Day 73: Kelheim to Nittenau

June 24, 2022

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We open today's story with the traditional view from our window. It's quite nice, with Kelheim over there, and the Altmuhl in the foreground.

We could say it was great that the guesthouse gave us a room with such a nice view, and no doubt that is how they see it. But the room has another, sinister side. The window you are looking from is the only one in the small room, and if you want any air at all, the window has to be open. Now if you look out the window and down, you see that the room is above the restaurant/beer garden. This not only means a lot of animated talking, but also smoking.

So for the rant part - last night, as on other nights, the loud talkers/smokers assembled about 6 p.m., and presumably working in shifts, kept it up until 1 a.m., or whenever it was that we fell into an exhausted, gasping, stupor.

We have now already booked our remaining nights, but we are still thinking about trying to make sure that the guesthouses put us in the most boring back rooms they have, away from all the fun. What old fogies!

I cast a critical eye on our guesthouse, and though the photo does not show it well, the darn thing is actually abut 1/2 block long! Surely in all that there was a quiet smoke free dungeon they could have stored us in?

The included breakfast was set for 7:30 or 7:45, depending on who you talked to. Those times were late for us, because we had a ways to go, and the forecast was threatening heavy rain in the afternoon. So we decided to extricate our bikes from the garage, fully pack them, and be quite ready to go as soon as breakfast would appear.

Carrying our luggage through the lobby at around 7:15, the place was dead quiet, and I had to use my key to unlock the front door to get out. At 7:25 we were ready to leave, but a lady had appeared and had begun to set out the relatively meagre breakfast supplies. We thought about just taking off, but our GPS could not find any breakfast alternatives on route in a reasonable distance. By now, other cyclists were appearing downstairs, and we collectively pressured the lady into allowing us to dig in to what was out.

We set out soon thereafter, with the track following the Altmuhl. The Altmuhl arrives from the north, and it joined the Donau just a short ways down from our guest house.

Another great cycle touring meetup - the Altmuhl joined the Donau here.

Now rolling beside the Donau, we observed a campground, of the type that always puzzles us as Canadians. People are content to just park their RVs, or put their tents on a piece of grass that does not have an RV on it. Sure Canada has "RV parks", but it also has some more pleasant "campgrounds".

Of course, you can also sleep nearby in your boat. One thing this campground had, not commonly found in Canada, was a restaurant.

We crossed a bridge that was graced by this mermaid. Amelia, are you still into mermaids?

Carved into the rock beside the path was this plaque. Google Translate, set for Latin, could not make much sense of it. But two lions opposite were standing (sitting) guard opposite. As usual, stone lions look rather goofy.

About 17 km down the line we approached Bad Abbach. Dodie pointed out that I should be impressed, because the schloss was flying a pennant. Yes, I was impressed, though what the pennant represented is not clear.

We entered the walking street of Bad Abbach, and found it to be pleasant, but relatively plain. It did have a bakery, though. Although we now did not particularly need any additional food, we reflexively went in. Actually as is customary, we sent Dodie in. But soon I decided to follow, just for a photo of the possible many goodies. But Dodie was already on her way out, saying not to bother because the selection was weak. Even so, our bags did get weighed down by some "emergency" schnitten.

Back out on the trail we encountered a stacked wood pile, clearly set for burning. "Oh look", said I, "for Halloween". "They don't have Halloween here, silly", noted Dodie. We found a sign, that did not explain much. But the next stack and its sign gave us to understand that these fires would commemorate John the Baptist, on the eve and day of his saint's day. The setting of fires at this time has been going on since the 12th century, though putting a "witch" at the top of the pyre did not come in until the 20th century.

Just by virtue of being stuck in our own culture, we had always assumed that St. Jean Baptiste day was a uniquely Quebec thing, where it is also known as Fête Nationale. In truth, Catholics have celebrated John and the Soltice this way world wide for ages.

We had a short time of peacefully pedalling the paved, flat path by the river, observing crops, and rock formations by the shore.

But then we encountered a real horde of cyclists, all wearing the same shirts. They were about 20 in number, swarming over the path in twos and threes. Dodie yelped in alarm, as they nearly pushed her off the path. Their response was to mock her, repeating the yelp.

Research tonight shows that these were some sort of religious-pilgrim oriented tourists. Dodie warns that God will smite them for their inconsideration.

On a more soothing note, we add here (for Scott) some beehives. The beekeepers must have known they would catch our attention, for they put up some explanatory signs.

