Day 85: Neckarhausen to Waldenbuch to Stuttgart (Wangen)

July 23, 2014

I got up just a little early, to have a quiet word with the GPS about Waldenbuch. Waldenbuch is the home of Ritter Sport, the chocolate company. In the past five years, especially, Ritter chocolate has become generally available in US and Canadian supermarkets. That has made for a reliable supply of good chocolate, in a sea of garbage. Ritter has the special practice of coming up with myriad flavours - twelve new ones per year, I think. Most of these are not seen in North America, so it's special to be see what all they have over here.

Anyway, Waldenbuch is near Stuttgart, and right now, so are we!

So the GPS said "Whaa, it's lucky you decided to ask about Waldenbuch right now, because to get there you have to change your direction right now and follow a wiggly route into the hills." I broke the news to Dodie, who had really wanted to go to Ritter. But the thing is, one can not set a GPS and just go for it on a bike, the way you can in a car. The difference is that the GPS can calmly take you over a mountain, as long as the route is safe. And it can take you on a trip that will take longer than its battery will last, leaving you stranded out there. Finally, if it speaks the turns, you likely will not hear it in traffic, and if you look at the screen for turns, you likely will not see it, in the sun. GPS is great for letting you know if you are still on a track, or telling you where you are - for matching to your paper map. But, take me cold turkey into the never never? Risky.

The Green elastic shows Waldenbuch, where we wanted to go, and the purple shows where we were. It looks like a simple hop looked at like this, but it was tricky on the ground.

Part of the route suggested by the GPS. Note how it goes into the green mountain areas

At breakfast, I asked the guest house lady about a possible map that would cover Waldenbuch. And, the angel came up with one! It showed that rather than jump right off over the hills, we could go over to where the Aich River enters the Neckar, and then basically follow the Aich back to Waldenbuch. Hooray!

By the way, in talking to the lady, I said "Look, I can follow the Aich". "Never heard of it", she said. "But, it's two km from here! the Aich, A-I-C-H" I said. "Hans", she called to her colleague, "Have you ever heard of the Aich?". "No such thing", he replied.

The thing is, I was saying Aich: "ache". Finally the light went on: "eye-ch!" she exclaimed, "of course!". I will never learn to speak to these people!

Anyway, whatever you call it, we followed it. Sort of. It's never as simple as it looks. There were still lots of little twists and turns, that the GPS had to iron out, by showing us where we really were. And there was construction to work around. We also found that , as usual, there were radwegs in the area. We followed one called the "museum weg" that was going our way. The only thing, radwegs, like GPS routes, think little of going over mountains or on wet gravel. So we did some pushing up, and some wading through as well.

The river is still high,but not raging. Here you can see that the water has receded.

Construction, grrr, usually screws us up

Look, since this is Germany, there is usually a bike way to get there.

Waldenbuch turned out to be an old and handsome town. We had expected, though, that because Ritter was so famous and important to us, that there would be lots of signs around town pointing to the factory. Not at all. We had to send Dodie into the rathaus for directions. (It seems "someone" made an error that had the GPS pointing to the wrong place around Waldenbuch as the factory location. No one has yet taken responsibility for this glitch.) (Dodie adds here - only one of us knows how to set a destination, and it isn't her!)

Ritter has set up a very nice building, that contains an extensive display on how chocolate is made and on the company history, plus a film (German only) on the same subject. Then there is the factory store, which is an education in itself. There on display is the full range of products, including "test" flavours. Not sure if these test ones are failures, coming soon, or just under consideration. Remarkably, the standard price for the standard 100g size is .69 euros. and seconds or bulk packs can bring the price down to .49! Regrettably we really could not buy much, because of the heat. What we did buy was in fact a gooey mess by evening.

We were impressed by many of the things at Ritter. Alfred Ritter, the grandson of the founder and current CEO for example, was really cute and had a big head of hair in his youth. Now older, he is really cute and has a big head of hair. He opposes GMOs and nuclear power. We are not sure if Ritter chocolate can be called "fair trade", but it seems likely.

The display building includes a chocolate workshop, where you can make your own Ritter bar. Dodie tried to get us in there. Two glitches, though: (1) You have to be a kid (strike one) and (2) You have to reserve on the internet (strike two). Oh well, we made friends with some kids who had done it - and that was fun too. One of them gave us a chocolate bar - though not one of the self made ones!

Stained glass produces a pattern of Ritter's typical colours

Look Arthur, we did not buy you this mouse pad!

Dodie tries to talk our way in to the chocolate lab

Ritter also seems allied with this brand of biscuits

The Neckar near Stuttgart starts ot look like this - steep banks of vines

The start of the 5 km long Mercedes factory complex

Here's a chance to buy a freshly made Mercedes. Surprisingly economical at 43,000 euros

Four stars. Actually, a US Best Western offers twice the room and equipment at half the price. However, paraphrasing Penny to Sheldon, in Big Bang Theory: **You're not IN the US, Steve!**

Today's ride: 68 km (42 miles)
Total: 4,271 km (2,652 miles)

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