It was sad to say goodbye to Miles and Clare. I loved spending five days with them – it was nonstop fun and great talking with good friends.
Outside Roettingen, the valley quickly narrowed and the road turned uphill towards Rothenberg. It was good riding and there was lots to see.
Rothenburg was a place I wanted to see, as it’s described as one of the best kept towns in Europe and that’s absolutely true. Unfortunately it’s definitely on the tourist trail, especially for the oldies circulating in Europe right now. It was still very beautiful though.
Despite its beauty, it seemed more like a theme park than a town. You simply can’t put so many tourists in a place and retain authenticity. I got some food at a bakery and left.
I made it to the station just in time for the short ride to Steinach where I was hoping to book a ticket to Strasbourg. Lucky it was a short ride. There was a pair of Australians who plonked themselves and their luggage in the bike area on the train. That meant that the bikes completely blocked the carriage. D’oh !
Unfortunately, the station was unmanned and the ticket machine wouldn’t let me purchase a simple ticket. It was only in German and the button for english didn’t work. I could only by a Anywhere-in-Bavaria day ticket which I didn’t particularly want. Oh well, at least it gets me to Würzburg, but for an exorbitant price. Then they announced that there is no bike wagon on the soon to arrive, fast train, and there was a howl of disgust from a German lady with a bike “Ach. Deutsche Bundesbahn”.
My train came half an hour later and on it, I met a nice young German couple who were returning from a couple of weeks of cycling between Lake Constance and the Konigsee.
I got off in Würzburg and went straight to the Deutsche Bank ticket office. The best I could do, was arrive in Strasbourg at about 9:30 which was pretty good.
I had eaten at every opportunity today and by the time I got to my hotel, I was anything but hungry. So I went out and grabbed a beer around the corner to relax after a busy day.