Another event along this section of trail was an encounter with a British (from Bristol) couple who were going our way and passed us. But they stopped and walked back to chat, for they said they had seen us on the ferry yesterday. It turned into one of those well known cyclist gab fests, in which you compare were you came from and where you are going, then extending to other routes that have been done in past years, and eventually degenerating to coverage of family, gardening, and any other topic there is, until someone gets anxious to leave. Typically this happens in the 20 to 30 minute window.

Anyway, these 62 year olds were recently retired, and were camping, and cycling push bikes the entire EV 6, from the Atlantic to the Black Sea. Cool!

One minute we were placidly cycling alongside the Donau on a nice path, and then suddenly we were in a city, being Regensburg. This new reality leapt out at us in the form of a guy in a big black BMW that hung a left turn, directly at/in front of Dodie. Dodie slammed on those finely tuned Magura brakes, and jolted to a stop as the guy slid on by. We both took to gesticulating wildly and shouting at the guy, who had come to a stop just beyond. To our surprise, he rolled down his window and began hurling insults (in German) back along the road. It was such a clear case of him being in the wrong, we were puzzled by his aggressive behaviour.

But ok, we gathered our wits and carried on in the town. Almost immediately I was aware of a bus, snorting its way on my tail.

It looked like this:

We pulled over onto the sidewalk, and soon the first bus was replaced by another - this one:

We took shelter under a nearby tree, because now it was also time to put on our rain pants, since the rain had intensified. Our tree shelter was already occupied by three cyclists, who were trying to eat their sandwiches. Dodie stumbled against one as she balanced on one leg, with the pants. So he gave her a supporting arm, and a sympathetic ear as she explained about balance problems after concussion. This interlude under the tree was comforting, as we were already getting bad vibes from the town. The sympathetic cyclist, of course, was not from this place.

We knew that Regensburg had a fine altstadt and ancient cathedral, but we decided not to go looking for it. The experience with the BMW and the buses was part of it, but with the rain we also had an interest in just getting to our destination. It seems we have taken this tack before. Looking up our other visit here, in 2012, it seems we focussed on one bakery we liked.

Our account from then is frustrating, because it refers to the stupendous cathedral only as right across from the bakery. We also got some bratwurst and left town with this dismissive summary:

"Our appreciation of this extensive town having been completed by one bakery, one wurst stand, and one closed museum, we hustled over the 2000 year old stone bridge and headed East." Clearly we are going downhill, as this time we did not find any museum, open or closed!

Regensburg is named for the Regen river, which comes from the north and east (starting in Czech) and joins the Donau here. Our route follows the Regen, at least for a while, so this is where we left the Donau. Getting onto the Regen radweg meant working our way through outskirts of Regensburg. True to the form we we had already picked up closer to town, we found aggressive traffic, and some wild and/or abusive bike riders.

We began to cross this bridge but realized it was not the way to go. We turned and came back, attracting abuse from cyclists going the other way.

At last, on the correct, and quiet, radweg!

From this point our ride was nothing but quiet bike path or quiet road. That's 35 quiet km to end the day, and Regensburg is history.

Finally we came to Nittenau. Dodie had plucked the place off a map, knowing nothing about it. But of course what is unknown to us has been known to others for hundreds of years. Our guesthouse, the Jakob Brauereigasthof, is linked to the Nittenauer brewery, which has been around since 1762.

This time I was determined to see if we could avoid the smokers and talkers, especially since this lodging was part of a brewery. I asked the woman at checkin about a quiet room away from the action, and she said here is the key, go check it out. It turned out to be a huge and airy room, not looking out on the restaurant or beer garden. Great!

See the rooms above these people - avoid 'em.

Well it seems like in Europe, you just can't win. When looking out the window of our prospective room, I saw this:

So this side of the building looked good, and certainly we did not look out on the beer garden out back. But I began to choke while typing this and went to the window for closer look. Look more down, Steve, you'll see this:

Are we making too much of this smoker thing? It's not that we are getting crabbier. Smoking has been a drawback of coming to Europe for us since we first began to tour here.

Well now, let's end on a sweeter note. Look what Dodie found in the markt:

What gave Meaning to Life today? Quiet paths among the crops.

Today's ride: 77 km (48 miles)
Total: 4,094 km (2,542 miles)

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Jacquie GaudetInteresting. We’ve only once or twice needed to close the windows because of smoke or noise during our 8 weeks here in Italy. We’ve chosen not to eat somewhere because of smokers but that’s about it. We often eat inside for shade or air conditioning or simply because there are fewer diners than outside (and no smoking indoors).
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