I'm going to be putting some pictures inline, but for WAY more pictures, see my Facebook Page.
Day 1:
The day began with Erin and I heading to the airport to catch our flights to our respective cities. I was off to Munich to meet up with Leif, Jan and Andreus. Erin was off to Nurnberg (Nuremburg). The flight was short and uneventful, about 45 minutes. Like flying to Toronto, only it’s a different country. I love Europe. =) Anyway, I landed and headed off the Hauptbanhoff (Train Station) to meet Leif et al. It took about an hour to get from the airport to the train station to the tune of 9.60 Euros (ouch). But alas, I arrived and waited for Leif to arrive, while doing so I went and had some tea. At 9:45, after meeting up with the other lads, we boarded the train to Bamberg. On the way we did the most Canadian thing I could think of, short of constantly apologizing, play Euchre! I even got an alone all 5 trick hand. I was laughing when I dealt the cards out, I dealt myself the Left, Ace, King, Queen of Spades. Then turned up the right Spade Bauer. We didn’t even play the hand, I just laughed and put the cards down, then took four points. That kept us busy to Bamberg.
Upon arriving, we met with Leif and Jans’ friend Klaus. We then waited to meet up with Leifs brother Julian and Leifs soon-to-be brother in-law Roman who was driving 8 hours from Lure, France to be on this trip. Talk about dedication. While we were waiting, guess what we did?
Now that we were fully assembled into the ultimate drinking team, we headed out to pick up our bikes. Like an idiot, none of this I photo documented. So we’ll flash forward to the time we have our bikes and have just ridden to our hotel to drop off our crap. We then rode out in search of nice pictures and, more importantly, beer. We then rode into the more scenic portion of downtown Bamberg. This is where I tried a “smoked beer”, a local specialty. If anyone has sat around a campfire and breathed in the smoke from the fire, they know the smell very well. Now bottle that with a dark beer. I was not a fan. I took about two or three sips and made Leif finish it. After that, we saw a few more sights and headed back to the hotel.
Day 2:
We headed out pretty darned early. Early for me especially because, technically, I was LEAVING at 3 AM Eastern Time.If you'd like to follow along, I'll try to be as faithful to the map as possible. The only issue is, I don't REALLY remember the names of the towns we stopped in. Not due to alcohol, but because I didn't write em down. Stupid me. Anyway... Here's the link you'll want to follow:
http://maps.google.com/?q=http://share.abvio.com/0690/b2b1/4c27/db1c/Cyclemeter-Cycle-20100821-0912.kml
Okay, so now that you've had a chance to look over that, I'll try to map it out for you. The first 8 kilometers looked very much like this:
Nice isn't it? We then got to a town called Hallstadt.
Yes, I was riding and taking pictures almost all the time... =) I quickly learned to put the camera strap around my wrist BEFORE I took it out of my pocket. I almost dropped it a few times. Anyway.. So around kilometer 9.5 you might notice the lack of something. Yes, it's a ROAD. We took a hiking path along the base of a very steep hill next to the river, which we could hear, but not see. Along the path were a few breweries that were sadly closed, so onward we plodded. We join up with the road around kilometer 15 and a bit. One thing I can say for biking in Germany. They LIKE cyclists. I would be hard pressed to show you a single road that doesn't have a bike path beside it. We were driving today on a 120 Kilometer rated road today that had a bike trail beside it. A good ways away mind you, but still it was there! Crazy... So, back to the day at hand. Upwards we climb toward Baunach where we find our first Gasthaus.
Don't we look happy? That's because we don't know how hilly it's going to be.. =) But we had a few beers here, lager if I'm not much mistaken and I had a Kasebrote (Cheese sandwich) again which I didn't take a picture of. But it was huge, it was an open sandwich with cheese slices piled on top with pickles and tomatoes. It was the size of a plate. So I shared a lot, and skarfed the rest. So, onward we cycle. If you'll notice on your map, around KM 24, there's a huge gap. That's where I paused my cyclemeter after nearly dying from going up a hill. At the time, I didn't really have a clear recollection of what a "Hill" is in Bavaria, but I thought it was horrible. Anyway, there's a gap because I forgot to turn it back on. oops. Oh well, just sneak over to the right and it picks back up at the bottom of the hill, which was fun to go down. Hard work does pay off sometimes. =) We hit up the Gasthaus at the bottom at Merkendorf.
