We have found ourselves in an area of Germany which is great for bike riding. There are bike paths everywhere that will take you anywhere - even through people's backyards to get somewhere - Paris, anyone? For the most part, the riding is flat but... but, stay out of The Black Forest - that's where the hills start. One just rides from village to village making big mileage gains without too much effort and each village has a church - usually a real architectural treat - and other cool sights/eats.
We are enjoying fitting into the scenery here by riding for our groceries and dinners/drinks in town. The cars and bikes seem to get along well together - each respecting the others space. We've been riding through fields growing corn, apples, plums, pears and grapes (vineyards) and other types of produce - so you never get hungry! Also, on the way, we'll often come upon road side stands selling fruit, honey and even wine - all using the honour system. We've even stumbled upon the odd restaurant and bakery on our journeys - imagine that!
We've done a few long rides - 70kms and 2 x 50 kms and we've had some great fun getting lost. Our little handheld GPS has really come in a handy on a lot of occasions.
Our first destination, on a really hot day, was a ride over to France. There is a great path that takes us from here to a town called Haguenau in France. We didn't quite get there but we did get close. We took a free ferry across the Rhine (takes about 3 minutes) and half way across the river we cross the border from Germany to France. We stopped for lunch in a town called Drusenheim and the kids got to practice their French plus, we learned about the local food customs from some other local bikers. It's easy to forget that a few minutes away, especially with the German-sounding town names, we are into a different language and you also never really know what language you should be communicating in.
Our next long ride was on another hot day and this time, we biked to a lake that our neighbour Nadja had told us about. It turned out that this particular lake was in the middle of a campground - a busy campground - similar to a private lakeside Okanagan campground in the middle of summer x 3! It was super crowded but seemed to be well managed. It was nice to stop for a bit and to have a swim. We continued our journey that day and rode alongside the Rhine home.
This past week, there has been a horse racing festival at a nearby horse racing track called Iffezheim. It's a pretty big deal - we were there opening day and it was pretty busy. We rode our bikes there - a much cooler day than our other long bike rides - we even got caught in a downpour. On the ride back home, we stopped in to Baden Baden for our customary afternoon coffee and kuchen (cake).
We've been doing some geocaches (treasure hunting with a GPS) in the area as well. One was located below this Canadian Air Force Jet (apparently the Canadians had a WW II presence here) and today, we located one just by a cannonball lodged in an old church wall from the 1700's. Gotta love that geocaching - it gets you to places you normally wouldn't find. The latter was hidden behind some bushes and the everyday tourist would never have found it.
And, it's just been a great treat to ride around the town of Buhl - to and from dinner and checking out the nearby sights. We've been spoiled.
Adam's bit:
We've done some bike riding. One 70 km, and two 50 km and a 30 km bike ride plus riding around town to get our groceries. After the first one, our butts were killing us so once we stood up you couldn't sit back down. But we had to sit back down anyway.
Sylvie's 2 cents:
We went bike riding to I really don't know where we went but we all had fun!
No comments:
Post a Comment