Rainy days of Germany

Well friends, here we are, in our destination country of France. A lot has happened between the lazy afternoon of Dunaworth Germany and here! It is now September and we have less than a month to finish the trip!
After passing through the middle of Germany, we spent long days riding through flooded plains and sleeping next to cornfields. The days were long and uneventful. Full of getting lost and admiring all the fancy German Audi's, Porches, and Volkswagens, parked in steep gravel driveways next to old farm houses. Somewhere along the journey, the landscape changed and the sun came out. We rode along through adorable step-back-in-time villages where the world seems to move a bit slower, with stronger purpose.

The route took twists along limestone covered bluffs, meandering along a small stream. The huge tourists cruise ships and barges of the Danube were gone... and instead the mighty river had become this delicate trickling brook which was sometimes lost among the wildflowers and forest covered hills. We were nearing the source of the Danube. This great river had been our guide and our compass, leading us through the European world along its shores. We always knew we were headed the right direction if we could find the river and travel against its mighty current. Once we out rode the Danube, we had to find our way ourselves.

We spent two days climbing through gravel paths along the mountainous landscape before we reached the source in Donaueschingen. The actual reaching of the source was a sort of anticlimactic experience. Several hundred years ago, the churchy folk of Donaueschingen had decided to make what they determined to be the source into a sanctuary for God. The little bubbling well was lined with brick and adorned with cherubs.

After we left the Danube, we we're like two little lost puppys trying to find a map. We ended up on the outskirts of some town and Todd looked at me and said "left or right?" we decided to skip the "easy" route down into Switzerland (we were feeling cheep)and instead tackle the path right through the Black Forest. Using a road map, and lots of luck, we somehow managed to make our way through forest. We climbed for 2 straight days and free camped along the side of the highest point on an abandoned loggers road. The next day we didn't touch the pedals for an hour and coasted into the mountain side community.

I must say, the experience of biking over a mountain range with all your belongings is humbling... and there were a few times I wasn't too proud to get off and walk my bike up a particularly rocky and steep incline. Yet it was entirely worth it to be inside that old, majestic forest.

Before we reached that point however, we shared the gravel path with families, day-trippers and avid cyclists. This is the most beautiful thing about traveling by bike. There is this intimate feeling you encounter with the landscape and the people that is unlike any other type of traveling. You can feel the slightest temperature change, and sweeping through towns and past people you can catch wisps of life on the breeze, the smell of a bakery or laundry waving in the wind, a snippet of conversation or radio playing in someones car.

When we left, I said that I wanted an authentic European experience. I didn't want to take the well traveled path and end up in hostels, talking to twenty-somethings from California. I wanted to meet the salt-of-the-earth Germans and hang out with Frenchies and compare accents with chicks from London. Well, did I ever get that wish granted. We have met so few Americans that people actually do a double take when we tell them where we came from. In Germany, people assumed that we were German and would greet us rapidly in German, or shout little German well-wishes as we passed by on our bikes. If they took the time to talk to us, they usually thought we were from Great Britain, Ireland, Canada or Australia... never did anyone guess the U.S. unless we were staying in a hostel.

The best part of being able to blend in with the locals (until we opened our big mouths) was that they were so flipping friendly to us. We were just one of the gang and people were so willing to help out. On several occasions, we'd be just riding along, having a merry old time, when we would hear someone following us on bike. Sometimes they would whistle casually to get our attention, or wait for a clearing to ride along side us, mostly they would just pounce on us if we stopped at an intersection. Once the well-wishing German had our attention, he, (generally it was a dude) would break the ice with some rapid German joke, that he would end up being the only one laughing at. We would feel bad and stammer back with "Nicht Spreken De Deutch!Ze Spreken English?" and they would say "A little!" and they proceeded to talk to us in fluent English.

Usually the conversation was "Where are you going?" and they would demand to see our maps, and tell us the best route to get there. These friendly folk would give us tips, tell us cool cities to stop in and generally just tell us things we already knew like; "Ulm is 50 kilometers that way, the direction that you are going." Thanks dude.

Our favorite friendly biker was this sixty-something guy from Freiburg. He fit the description well: on a bike and retired. He stopped Todd at an intersection right outside town and struck up a conversation. It was raining and we had a big day ahead of us (we had spent the night before in the Black Forest and were hoping to make it to France that night). and I was just anxious to go. But, this guy was persistent, and he was thrilled that we were American. "I love biking American!" he said "I biked Death Valley four times with my son, three times in summer!" The guy is clearly nuts, but you couldn't resist his upbeat zest for life.

