Danube Bike Tour Day 4: Riedlingen to Blaubeuren
Posted by Cassie, November 15th, 2009
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Distance: 57 km
This morning, we said goodbye to our camping companions as we were all heading off in different directions. We thought we had left the limestone cliffs, but Rechenstein was built into the side of a limestone cliff. We hiked up to the castle ruins, and there was great view from the top.
View from Rechenstein castle ruins
We stopped in Ehingen to walk around the city center, and we were surprised to run into the father and daughter from Germany that we had camped with the previous night! We had ice cream with them at an Eis Cafe. Johanna got “spaghetti”, which is a dish with ice cream that looked like noodles with strawberry sauce on top. It looked very strange, but she said it was really good. We rode with Johanna and her father to Blaubeuren. Upon leaving Ehingen, we left the Danube to follow the Blau Valley variant instead. Blaubeuren was where the Blau River begins, and we would follow the Blau River back to the Danube in Ulm. There was no campground at Blaubeuren, so we planned to stay at the hostel instead. Johanna and her father decided to stay at the hostel, too, so we spent another night hanging out with them. They enjoyed the campfire so much the night before, so they asked the woman at the hostel if there was a place where we could have a fire. The woman gave them directions to a place. We packed up stuff for making dinner, and we hiked over to the place where we could have a fire. We looked all over, but we could not find the place to make a fire. The woman’s directions were very vague, so we thought it would be easy to find. We gave up and made dinner at a table in the park instead. We enjoyed talking with Johanna and her father about Germany. Johanna spoke English very well, but she translated for her father since he only spoke a little English. Johanna was in medical school, and she and her father were on a bike ride during her break from school. Amazingly, medical students only have to pay 500 euros per year for school! It is a six-year program that they begin after graduating from high school. We also asked Johanna if they had solar panels at their house. While we had been riding through Germany, we had seen solar panels on roofs everywhere! They didn’t have solar panels, but they did have a solar water heater. Johanna said the solar water heater was great, but you would have a cold shower in the morning or on cloudy days. 🙂 After dinner, we said goodnight because we had to be at breakfast at 8am. Apparently, the cook got very angry when people were late for breakfast, so we had to be there promptly at 8am.
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