. Yesterday I had replaced the chains on both bikes. For the past five years I have used chains with the "quick link", but the Shimano chains on offer at Passau were of the "drive the pin in" type. Even though I had the quick links off the old chains, and some spares too, I decided to go along with Shimano's design and drive the link. This is no big deal, though you want to drive the pin to be just flush with the plates on either side of the chain. It's easy if your chain tool is half decent, hold the chain square, and has an unbent driving pin. My chain tool is not bad, though very small.

So I was surprised at mid day to find the chain skipping, and on looking to see that a pin (presumably the joining pin) had backed itself out enough to have the side plate start to distort. Urrrpph. I decided to drive out the offending pin and one more, and to make the join with the quick link. This too is no big deal, but you do have to squeeze the assembly together and pull to snap things into place. Well, they refused to snap no matter how hard I squeezed. It could be that not all quick links, or no quick links, are compatible with this Shimano chain. Readers - any comments?

So then I needed to reconfigure things to be able to drive a pin through to join the chain. It takes a little bit of patience and care and the whole chain fooling around session took up 45 minutes at trailside. During this time, to here credit, Dodie sat on her stool with the computer - reading Crazyguy forums - and not once said "What are you dooooing??". Not so much to the credit of our fellow cyclists, only one stopped to ask the same question. This happened when the chain was already back together. The fellow cyclist was from Netherlands, and we had fun learning about where he had cycled this time and would cycle next. Presumably retired, like us, he intended to visit each continent, save Antarctica. Since he had already been to Canada, we could not convince him to come visit us - at least not until he scratches Australia and Asia off his list.

With the chain presumably now fixed, we pedalled smoothly off. But the map pages - for many sheets ahead - showed no camping. So we began to think wild camp, and for wild camp we need to have enough water to cook two meals, make tea and coffee, wash dishes, etc. That is why when we passed a man watering his garden with a hose (not the watering can so commonly used here) we stopped to ask for a fillup. The man very kindly went to the house for the water, but also in the yard there was a pipe continuously gushing water. He explained that this was a spring, of excellent quality, and he proudly presented us with our bottle filled with this water.

The man turned out to be 84. He told us how in 1962 he had gone to England and stayed two years, but returned to take over the farm from his Dad. He seemed to rather regret not having stayed to finish school and work in England. We really enjoyed talking to this man, who with his practical attitudes, somewhat advanced years, and German accent rather reminded us of Dodie's dad, who we loved so dearly. The man sent us finally on our way, with a pat on the arm, sincere best wishes, and some final words about the path up ahead. Again, so much different from the guest house lady.

We continued to rely mainly on the GPS and Bikeline maps to make our way up the Inn. Despite now having water, keeping our eyes open for wild camp possibilities did not turn up anything promising. So again we began to think guesthouse. In the town of Jettenbach we across one - amazingly big - huge - part of a farm. We cycled around it, looking for a likely front entry, and finally found it. We walked in, and in a repeat scenario hallooed all up and down the immediate vicinity. We were relieved when a young man came in, but he explained (in German only) that his parents were on vacation and that therefore the place was not in operation. He recommended we try the next town - Mittergars.

In Mittergars we followed a sign and it led us by the fire department, where people had gathered to watch the soccer game. We asked one about a guest room, and he directed up a hill to the far end of town. There, we did find a convivial older couple advertising a spare room, but they said three people had just come and there was now no room. We asked if we could set up our tent in the yard of their large property. This threw them for a loop. It was just too far outside their commn practice to be able to deal with it. However, they did phone in to town and found that the other room was free. This other room was in the home of Renate and Hans Grill, whose place is ...just around the corner from the fire hall!

The "room" we are talking about is actually four rooms in the second floor of the house. There is a kitchen, living room, bedroom, and bathroom. We actually have something like that at our place in Canada, but to our shame, the size and construction quality here is 300 percent better. We are walking around on tiptoe, not wanting to mess up any part of this immaculate suite.

There is also a large bin of radweg maps here. We are going crazy thinking of all the cycling we could do. One map that we noticed, for example, is for the Jakobsweg, through Kufstein and France, to Spain. When we get a spare moment some month, we will check it out: www.jakobus-weg.de

Poor signage sometimes had us relying heavily on the GPS. We would never have entered this jungle without it.

When we saw this we laughed. Here were the Europeans trying to blame the bad road on non-existent beavers. Dodie said "oh sure, and maybe the beavers are trying to dam the Inn River!"

Where the Isen joins the Inn, we stopped for lunch. Naturally there is an "Isental" radweg, but we have not investigted where it goes (other than, obviously, back up the Isen).

Look at this tub/shower: The shower head has both a high and a low mount, the bathtub plug is controlled by turniing the big silver knob, if you pull up on another know the bath fills from near the overflow drain (out of sight on the left), and there is a safety handle, plus glass shower doors.

Today's ride: 66 km (41 miles)
Total: 3,041 km (1,888 miles)

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