clairedavieswriter

Sorry for the delay… I’d imagined that I would use my all-day train journey to Brussels from Oberstdorf (btw, not a bad view from the station): … to write a few general thoughts, but instead 7 hours flew by in the company of a couple of German cyclists – Karin and Vera, it was great…

And it’s a wrap on our end-to-end of Germany. Team Bernard have pedalled 1,249.8k and climbed 6,785m from the chilly windswept dykes of Schleswig Holstein to the boiling foothills of the Bavarian Alps. This was literally the end of the road: the closest we could get to the border on two wheels: When we set…

Oberstdorf is Team Bernard’s last stop on this, our 10th European end-to-end. Tomorrow I’ll ride up (operative word) to the border, or as close as I can get by road, and then come back here for another night. The day after, Tuesday, I start my two-day train journey home. This place has been on my…

I often talk about my Guardian Angels, but, so preoccupied was I the day before yesterday with the state of my knee, I think I failed to properly appreciate the importance of the GA’s intervention in Donauwörth. In hindsight, finding Zweirad Uhl when I did, virtually without deviating from our route, was extremely fortunate, both…

Wounded Knee reported for duty this morning, though I decided to play it safe and go into town by tram. Nothing like signing up to a new app for testing your language skills. What, pray, is the etymology of the German for adult? Word of the day: Erwachsene. Trams in Augsburg are plentiful, clean (inside…

Today the usually dependable Bernard, who in 4 years has not troubled me with more than a puncture (and none of those since I switched from tubeless Gravelkings to Schwalbes with inner tubes in May 2022 – don’t get me started on tubeless tyres) suffered the inconceivable: an actual mechanical failure. Just before this picture…

My server at breakfast told me that the Germans have a word for the cold snap we’ve just experienced here (of course they do): it’s Schafskälte. Literally, cold sheep. Because it always happens just after the farmers have sheared their flocks of their winter fleeces. I doubt any sheep were shivering today: for the first…

In the best tradition of the Guardian newspaper, it’s been pointed out that there were some errors/omissions in earlier posts that I need to correct/clarify: First, in an unsurprising development, it turns out I was wrong about the rally car on Day 5: Apparently it was not a Ford Cortina but an Opel Kadett (I’m…

It turns out that, along with some basic research, a better knowledge of German prepositions would have told me Rothenburg was on a hill: I learned today that its name means ‘red castle above the Tauber: It really is an extraordinary place, one of only four towns in Germany that still have completely intact walls…

The activities of the local bin men at 6.30 this morning obviated the need for this splendid piece of bedside kit (see Day 12, ‘moderne Fremdenzimmer’). Probably just as well, since the clock seemed to be stuck on 8.00 (or 20.00; hard to say which year): I didn’t know quite what to expect from today’s…