To Konstanz.

August 2, 2024

An relaxed and easy day.

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Good morning Friday, August 2nd from the window of our room at Garni-Hotel Muhletal in Stein-am-Rhein.

The Garni-Hotel Muhletal was fine for a one night stay. But, just for one night. It was located just outside the Altstadt, so it was convenient in that way. Maybe it was the scratchy burlap sheets, or perhaps the fireworks that went into the wee hours of the night celebrating the national holiday, or maybe the drunken young people singing to the moon, or to top things off, the church bells that chimed every quarter hour all night long. That's every fifteen minutes folks~! So, one member of the team did not get a great sleep. But, with only a 30 kms to ride to Konstanz, a horrible sleep didn't take away from the incredible riding day we had today.

Crossing the Rhine from the north bank to the south at Steim-am-Rhein. A beautiful morning for a bike ride.

After the most meager breakfast so far on the tour, we pushed off and crossed the Rhine to the south bank, following signage for Kreuzlingen. Kreuzlingen is the Swiss town across the border from Konstanz and today we mainly rode along beautiful separated cycle paths through a landscape of rolling green hills. The wonderful thing about riding in Switzerland, is the quality of their smooth tarmacked roads and cycle paths. We've never ridden such smooth roads anywhere and we seemed to roll along today with the kilometers ticking by without much effort.

Looking east in the direction we are headed today. As we follow the Rhine upstream towards Konstanz, the river began to broaden into the Untersee; a large lake before becoming the greater Bodensee after Konstanz.

This is a view looking downriver, with the Rhine flowing away from you.

The landscape in this part of the German-Swiss border is truly beautiful with rolling hills with forested peaks, and the lower slopes dedicated to a variety of crops. Along the way we rode past well tended farms growing a variety crops including: corn, carrots, turnips, apples, pears, beets, asparagus, onion, potatoes, raspberries and blueberries. As we cycled along, we'd yell out to each other the crops that we were passing. It was a fun game to play along the way.

Some excellent gravel paths that wove beside recently shorn hay fields.

Today was idyllic riding and we really took our time today. There was really no rush because our hotel check in was not until four o'clock and this gave of plenty of time to stop and take it all in. As we passed acres of pear crops, I stopped to give one a good squeeze just to see if it was ripe. I knew it was wishful thinking for pears to be ready this early, but my curiosity got the better of me. So, there was no pilfering of pears today. If it was September, I'd probably have a few stashed in my panniers.

But, that wasn't really necessary. As we climbed over a hump in the road and came around a bend, we saw a little stand perched above the cycle path. Being curious people, we had to stop to take a look.

What this little honor-stand was selling was apple pear cider!

It was an honor-system apple-pear cider stand! There were super chilled bottles of the cider in the cooler. There was a bin for clean glasses, and a bin for used glasses. There was a sign that explained that the cider came from there farm and contained 70% apple juice 20% pear juice and 10% spring water. We used google lens to translate the signage for us. Each glass was 1.50

We deposited our three Euros into the coin slot of the large yellow steel barrel in the photo above and poured our allowance of cider. It was ice cold, not too sweet and truly tasted of fresh apples and pears, and it really perked up one member of our team today like some sort of miracle elixir. Giddy up.

You can see the cooler below and separate bins for clean and used glasses on the table. There's also instructions on the table with a QR code.

Before leaving Stein-am-Rhein this morning, I proposed that we stop along the way for a swim. Susanna agreed. As we rode along, I had totally forgotten about this deal until passing what looked to be a really special place to stop. Sue hollered from behind, "Do you want to stop here for swim?"

My immediate thought was to just keep riding the last 10kms to Konstanz. Sometimes I have a one track mind. But Sue, at a 10:1 ratio, has much better ideas and intuition than I do, hands down. So, we stopped, locked up the bikes, grabbed our swim gear and headed towards the cafe as the day was beginning to heat up.

This was a beautiful spot, and we weren't sure whether this was a privately run swim club or a public one. Sometimes in Europe, there are private river front or beach front businesses that charge an entrance fee to access the beach and services provided. This looked to be one of them, but it wasn't. When we entered, we found a well-appointed public space with an excellent cafe serving coffee, food, baked goods, beer and wine with a beautiful patio with seating under large patio umbrellas. There was also a small sandy beach, changing areas, free lockers, washrooms, and a covered kids wading pool. A long pier also protruded into the river where you could easily dive into the Rhine.

This is a pubic beach in Europe. Amazing.

The blue doors on the left are bathrooms and change rooms, as well as paddle board rentals.

I read on the chalkboard that the Rhine was 23 degrees today. Pretty warm, I thought.

Sue and I both enjoyed this break in the ride.

After our swim we sat on the dock and let the morning sun dry us off, and we thanked our lucky stars for being able to spend another summer touring and adventuring together in Europe. Our cups runneth over.

Once we felt that we were adequately dried enough to put back on our cycling kit, we strolled back to the bikes and Sue commented, "I feel so relaxed now." This was true. The swim had jellied our legs for the remaining ten kilometer slow cruise into Konstanz.

Reaching the Bodensee. Konstanz. The statue I am looking at is Imperia. According to WIKI: The concrete statue is 9 metres high, weighs 18 tonnes ), and stands on a pedestal that rotates around its axis once every four minutes. It was created by Peter Lenk and clandestinely erected in 1993. The erection of the statue caused controversy, but it was on the private property of a rail company that did not object to its presence. Eventually, it became a widely-known landmark of Konstanz.

We're still a few hours early before check in. So, we dropped off our panniers and thought we'd go for a ride.

Once we dropped off our gear at the hotel, we had a quick sandwich in the park and set off for the 'island' of Reichenau, just about 12kms west of Konstanz sitting in the Untersee.

Before moving along with this story, I have to mention that Konstanz is another cycle crazy city, with an array of incredible cycling infrastructure. This is a city that is meant to move people on bikes, and you better be on your toes because cyclists move fast and furious around this city. The cyclists don't mess around here, and they really fly around on the separated cycle throughways through the city. Pedestrians beware! I worry about tourists from places without this kind of experience with cycling infrastructure who may wander or walk right out into this fast moving cycle traffic. Take it from us. When we entered the outskirts of the city, we were whisked away on a direct and well used cycle highway right into the Altstadt with cyclists flying by at high speeds. It was pretty amazing, and at the same time unnerving. And, that's coming from our home city of Vancouver, which is another cycling crazy city.

So, our ride to Reichenau was pretty much kyboshed during the last bites of our sandwiches in the park as the sky darkened and thunder erupted. Form the looks of things, the storm was in the direction we were headed, so we scraped our plans and headed back towards the Altstadt. Good thing too because before long, the sky opened up and humans scurried everywhere seeking shelter with surprised expressions on their faces as if saying to themselves, "How is this happening?" Look up to the sky and clouds every once in a while people!

This was the cell that passed over the city. It was pretty intense. Sue and I sought shelter in the local grocery store. It was like a firehose was sprayed from the sky.

The same cell moving off into the Bodensee. Here, I'm experimenting with some editing features on the camera of my phone.

So. To end the day we had shared a great pizza and salad for dinner. I watched a bit of the Olympics while working on this journal, and now it's time to wrap this day all up.

Tomorrow we take the ferry across to the north side of the Bodensee on our way to Lindau. Night night.

Today's ride: 32 km (20 miles)
Total: 943 km (586 miles)

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Elmar KlukasWill you be riding around Der Bodensee?
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2 months ago

Patrick O'HaraHi Elmar. We're actually on the ferry to ride the north shore of Der Bodensee as we speak.
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2 months ago