September 8, 1999
To Wasserburg
The day was dominated by the conclusion to the search for Rachael’s glasses. After breakfast we returned to the information center, which sadly did not have them but advised us to try the police to see if they had been turned in to them. We did so with little hope, and were briefly encouraged by hearing that a pair had been turned in - but as it happened, they weren’t Rachael’s and had been turned in four days earlier anyway. Back to the information center for one last try (the person from the night before had arrived by now); but again without success.
Then, to the optometrist across the street to see how long it would take to make a new pair (at least 2 days). Finally, resigned but very disappointed, we biked over to a less expensive optometrist we’d seen to purchase a pair of sunglasses for eye protection.
Astonishingly, at the point that we had finally given up, I found the missing glasses while pumping up the tires. They had apparently dropped from Rachael’s helmet and had perched on top of Rachael’s bottom bracket, where they had remained wedged against the frame through all of our wanderings through the city’s cobblestone streets searching for them. It’s the most amazing lost article story I can recall.
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The rest of the day was a pleasant, mostly flat ride up the Inn to Wassurburg, mostly along car-free cycle paths. As we moved further north the quality of the path gradually degraded, and for long stretches were unpaved by the end of the day.
For lunch we stopped for large ice cream desserts in a cafe in a village west of the Chiemsee, debating how to proceed. The plan had been to spend a day on a side trip to the Chiemsee, but we eventually abandoned this idea when we had difficulty finding the bike path and decided to bank another day for exploring the Salzkammergut.
Wassenburg, where we stopped for the night, is a small, very attractive town defined by its placement in a tight U-shaped bend of the Inn. Much of its medieval architecture, including some of its original town walls, is still intact.
Two memories of Wassenburg stand out: a fine Italian meal at a street-side cafe in the pedestrian district; and a humiliating episode at our hotel. Misunderstanding the attendant, I thought she had instructed us to bring the bikes in theough the back entrance and balance them on the stairwell, as we had once done in Heidelberg - which we did, again using bungi cords to hold them to the railing after unloading the bags and carrying them up a steep flight of stairs.
However, she’d actually meant for us to carry them down to the basement through a door at the base of the stairs, where we could just wheel them in directly. Very embarrassing. Oh well - at least our room was very nice, with a fine view across the river.
Today's ride: 70 km (43 miles)
Total: 787 km (489 miles)
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