Day 24:Oberreichenbach to Hallendorf, Germany (and back): Joining the gang

August 14, 2015

Prolog: Where we are and where we went (and why)

After WWII there was a strong feeling from the leaders of France and Germany (deGaulle and Adenauer) that increased interaction between their respective peoples would help decrease the liklihood of future conflicts. This led to the creation of the twin towns program. To begin, regions were twinned, and then towns within. Franconia was twinned with Limousin. However for some forgotten reason the town of Herzogenaurach was twinned with St Luce, which is near Nantes.

The program provided funding for reduced travel costs between twinned towns, and organizing committees grew up to facilitate this. It turned out that someone called Michel Fleurance joined the St Luce committee, and someone call Franz Horner joined the committee of Herzogenaurach from his neighbouring town of Oberreichenbach. That is how Michel met Franz. Meanwhile the Grampies bumped into Michel along the Loire (two years ago) and came to stay at Michel's house (last year).

So this year when Michel saw the Grampies noodling down not far from Herzogenaurach, he set Franz to go search them out. That is how we ended up here!

And that is how we sallied out on Franz's e bikes, into the wilderness of towns in the sort of vicinity of Nurnberg!

Where we are. The little blue arrow shows Oberreichenbach, the little town of Franz and Eva.
Herzogenaurach is just to the southeeast and the major-ish town of Ehlangen is just east of that.
All this stuff is just north of Nurnberg.
Rothenburg ob der Tauber - the town that is actually on our route is to the southwest of all these.

Te blue line shows our e bike trek to the north west, and back. I think had we kept going, we would have ended up at Bamberg, on the river Main. As it was, we passed through just a series of farming villages. Without our guides, there would have been no hope of finding our way back!

Today's Story

Sitting around a family breakfast table one is not quite as aware of what items are present or not, compared to buying or ordering the things at a restaurant. On the other hand at the table with Franz and Eva there really seemed to be an array of colourful and yummy stuff. As a summary, let's look at the jam situation (an indicator still favoured by me, but discredited by Dodie). There was jam in pots - good, good. But apparently only three pots. Hmmm. On the other hand one contained a three fruit (blueberry, raspberry, and strawberry) jam, and these were either gathered from the wild by Eva and Oma or from their own land here. That has to be a winner! Also Eva had snuck out early on her bike and come back with fresh croissants, brotchen, and kuchen from the village bakery. Swell!

After breakfast I found time to look more closely at our surroundings. Franz and Eva have created a little Eden on their piece of land, with a wide variety of flowers, fruits, and vegetables planted all over. They have a large sun room and an outside greenhouse, which they are using to good advantage. Grapes in the greenhouse are already ready to eat, as are tomatoes and peppers. We had a very enjoyable conversation about varieties, methods of propagation, frogs in the pond, and the seven week drought that has afflicted this region and probably most of Europe.

The Fridays have found a safe haven but beware, Fridays, there is serius competition around

Part of the eden created by Franz and Eva

Soon, though, it was time to go and join about twenty friends who routinely set off on bicycle day rides. The drill is always the same - with a previously agreed upon destination that must have a beer garden, the group meets in a nearby village and cycles over. The destination could be 30 - 70 km distant. The routine is to cycle out, with one or two of the group acting as guide and general marshall, and then to spend minimum two hours sitting at the beer garden, which will have beer and a variety of foods. Then its just cycle back. Simple, and so enjoyable - because any trip of 30-70 km here passes through a minimum of a half dozen villages, because normally the route will have a separate bike path, and because in any event there is almost no traffic on the roads. Few if any of the riders seem to have rear view mirrors. Rather, riders at the back will sing out "Auto!" if they happen to see a car. It rather reminded me of playing road hockey in the quiet streets of our Montreal suburb. "Car!", and all the little players scatter.

A couple of days ago I included a photo of just such a group as ours - put in because to a North American tourist, twenty people of any type on bikes is a bit of a phenomenon, and twenty seniors is really something. But now, we were part of it, and enjoying it so much.

Dodie meets some of the cycling team. The fellow in the middle is blind.

The blind cyclist helps power this tandem

Dodie and Franz set off with part of the group

Enjoyment factor number one was the e-bikes that Franz had provided us with. This gave us an extended chance to see what they are like, and they were super. They levelled any hills and cancelled any winds, turning the ride into just pure enjoyment. I did also learn some e-bike fine technical points, and I enjoy fine technical points.

But enjoyment factor two was sitting with a group of real Germans at a real rural beer garden serving authentic Franconian foods. It could not help but to be authentic, because we are here in Franconia and sitting in a town that no tourist has ever heard of. In fact, even after you look at my map, you will no doubt think - they are where?

I will also be trying to upload my photos of the food menu at the beer garden. That will be the easy part. Next I will need help from Franz to review what the items actually are. I can say now, based on eating it (and tasting Dodie's and Franz's) that we had quite recognizable things - sliced ham, sausage patties, and roast pork, all with either dumplings or potato salad.

You will also see a photo of Steve and Dodie and Franz all hoisting beer steins. This is slightly fake, because in Steve's is (genuine Franconian) mixed fruit juice schorle, and in Dodie's is radler. But hey, it still looks good, and it sure tasted good.

One thing about sitting with these people and eating this food is not that as tourists we were trying to see how they live (which of course we were), but we were genuinely, fully, enjoying the activity. That is, if we were to live here for however long, we would be out there with them each and every week.

We would also, by the way, also be buying e-bikes, which were in use by about half the group. Again, we are reporting that when we got back, we felt as if we had cycled 58 km on the flat in no wind. No more, and no less tired or exercised.

These partyers are only partly authentic - önly Franz has a real beer.

The menu is simple - its all pork. Shauferla is pork shoulder. Adlerhaxe is pork leg. Salzknochla is boiled (corned?) pork leg. Zwiebelleleberkase is pork liver loaf. Klos are dumplings with meat sauce

All pork too. Kaiserfleich is smoked pork butt. Fleich kuchla is minced pork patties much like sausage filling. Bratwurste is bratwurste of course. The "e" on the end makes it plural! Franz you must never eat just one.

I was glad to see that not all the kirsche schnitte was gone!

The kirche schnitte featured chocolate chips and cherries, with a whipped cream-ish topping.

Today's ride: 58 km (36 miles)
Total: 1,228 km (763 miles)

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