I conceded to having a chat with him on the side of the road. He asked how we like Frieburg, and we bashfully admitted that we had just biked along the out-skirts and skipped the town center. We were in a hurry to get to France and our map was written in German, so we didn't know one cool thing from the other and probably ended up missing quite a bit.

For our German friend though, this was terrible! How could we miss his beautiful town of Freiburg! He insisted that we follow him and he would give us a tour of Freiburg. It's impossible to argue with a German, so we decided to follow him back to the city. He cheerfully led the way through the busy streets, whistling and gabbing all the while about his town. "It is Famous!" he insisted. The guy was a charmer.

His name was Walter, he hadn't owned a car in 30 years and spent his days as a retired school superintendent riding bike and chilling out in the black forest. He took us straight away to the town Zentrum to see the "largest and most famous Cathedral." We stood in a quick moment of silence, admiring the flying buttresses and sharp steeples through the misting rain. Walter broke the silence with "You like sausage?" (only in Germany would this question be appropriate and normal.) Todd responded that yes, indeed we did like sausage. "You are hungry?" he asked "Freiburg has famous sausages!"

Before you could say "extra mustard", we found ourselves in a little open air market where he ordered us each a sausage. He insisted on paying in a way that only Germans can do,(you just don't argue with Germans). Once we finished our sausages (which, by the way, were quite tasty) he told us "I watch your bikes, you go look at the cathedral." Now, normally, I would never agree to such an outrageous proposal.... but you couldn't help trusting the guy, really, what else better did we have to do? There really wasn't room to argue anyway, he pretty much just told us what to do. And so, we took a stroll through the big church building, lit a candle for Todd's newborn nephew, and came back outside to find Walter, standing guard over our bikes. "You like it?" he asked, "it is famous!"

By now, we had realized that everything is famous in Freiburg. "You like fruit?" asked our eager tour guide "Freiburg has famous... uh uh, I don't know word in English... like cherry and plums!" It was as if he was standing there, waiting for us to come back out, thinking of all the things one must not leave Freiburg without experiencing. He cheerfully led us to another stand that sold these delicate little plums, called mirabelle. He bought a bagful and hooked it on the handle of my bike, and before I could protest, he asked: "You like Honey?" and then, (you guessed it)"Our honey is famous! Black Forest Honey!" He skipped off to a different stand, where he bought us two jars of honey. "A present!" he said "Famous honey from Freiburg."

Walter continued to lead us around the city, and finally stopped outside the Rat Haus to show us a plaque on the ground boasting of all the sister cities of Freiburg. Sure enough, good ol' Madison Wisconsin has a little plaque, right there in the town square. He took a photo of the two of us standing next to it and continued to babble on about Freiburg and all sorts of knowledge he had. I think he knew we were anxious to get back on the road, and feeling satisfied that he had showed us

some of the more famous parts of Freiburg, he started leading us back to the bike route. We walked our bikes along the "famous" river that flows through the streets of Freiburg. Some smart fellow had coaxed the river into flowing through a sort-of tile-lined gutter thoughout the city. The stream (Walter told us) was lined with polished rocks from the Rhine river. Indeed, it was the most beautiful gutter-river I had ever seen. In his excitement over the little stream, Walter lost his step and tripped right into the water.

He made such a burst of fright that we both thought that he had seriously hurt himself during the fall. "This is very bad, very bad indeed." said the suddenly quite somber man, "This brings much bad news into my life." We had no idea what he was talking about, but he lowered his voice and told us of the misfortune he was now in "When one falls into the river ... it means he must be married soon." He was truly unsettled by such an idea. "You are not married Walter?" I asked. "Oh no. Never!" It was clear that up until that point he intended to keep it that way. Poor bachelor Walter!

He eventually recovered from his misfortune and bid us farewell and good journeys along the rest of our trip. We pedaled away, with our plums and honey in tow. He was certainly the kind of person you don't forget easily.

Later that day, before we crossed the border to France, we came upon the Rhine river. Across the way we could see France, where I will be calling home for the next eight months or so. As a farewell to Germany, we stopped in a grocery store and bought a couple pints of good German beer, and sat on a park bench overlooking the river and ate sausage and mustard sandwich's washed down with lukewarm German lager. Life is good. We crossed the border into France with a slight beer buzz and excitements for the next stage of the journey.