Bayreuth: A harder day than we thought it would be

September 30, 2017

The hotel we stayed at last night is family run, the boss man said he had lived there for all 68 years of his life. Last night’s meal was in the hotel restaurant and the best meal we have had in Germany. One of the problems we have with German meals is that they are so big and I can seldom finish mine. Our waiter last night was highly professional and when I explained the problem he suggested one of the dishes describing it as ‘a small cow’ - much better than a large one. What I got was veal in an absolutely delicious sauce, some potatoes cooked in a way I had never seen before plus a green vegetable of some sort also in sauce.

Today's ride was only just over 50km but it really was a hard ride. Not only did we have a stiff head wind but at best it could be described as undulating. In addition Ken’s back brakes were binding badly so that didn't help him. You may ask why he didn't stop and fix them. We were going through agricultural land all day with lush grass and corn ready to be made into silage. Although we saw no dairy herds all day their presence was obvious as we could smell the barns most of the time. We saw one man clearing out the muck, what an awful job

We went close to a couple of fairly large towns but into none of them. The settlements we went through were really tiny (and being Germany very neat) none of them had any services so we were coffee free until we got to Bayreuth. Not far out of the large town of Kulmbach in one of the wiggles we were doing we came to the place of confluence of the Red Main and the White Main where they become the Main. The white Main arises in high parts of Germany and the red Main the one we were to follow in the Czech Republic. By the time we got to Bayreuth it was a really tiny stream which you could almost jump across. We could follow the route for another 26km to its source but the number of arrows on the map and the dashes indicating unsealed tracks have put us off

Tomorrow we will explore Bayreuth and on Monday get a train back to Frankfurt