Tania Campbell 
After a very relaxed morning and breakfast, Elke, Alex, Phil and I cycled into Strasbourg to have a look around. The original idea was to take one of the tourist boats to explore from the water, but the queues were so long, and the people were sitting so closely together, that we decided against it … Read more
Despite the hotel being along the main road into the Black Forest, I slept very well, a theme that seems to continue throughout this trip, luckily. Apparently it did not rain, ah well. Breakfast from the grumpy landlady was not quite so convincing, but ok. I spent all morning cycling downhill or on the flat, … Read more
The tent was dry this morning, so could get away reasonable early, after I had written my article for the paper. Wonder whether and how it will be published, I will report. To Dornstetten it was all downhill, but then there were several hills to climb and come down again before I reached Freudenstadt. Very … Read more
Hot! 850 m climbing in temperatures of up to 40°C (as measured by my bike computer) in the shade, and I was in the sun quite a bit. No wonder I could not go further… The day started slowly, I got up later than usual, partly because it was so hot during the night that … Read more
Martin, another Kreisrat of Esslingen, that I had met in Leipzig, picked me up by bike and cycled about 35 km with me – thanks for that! We first went to Esslingen, an amazing medieval town with lots of half-timbered houses, which also has part of the administration of the Landratsamt. Unfortunately we were too … Read more
After a nice breakfast with interesting background information on all kinds of local politics by the landlady of the Alte Kass, I set off leisurely to explore Landkreis Esslingen, one of the twinned Landkreise of Munich. I followed the ‚Streuobstroute‚ (Streuobstwiesen are a kind of organic, wild orchard, I could not find an English translation … Read more
After a pretty good night in the tent I woke up much later than expected, but was ready to go within an hour, all packed up. The ground is so dry that I did not have to wait for the tent to dry. While I was packing up my neighbours chatted with me quite a … Read more
Spent the last morning with Phil wandering around Augsburg and going to quite an interesting exhibition I had read about: The women of the Elvira photo-studio in Augsburg and Munich (https://kunstsammlungen-museen.augsburg.de/atelier-elvira ). We finally parted company at the station, Phil taking the train back to Munich. I went on, leaving Augsburg to the West, along … Read more
What a send-off! Of course my family was up and about to say good-bye, but two colleagues (Gerlinde and Susanna) also came armed with a poster, and then five people from the local cycling club came along for part of the ride, as well! Wow, I am still overwhelmed! Today was also the day a … Read more
The last time I went on a bike ride (mainly) on my own that was more than a week long was probably around the North Sea in the early 1990s, so I suppose almost 30 years ago. In the meantime some of my equipment has been given away (cooker), is not functional anymore (tent) or … Read more