Another mega hot day, roads and streets seem quiet and deserted... is it because of the heat or because we are finally away from a main cycle route? It doesn't matter because today gave us a really pretty route of about 70km that took us along shady forest trails that past a historical boundary marker near Finningen called Drei Stein - Three stones and then onto Nördlingen and the Öttinger brewery town.
Nördingen is a medieval town on the Romantic road, a 450km picturesque route of castles and countryside that stretches from Würzburg in northern Bavaria to Füssen near the Alps. When I planned the route I hadn't done any research into the towns we'd encounter so I was pleasantly surprised by how beautiful and interesting Nördlingen was, it was probably one of the highlights of our trip with its medieval wall surrounding the city, the historic town centre with cobblestones, a fountain that you couldn't drink from, wooden framed houses and very importantly a delicious ice cream place. I can really recommend a stop here. I mean Nördlingen not the Ice cream place, although you should stop there too, it's near a church with a water feature in front shooting water from the floor that delights children and thirsty dogs.
The other wonderful thing about this day was the route itself. Even though part of it was on a bike path that ran along side a road, some creative and imaginative person had ransformed the stretch between Pfäfflingen and Mönchsdeggingen (just before Nördlingen) into something truly edible! This section of the road was lined with countless varieties of apple trees, each tree had been labeled with a description attached to it. I was amazed by how many different varieties of apple tree there were, not to mention by the work involved to plant and label every one them. This apple path is known as the Die Apfelbaum-Lehrpfad or The Apple tree education centre, how cool is that! If someone had attempted something like this where I grew up, the trees would have been uprooted the next day and replanted in people’s gardens. (True story—something like that actually happened at an organization I once worked with, still amuses me hee hee.) These quirky details are something you'd miss or not realise if you were speeding past in a car, which is one of the beautiful things about cycling and why I love it so much.
Anyway, I found the apple path idea really fun and the apples were not too bad either, it's what can be called a scraggy scrumpers paradise. Chris is not the scraggy scrumper, I just gave him the apple to hold whilst I took a picture, so if anyone were to ask he'd get the blame. Apparently, according to a story about a woman called Eve, scrumping is more what women do.
Our campsite this evening was next to the Dennenloh lake, where children played in the sand and water whilst the mothers watched in groups from the shore or read books. It was a very spacious area, the lake was not a bad place to stretch the arms and move the swimming muscles instead of the cycling legs.
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