June 29, 2018

 Awake early and on the road by 8:45. We ate breakfast in the room and Ralf made coffee in the Jetboil.

It had rained overnight, and the skies were grey and cool this morning, it did warm up a little and by the time we arrived in Ulm at 12:30 the temperature had warmed up, at least enough to take off the wind breakers. A very dull and cold start to the day. The wind again was coming from the north-east, but not as strong as the past few days.  

Maybe the weather had a little to do with our moods. Neither of us are very enthralled with the Danube Route. I had read that it was a lovely route, to follow. Today we cycled on farm roads past more wheat, barley and rye. I think we crossed the Danube about 6 times but we didn’t follow the Danube.

We made one mistake today in Ehingen which was a nice Town.

Partly, our fault and partly the municipality’s fault. We followed the signs out of the town up a hill and then took the cycle route through the park as directed by the Municipal signs (to stay off the road). We came out of the other side of the park and there were no signs. We made one large circle of the Town. (Note the circle on the map!) At the bottom of the hill that we had already been up once, Ralf asked an older gentleman where the route went as there were no signs at the top of the hill. Yes, he told us there were definitely signs at the top of the hill for the Danube Weg. \”Don’t go into the park\”. Off we went back up the hill and yes at the crest of the hill there were very large signs indicating the left turn to follow the Danube weg. If you were in the park you could not see these signs. My suggestion to the municipality is put the signs in the park as well as on the road.

When we crested the hill (for the second time) we hurtled down the other side – 30 kms speed limit that I broke all the way down the hill – top speed of 48.6 kph.

This area (Baden-Wurtemburg) is very religious, lots of churches but also lots of crosses in fields. Almost every farm has a cross on it praying for good harvests. I think this is a throw-back to paganism where there would be an alter to the god of fertility ensuring a good harvest. When catholicism came to the area they replaced the pagan alters with the cross.

Our first sighting of the Ulm Minister was on the outskirts of the City.  We think this might be the best picture we can get of the Minister.  As we got closer to the City it is surrounded by other buildings and has scaffolding around.

We arrived in Ulm at 12:30 and found the hotel pretty quickly as it is next to the Main Train Station. However, although we could see the sign to the hotel we had to negotiate a very large hole in the ground before we could get to the main entrance. The City has a new infrastructure plan with parking garages, trams, buses and the trains all connecting at this point. A lot of roads are ripped up to accommodate all of this new infrastructure.

The rooms were not ready, so we left our bikes in the luggage room and went to a Burger King for lunch!! By the time we returned from lunch, the rooms were ready. This afternoon we got the boring stuff done – washing, shopping etc.

We found a laundromat about 1.5 kms from the hotel and a very nice lady told us how to use the machines.

The scenery out of the hotel room is one large building site. Fortunately the workers finished at 5:00 and will not be back until Monday.

Interesting in most hotels in North America there is a bible in the bedside table. Although as I mentioned earlier this area is very religious, this hotel has a New Testament and the Teachings of Buddha. First for everything.