Hey, wait! How did I get a day behind again? Why does this keep happening to me??
We’ll catch up here and now, on our ride to Augsburg. Not much of note along the way - just a drop to the Danube (we didn’t see that coming!), and a climb away. And another beautiful day of pre-autumn weather, the ninth straight. Another stork. A cathedral. We (Rachael) did the laundry. A nice Italian dinner. No flat tires, for the ninth straight day. Hmm - 9 days of sun, 9 days unflattened. Coincidence?
That about covers it, I think.
Oh, wait. There was that unfortunate and messy incident at breakfast when Rachael cracked a fully raw egg that she’d picked up from the basket in the fridge, thinking it was hard boiled. We don’t want to forget that.
And there was Rachael’s walk across the bridge to the pharmacist after breakfast, looking for a salve for the itching of a bee sting she got two days back when one flew into her cycling jersey and got mad when he couldn’t escape. She reacts badly to bee stings and has developed a large red splotch about six inches across. Hopefully it will improve soon, but in the meantime we’ve boned up again on the symptoms of anaphylactic shock so we know what to watch out for.
A few more shots of Harburg, perhaps even prettier in the morning light.
Along the Wörnitz. We’ll follow it south for the next ten miles - a beautiful ride. As we drop I reflect on the fact that we must be dropping toward the Danube, and that we must have crossed the watershed into the Danube basin back in the hills between Rothenburg and Dinkelsbuhl.
Kathleen JonesBack in the day, the powers that be would put a church or a castle on atop a hill or rock, like so. Nowadays that rock would be bristling with about 10 radio, TV and cellular antennae. Which do we prefer?
Scott AndersonTo Kathleen JonesYou’re right, a cellphone tower would be much more romantic. A shame they hadn’t been invented yet. I don’t think that’s a satellite dish though - my theory is that those are lights for illuminating the chapel at night. Reply to this comment 3 years ago
Kathleen JonesTo Scott AndersonI was thinking the bright white thing that’s lower right center might be a dish. Reply to this comment 3 years ago
There’s a small ridge in our path as we approach Donauworth. I’m mentally gearing up for a climb when we round the bend and find the biker’s best friend. Tunnel!
The Danube! I was shocked to be waiting for the light to change and saw the sign on the bridge ahead. I thought we’d cross it further south, but obviously hadn’t been thinking about it. Huh - I wonder where Donauworth got its name?
We’re on the Via Claudia Augusta for a short ways. If we weren’t so stuck on seeing Salzburg again we could just keep following it south and be in Italy in no time.
Another stork, one of a pair scavenging out in a newly mown field again. Rachael spotted these as she did the previous pair, and is now the designated stork spotter for the team. I knew there was a reason we brought her along!
The owl and the pussycat? The great cathedral at Augsburg deserves more coverage than this, but not this morning. We’ll be back some day when we’re waiting out the rains.
