Category: Germany End-to-End 2026
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German Impressions
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…
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Day 18: Oberstdorf to the border (and back) – 34.1k, 580m climbed
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…
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Day 17: Kaufbeuren to Oberstdorf – 78k, 797m climbed
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…
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Day 16: Augsburg to Kaufbeuren – 78.2k, 376m climbed
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…
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Ambling round Augsburg
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…
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Day 15: Nördlingen to Augsburg – 83k, 458m climbed
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…
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Day 14: Rothenburg ob der Tauber to Nördlingen – 83.4k, 493m climbed
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…
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Corrections and Clarifications
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…
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Rest Day – Rambling round Rothenburg ob der Tauber
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…
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Day 13: Ochsenfurt to Rothenburg ob der Tauber – 53.3k, 547m climbed
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…
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