Day 5: To Bad Mergentheim, the big day

When we go down to breakfast, the woman running the hotel greets us, coffee or tea, she asks and then as an afterthought says she hoped we didn't drink any water from the tap. The heavy rains have caused damage to the water pipes and the water in Feuchtwangen is polluted. What? I think I drank a couple of liters.  Janos advises her it would be better to tell the guests when they arrive and not when they are leaving. I am keeping my fingers crossed that there will be no repurcussions. Today is to be the long day, riding our ages in kilometers.

But before we leave, the pictures from our window. 

View to the monastery abbey

Across the street

Further to the left we have a view of a storks nest.

Today is perhaps the best ride of the trip. The weather is perfect and the countryside is varied. I didn't plot the route along the conventional bicycle path following the Tauber River. I don't remember why but it was a good idea and probably more interesting than staying on the Tauber Bicycle Path where there would be many cyclists. Actually, I often think I can plan the routes better than what the Open Cycle Map and Komoot suggest. Sometimes I'm right, but not always. ​

I think this is a rails-to-trails path.

Sturdy church towers here in Franconia, very different from the graceful onion dome steeples further south.

We are seeing more and more buildings with half-timbered facades, new and old.

Since it will be a long day, we stop for a lunch break.

A perfect day, and you can see I have stocked up on water.

Where there are wind turbines, there is wind - and it is a headwind for us.

In Buch another detour without warning - and we can't get through or around it. We have to backtrack.

The shell on the tree indicates this as one of the many branches of the Way of St. James. Janos walked from his home in Kassel to Santiago in 1997 and also walked along this route.

No, my planning isn't always perfect. Part of our route today takes us on a narrow, muddy path through the woods between Heimberg and Oberstetten, the worst of the whole trip. I should have been able to see on the map that it wasn't a proper bicycle path when planning. Mud and roots are not my thing. I get off and walk. It is only about four or five kilometers but it seems to go on forever. Janos, on the other hand, is quite skillful at navigating difficult terrraine. This time his self-confidence doesn't pay off. Pushing my bike and trying not step in the messy puddles, I finally catch up with him. I find him sprawled in the mud. Not hurt, fortunately. I wonder if it was because he was riding with one hand on the handlebars and holding his action cam in the other? He assures me that wasn't the case.

However, the rough path eventually ends and we are again on a sealed surface in the pretty Reu Valley, the best scenery of the day. The next 35 kilometers are for the most part a gradual downhill until we reach Bad Mergentheim.​

We're out of the woods and there's that guy with his action cam again.

In Oberstetten

In Niederstetten

Wine country - Franconia has excellent white wines.

We stop for an ice cream in Weikersheim. No pictures in Weikersheim, unfortunately, but it is also a lovely town. At this point I see I have little clusters of three or four bites up my arm and on my neck. I'm afraid not only was the water polluted but there were fleas in Hotel Lamm!

We reach our hotel, Alte Münze, in Bad Mergentheim at exactly 83 kilometers. We rode our years in kilometers, that's my 81 plus two for Janos.  We don't plan to ride 80+ kilometers that often but found it wasn't that difficult, either. Let's see if we are up to it again next year.

The hotel makes a good impression, is located in the historic old town and I doubt it has fleas. But I won't drink water from the tap.