August 10, 2024
To Munich.
Last stage of the tour.
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4 months ago
I woke up in the middle of the night last night and went to the window to see what I could see at 3am. I looked up at at the sky and was dazzled by the starry night, and I was enticed to give Sue a nudge as I new she'd really appreciate the light show; but, I thought better of it and enjoyed it on my own for a few quiet moments, picking out the few constellations and stars that I knew before going back to bed.
I went back to bed and had the craziest dream. I dreamt I was assigned to a new job and was placed in the craziest school with no structure, and the kids were running around behaving poorly as my colleagues seemed to not care at all. I got lost in the school and it quickly became a very scary place, and one that I didn't want to be in anymore, but I couldn't get out. At one point, I lost my class and looked frantically all over for them. No one seemed to care. I remembered asking to be reassigned back to my old school, but I was stuck in this crazy prison. At one point, I had to scale a sloping ladder suspended between two sections of the school hundreds of meters above the playground to access my class; and, I crawled across it with fear and feelings of certain doom.
Then, I thankfully woke up and realized it was all a bad dream and that I was still employed at the school that I love, and at the same school I will be returning to in September. I suppose heading back to work is lurking in my subconscious as summer draws to a close, and after over 22 years of teaching, I still have the 'teacher dreams'. If you are a teacher out there, or have any teachers in your life, you'll know what I mean.
But, I digress.
After breakfast, we crossed the Isar out of Bad Tölz and headed north towards Wolfratshausen along the Isarradweg cycle route. It was tranquil and quiet this morning as we rode out of town along the Isar, and the morning light shimmered and sparkled off of the river as we sailed along on smooth cycle paths and out of town. Soon after though, the route veered us off and tested our gravel riding skills once again for a good part of today's stage, taking us up and over the green hills, past remote Bavarian farms adorned with hanging geraniums, and through pasture land with grazing cattle chomping away oblivious to the crunching of our approaching tires.
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The gravel adventure continued until Wolfratshausen and at times, the gravel was very ridable and we've come to enjoy riding through the cool forests. But, there were also times when the gravel was not so good and when it became loose with larger round rocks scattered about, it made climbing more difficult and descending downright treacherous. But, on the bright side it's scenic, there are no cars, and it's always nice and shady and cool.
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Once past Wolfratshausen, we crossed the Isar and was caught by sounds of traditional Bavarian folk music. This both brought us back to our university days at the University of Waterloo, located just outside of Kitchener, Ontario, where the largest Oktoberfest outside of Germany happens each year. It attracts up to 700 000 people during the Oktoberfest week, and was a tradition that we both went to over the four years that we were going to University there. Good times, I must say. Kitchener Ontario, which was formerly known as Berlin, Ontario had a huge German immigrant population from the beginning of last century, and it still has a proud German heritage.
So, when we heard the music coming from under the bridge we peered over and saw this spectacle:
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It was quite the sight, and we watched as the men pried the boats away from shore using huge poles, and the oarsmen did there best to right the raft and get it going downstream. We watched them drift off and down the Isar before heading off ourselves.
As we cycled along, our route meandered away from the river for awhile, but when we did eventually veer back to the Isar, we passed the rafts once more and rode along side them for awhile before continuing our ride towards Munich. As we rode away the folk music faded into the distance behind us. What could be more fitting on our final day of riding into Munich?
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Getting into big cities by bike can be unpleasant. But, with Munich's incredible cycling infrastructure it wasn't bad at all. Munich is another wonderful bike crazy city, and is another place you better be on your toes; either as a pedestrian or a cyclist. There's a lot of bike traffic in this city and it was amazing to see how many of its citizens get around on a bicycle.
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When we went out for a walk around Munich, we found it to be too busy and too hot to really enjoy it. We both don't do well in crowds, so we escaped the Marienplatz area and went for a walk outside of the main tourist zone. We wandered around looking for a cool oasis to sit down and have a cold beer when we stumbled upon a shady park, and in the center was this incredible biergarten in the Botanischer Garten. It was perfect and we had an early dinner there and enjoyed the evening under the cool shade of trees in this lovely quiet park. I ordered stuffed potatoes and Susanna had a salad. We sat and shared our meals with each other.
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Today's ride: 60 km (37 miles)
Total: 1,312 km (815 miles)
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I was a teacher at one point in my life, a long time ago, and I still occasionally have scary teacher dreams!
More when we meet!
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Cheers, Michael
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