Summer Solstice in Bad Mergentheim
Thursday June 21, 2018
On June 21 my husband, Janos, and I were on tour, traveling the Romantic Road. Bad Mergentheim was on our route and was memorable in many ways. For one it was a very windy day. But then we had many windy days. I will remember the Summer Solstice in Bad Mergentheim for other reasons.
My husband passed through here in 1997 when he walked the Camino de Santiago, starting in his home town Kassel, Germany. He remembers stopping at this gate and making a sketch before he continued on his path with his heavy backpack. At that time he had no idea that he would return someday by bike with me, his wife. We hadn’t met yet.
Bad Mergentheim is also memorable because I crashed here with my bike. It all went so fast it’s hard to know what really happened, or why. I was on an easy, paved downhill, no traffic, and I think an insect flew into my face near my mouth. I must have jerked my head and while braking, turned the handlebars. The bike fell over and I flew. I got quite a scare and a very bloody knee. We were just leaving town, so we cycled back looking for a pharmacy. What luck, within not even 500 meters there was a doctor’s practice and a pharmacy side by side. I went in to the doctor’s – in my daze I thought it was the pharmacy. I showed them my skinned knee and asked if they could help. I got my knee dressed professionally and in the pharmacy next door could purchase material to dress the wound in the following days. I was okay, but shaken by the thought that something like that can happen so unexpectedly. And I was lucky: no fractures, no concussion, all teeth intact.
My husband passed through here in 1997 when he walked the Camino de Santiago, starting in his home town Kassel, Germany. He remembers stopping at this gate and making a sketch before he continued on his path with his heavy backpack. At that time he had no idea that he would return someday by bike with me, his wife. We hadn’t met yet.
Bad Mergentheim is also memorable because I crashed here with my bike. It all went so fast it’s hard to know what really happened, or why. I was on an easy, paved downhill, no traffic, and I think an insect flew into my face near my mouth. I must have jerked my head and while braking, turned the handlebars. The bike fell over and I flew. I got quite a scare and a very bloody knee. We were just leaving town, so we cycled back looking for a pharmacy. What luck, within not even 500 meters there was a doctor’s practice and a pharmacy side by side. I went in to the doctor’s – in my daze I thought it was the pharmacy. I showed them my skinned knee and asked if they could help. I got my knee dressed professionally and in the pharmacy next door could purchase material to dress the wound in the following days. I was okay, but shaken by the thought that something like that can happen so unexpectedly. And I was lucky: no fractures, no concussion, all teeth intact.
