Short ride today, just 34km or so, but a bit of a slow ride, both because we stopped quite a bit and because a lot of the riding was up and down on gravel paths, gradually climbing into the hills where the Donau starts.
We’re spending the night at an old hunting lodge turned guesthouse about 8km upriver from Beuron, Germany, about 20km east of Tuttlingen.
The Donau abandons all pretence of being a navigable river just outside Siegmaringen, where we started this morning, and quickly enters much more rugged and hilly country, with limestone bluffs along the sides of the valley and a couple of dramatic schlosses up on the bluffs.
At the Jagerhaus we’re spending the night at, the Donau is only about four metres wide, you can wade across it and only be wet to the knees, and if you don’t want to get wet a nice line of big rocks has been arranged as stepping stones.
Quite a change from the massive river we started biking alongside in Vienna just over two weeks ago!
The one minor downside to this Jagerhaus is that they’re not really equipped for groups as large as hours, so four or five of us are sleeping out on the balconies. It’s actually quite comfortable, I have a good sleeping bag, and there’s even a plug to charge my phone at overnight!
We depart from the Donau tomorrow at Tuttlingen and head south to the Bodensee (Lake Constance) to spend the night at Unterlingen before heading into Switzerland for a few days.
