July 7, 2022
Day 86: Meissen to Oschatz
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We got a nice view of the Meissen hill, with its church and castle, as we again took to the Elbe and headed north. We had very much enjoyed Meissen, with its squares, shops, crooked streets, and of course the porcelain we could never afford. We were also pretty stoked up by the second day's breakfast at the Goldener Lowe, which was as ten jam as the first day. So that's 20 jams of breakfast in two days!
We had gone about 3 km before Dodie realized that outside that breakfast she had put down a pile of letters to grandkids, and postcards, and had left them there. So we turned around, muttering excuses like "been reading too much Scott and Rachel" (they often leave things behind, it seems).
When we got back, we found that the Golderner Lowe housekeeping staff had already found the letters. So we just confirmed that they would put them in the mail for us, and we were on our way again!
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Once we were properly on the trail, it proved to be the same in terms of quality as we had enjoyed since the German border, and we already knew it would continue like that all the way to the North Sea.
It was so pleasant cycling along this path, and things were helped, surprisingly by the fact that it was raining. It's easier to put on a parka and cycle cool than to cope with broiling sun.
On occasion the path featured cobbles, or small tiles as shown below, and these tended to test whether your fillings were still in tight. In fact my front water bottle holder, strapped to the fork, got rattled into submission and threw the bottle, cracking its handle and almost getting jammed in the spokes. The strap on arrangement we had used for 5000 km chose this time to fail. We'll have to design an improvement (or do shorter trips!).
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2 years ago
2 years ago
The wind and rain intensified, to the point where just before Riesa we pulled under a tree and hurriedly put on warmer clothes. The "better to be cool" idea was then wearing thin. One fun thing, though, was a stretch that was completely lined with cherry trees. The cherries were there, but a bit small and too high. Earlier, though, we ran in to a lower tree, and totally stuffed ourselves.
Riesa was the end of line for us, in terms of following the Elbe and the Elbe radweg. From there we struck out West, in the direction of Liepzig, using a route dreamed up by an algorithm. Our immediate destination was Oschatz, and we were happy to see some bicycle direction signs for it along the way. For the last 5 km, though, we had lost our track and ended up on the road. There were a few speeding cars and trucks, but basically it was ok.
Oschatz, which we essentially had never heard of before, seems a nice town, with not one but two town squares. And when we arrived, a market was being set up in one of them.
Our hotel this time is the Gasthaus zum Schwan. We like guesthouses based on animals, like lions, bucks, lambs, eagles and swans. And we like ones named after crowns too. All of these should be golden as well.
So I walked in to the Swan with a good attitude. At the desk were two young women staring intently at a computer screen. I waited politely for a time, too long a time, until one of the women looked at me and said, correctly, "bitte?". So I said my piece about being Steve Miller, and having a reservation on Booking. The young woman responded by returning to looking at the computer screen. I assumed she was absorbing all the important details about my Booking. But no, after a time, too long a time, she straightened up and fled, into the back. My attention turned to the other woman, who I assumed had been left to read my fascinating details. I waited for a time, too long a time, and said to the woman "Why did the other woman run away?". She responded with a shrug. What is this, France? (No, the woman would have shrugged and said désolée). I turned, flapping my wet parka'd arms in frustration and returned to Dodie outside.
Dodie then went in, and after a time, maybe an ok amount of time, returned outside with the first woman. There was some gabbling from the woman about not speaking English, and Dodie telling her that if she would "langsam sprechen" (speak slowly) we would understand her. In this case Dodie was the patient one and I was somewhat fuming, off to the side.
Our room is in fact fine, once you find it - because the hotel occupies two buildings a half block apart, joined by an overhead walkway, and the bikes are fairly safely parked - once you understand the arrangement of parking lots and key operated doors and elevators. All this and more Dodie gathered and arranged with the slightly dippy desk woman.
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We walked around to the old market square, and its bakery, where we again went for a mohn based slice and also a cherry based one (not enough cherries today?). I threw in a third, which had a plain appearance but which I knew would be tasty. It was egg based, but sort of like cheesecake. Although we did our transaction in German, a customer standing beside us was somehow able to detect that we were English speakers. He asked us what is the English name for that egg based slice. When we told him, plus the bakery lady, that there was no name because this did not exist in the English world, they really could not believe it. We got it back to the room, and yes, it was as tasty as expected! (Whatever it was.)
Epilog 1: As I was writing this, I thought, how foolish to have no photo of the mystery slice. So I took that as an excuse to dash back to the bakery, where the lady was already closed. No matter, I got her to open up. But all the mystery slices were sold. The nearest was the one below. The lady explained that the one before had a high egg content, with some qwark, while this one is more qwark based. So this one is much closer to "cheesecake" while she called the other an "egg" slice. I will have to eat this cheese thing anyway, as a cost of research!
Epilog 2: Since it's a pain getting back from the square with the bakery through the parking lot maze and key operated elevator, I decide to try the 1/2 block overhead walkway. For this I entered the hotel main reception, the scene of the encounter with the two women and the computer screen, and found - two entirely different women, but cut from the same mold - dare I say blond and about 25. I uttered some English about "Which way to the walkway to the other building?" and they rolled their eyes at each other. "Not another yellow clad English speaking impossible problem" their eyes told each other. "Fine, I'll just trot up this way, see ya!"
Epilog 3: Clouds are gathering on our horizon in the form of the looming date when we have to return to Canada. Return to Canada these days means using the goofy "ArriveCan" app. I fired up the version I had from our Mexico trip, and it accused me of either not being connected to the internet or of having my email or password wrong. This triggered an hour or two of pleasant research, in which I downloaded their latest version app, changed my password twice, after retrieving a secret code sent to an email address (the one they felt was wrong), and trying out their web browser based version, that led me in endless loops. So I called good old Canada, using Skype and this hotel's flaky internet. The ArriveCan lady and I went around and around the same circles I had done on my own, with her protesting that tech support was not supposed to stay on the line as the client went in their circles. I guess they want you to phone back at every twist in the road. Finally the lady gave up, and admitted we could just fill out a form when we arrived back. So why all this computer nonsense, we asked. "To save time" was her innocent answer. No kidding.
What gave Meaning to Life today? Rare egg-qwark schnitte.
Today's ride: 47 km (29 miles)
Total: 4,724 km (2,934 miles)
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