Day 14: Ingolstadt to Kelheim

April 1, 2019

The Donau Gorge

The old streets probably look even more fetching at night, based on this shot from our window, onto a sidestreet. Even though all you see in the shot is a steak house it still looks really nice.

Morning brought more excitement, from our point of view. We had slept under those amazing quality duvets, with the windows open to be sure. They were so warm and comfy! (Dodie hates that, actually. She is always warm, making her economical to buy sleeping bags for.)

The luxury theme continued at breakfast. When you are stuck in some useless place (breakfast wise) like North America or France, the Ten Jammer standard seems very relevant and always unattainable. But lately we have seen places where Ten Jammer is just a baseline. What did the Rappensberger do to blow past the Ten Jam barrier? First, they put out the whole spread apparently just for us. Then they added to the Ten Jam basics some items not usually seen. That would be smoked white fish, and lax. Then there were five varieties of soft cheese, and many vegetable choices. The bread area featured croissants, sure, but these were in five flavours - marzipan, apricot, chocolate, and two others. Finally, there was a guests' newsletter, freshly printed with today's weather and the specials in the restaurant. And oh, about the jam, it was not only the flavours or quality, but the jars were very large. Dodie told me off for responding by ladling out too huge a gob!

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Back through the many attractive streets, past some miscellaneous schlosses, and we were out onto the Donau.

Although we of course passed a number of towns, riverside and forest paths were more the order of the day.

In this region, if you are out of town (or in town) you will see storks.

But it took Dodie's keen eye to spot this camouflaged bunny.

We made a decision to take this rougher path, to stay by the river, on the way to the Weltenberger riverside monastery. Unlike our 20" Bike Friday wheels, our 26 and 28 inch ones rolled along on this path fairly well.

If you do stay by the river, and come to the monastery, then you are committed to taking the boat to Kelheim. This is because at the Weltenberg Monastery the river enters a gorge, and there is no way through by bike.

That's OK, because the monastery and the gorge are the highlights of the day.

This poster shows the strategic monastery location well.

The Weltenberg monastery is kind of schizophrenic. On the one hand it is a Benedictine monastery, and to prove it we saw one monk riding away on a bike (maybe his shift was over?). But if you look at their website and the grounds, you see that their biggest thing is being the oldest monastery brewery in the world.

Let's start with the monastery part. We liked this one, especially as it comes before Scott and Rachel are able to come up with any further zippy Italian churches. Here we found a kind of great 3D George and Dragon diorama at the main altar, and even at least one cherub, though it did not seem satisfactorily pink.

Colourful ceiling, featuring pastel tones

And at least one cherub. Suzanne Gibson - yes, Germany has some very decorative churches!

Nice as the church was, the beer was really the focus of the monastery. There was a large biergarten/restaurant, in addition to the actual production facility. Much as there is a stress on the 1000 year history of the production, a peek inside the ancient building revealed giant stainless tanks and computer systems with flow diagrams. Too bad we know nothing about beer, or we could be reporting on how it all is working out.

The monastery also had a gift shop, where I was happy to get a souvenir sticker. There was a nice selection of other monastic products, like bitters, and lots of statues and crucifixes. There were several large crowds of religious figures, like these:

I am not quite sure who everyone is supposed to be. There were many more like these as well.

The Donau Gorge has interesting rock walls, and of course draws our attention because it bars our way. Across the river we noticed some boys who had another take on the rock - using it as something to climb. At a distance it seemed they might be free climbing, never a good idea. But the telephoto reveals lots of protection equipment.

Soon we had the excitement of our boat coming around the corner, and the fun of watching it dock by coasting cleverly with the current. The boat was very elegant, with an onboard restaurant and eis cafe, to help the tourists survive the 30 minute ride. Of course, there was a special rail inside for our bikes.

Sustenance for making it to the other side. Actually most people chose weiss wurst and pretzels.

Kelheim is pretty, like all the places we have visited here. And Dodie found us a place right in the old town!

Today's ride: 53 km (33 miles)
Total: 616 km (383 miles)

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Tricia GrahamLast year when we got to Klenheim the water in the Danube was so low that no ferries were running. The alternative over the mountains was horrendous very steep and just a rough track. Probably would be good to walk but certainly not good to ride. Will try and send you a photo of what the Danube looked like at the monastery but don’t seem to be able to attach it here
Keep safe
Tricia
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5 years ago

Scott AndersonSay, did you get a new camera, or did you finally quit taking photographs on the fly? Very nice.
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5 years ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Tricia GrahamThat mountain track sounds awful. We actually waited for over an hour and a half for the ferry, but I REALLY did not want to try going over the mountain. (The new knees sure are great. Wish I had it done sooner.) Dodie
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5 years ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Scott AndersonSame camera, Scott. Just coincidence that today almost all photos were taken while stopped, like on the ferry or in the monastery or while taking a quick break. Glad you like them.
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5 years ago

Keith ClassenWe did this section at Klelheim on our first ride in 2014 but were unaware there was a ferry. We took the bike route up and over. A portion of the path going up was under construction at the time and we ended pushing the bikes up around the construction. On the way down we ended up bailing to the adjacent road rather than negotiating the rather steep downhill through the forest. The ferry is indeed the way to go.
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5 years ago

Tricia GrahamTo Steve Miller/GrampiesGlad to hear your knees are doing so well. It is worth putting up with the awful time around the operation! I am sure neither of you would have enjoyed the ride over the mountain to Klenheim
Tricia
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5 years ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Tricia GrahamNew knees are making 70% of the difference this time round. The remaining 30% is the ebikes.
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5 years ago