It was a very full day today in more ways than one. After a robust breakfast it was back in the saddle to head towards the village of Volkach which was 29k down the Mainz River.
We spent the first half of the day cycling along farmers fields which had quite the array of produce that was in the throws of being harvested. The roads were very busy with large farm machinery dragging trailers to various paddocks, combine harvesters and large tractors clogging up the busy lanes and slowing down the traffic.
We stopped to survey our surrounds and could have sworn we were on the Saskatchewan prairies as the land was as flat as plus the produce was the same in the form of wheat and barley. The exception was that there was carrots, sweet beets, corn, hops, fennel, apples, plums, grapes and the list went on. This is certainly a major food bowl area for Germany.
Went passed this private aerial museum with relics from the Second World War.
We had to negotiate a ferry crossing which we are getting use to. It is like the Le Mans starting block as the ferries pull into shore with them all lined up at the gate and those that can rev their engines and are in full motion.
Now these are very interesting. They are for bees. They are random around the area we are biking and there are no bees using them. Can’t seem to find anything on the net to give us further information but some of them are very elaborate. Probably the bees are too busy at present, out pollinating all the plants.
So we introduced Elfi to our crazy hay bale climbing tradition.
Some young kids were watching us and also got involved and their mum kindly took these photos for us.
So we arrived into the town of Volkach at around 1.00pm. We made very good time today as we were keen to get out of the heat. It is a very picturesque village with a population of 8,700 but must swell enormously in the summer time with the wine festivals plus bikers.
We sat at the café and people watched for a while and the place was drowning with old people on bikes. We have been told that since Covid, biking has now become a huge activity for the elderly, of course on e-bikes. When Horst was planning this trip for us he said that this was the most difficult place to find accommodation for the four of us. We overheard people saying that they had made the mistake of not booking ahead and had no place for the night plus they were on bikes – they won’t make that mistake again.
The landlords wife made this specialty desert, so we all felt obliged to try it.
Thankfully we only got the one between the four of us as you could easily have consumed one all on your own. Our caloric intake is outstripping our caloric output!!!
As luck would have it the local area brass band of 50 young people were in town for the night to perform in the local square. They were later joined by the Warzburg brass band of 50 people and they put on a stupendous performance. We thought they would play good old Bavarian um-pa-pa music, but it was movie scores and popular tunes. The sound was very good in a natural amphitheatre in front of the Rathaus.
Step – 7,854 +29k in 29c
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