They serve their beer in ceramic 0.5L mugs. I'll have to pick one sometime! They keep the beer nice and chilled because they're so thick. I had a Radler. Which some may know as a Shandy. Or half beer and half 7-up. Sounds gross, but it's quite refreshing! Some people had food. I'm sure I did, but ask me what I had.. I don't know.. not very exciting I know, but them's the breaks.
Alrighty, on the bikes we go again and head on down to Schammelsdorf, for guess what:
Now then, for all of you who are rolling your eyes and saying, "Wow, he STILL took his flashlight with him" I say Pbbbbbbbt! =)
Some places in Germany, if you turn your mug on its side when you're done your beer, they will just bring you another. Here they didn't because we had to go to the window ourselves, but we tried it at a few places, and yup, it worked! This was a quick stay as we were pretty well bushed by this point, so one or two mugs later, we were off again. We arrived in Geisfeld and went to the hotel to drop off our stuff again then headed out for drinks yet again. This is a beer tour for those not keeping up.. =)
Day 3:
Hoo boy, this was a killer diller of a day. Righto, so here's the map!
http://maps.google.com/?q=http://share.abvio.com/0690/b2b1/4c27/db1c/Cyclemeter-Cycle-20100822-0944.kmlOkay... so keep going, and going, and going. Right up to about KM 28.5. Yep, that's what we did in the morning. It wasn't actually all that bad since we got to go along a canal, which was nice and flat as they need to be. =)
So next we arrived in Kirchehrehnach at a little Gasthaus that has been in the same family for 500 years or so. They are best known to the locals, and espcially Jan and Leif for their schnapps. Which they distill themselves, from fruit grown by themselves. Amazing operation! We sampled a few schnapps which fired up the belly nicely and left a pleasant aftertaste. I had the Wild Cherry. Tasty indeed. Then we noticed what we thought was a sampler page. We were told this was incorrect, and what it was was a planned meal menu with matching schnapps served along with the meal. We inquired as to the price. 21 Euros each. For a SIX course meal with schnapps along with every one. Just to put it in perspective, if we had bought just the schnapps, it would have cost 24 Euros, plus we get a meal AND the owner and distiller explains how he makes each schnapps and a little about their establishment. I won't post pictures of the meal as you can see them in my Beer Tour Album toward the end. But dear god it was amazing!
After booking a time for lunch the next day, we headed to the hotel for a shower and a quick nap, which only Roman and I took. In retrospect it wasn't a great idea as all my joints were swollen when I woke up. But hey, it helped with the exhaustion at least. Something I would get to know VERRRRY well a little later. If you'll look over at the map, more toward the right around KM marker 34-36, that's where we got a bit lost, after going uphill for about 20 minutes. =) Oh well, we went back down and cut across to where we started our climb again. Just to put it in perspective, when we started our climb at around KM 29ish we were at about 315 meters. When we finished at KM 34, we were at 395ish meters. 80 Meters doesn't sound like a lot does it? Wellllll, I'll tell ya, when you're out of shape and it's close to a 10% grade, it hurts! =) After we went down then started back up to the town at the top, we had climbed to 480ish meters. And that's spread over close to 4 KM's! So, uphill, walking bikes up a 14% incline. Ouch. Well, we made it!
Hetzeldorf was the name of the town and we stayed until close (11PM) at which point it had rained and made the road a little wet. Never fear! We jumped on our bikes, and WITHOUT PEDDLING I hit a top speed of 58KM/h! In fact, I was riding the brakes pretty hard not to kill Leif by hitting him! It probably took us the better part of an hour to get up to the top. It took us about 15minutes to get home. It was ALL downhill and was a blast!
Day 4:
The farewell meal. We had our six course meal and boy was it amazing. It's pretty late right now, so I may write another post or tell you in person how amazing it was, but for 21 Euros, it was the steal of the century. I have brief descriptions of each meal in my FaceBook Album. After that we biked hard the 120 meters to the train station and headed off to Bamberg to drop them off, then hit another train to Munich to meet up with Erin. This is where she will jump in tomorrow and make a post regarding her exploits. =) We have lots to share and we've filled an 8GB memory card with photos already. =) See everyone soon! Hope you've enjoyed the post!
Jeff
