Author: Brian Burger

(The nuns we stayed with Wednesday night lacked WiFi and so did last night’s hostel, so you’re getting this late…)

The storms blew over during the night, leaving us a humid but mild morning to ride in.

Donauwörth to Dilligen was an easy 35km, mostly away from the Danube through flat farmland. Found a tiny village bakery for coffee enroute, then Martin got a flat on the rear tire of his Brompton, which wound up taking about an hour to sort out.

Dilligen is a nice smallish town and our lodging for the night is an actual cloister run by Franciscan nuns. The rooms are clean and only double occupancy, the dinner was lavish and they sell cheap local beer, so the sisters are running a good show.

Off to Blauberen tomorrow, a full day at 85km, but it is supposed to be a lot cooler, 24 C max.

Obligatory religious joke, apologies to the nuns of Dillingen Kloster: Why don’t religious buildings have WiFi? Because religion can’t stand dealing with an invisible power that actually functions.

Thank you, try the veal, I’ll be on my bike.

Still hot but much of today’s ride was away from the river through farmland, so more shade (a lot of the riverside paths are up on the dikes, quite exposed) but more hills.

The small group I have been riding with decided to leave Ingolstadt early, just past seven this morning to beat the worst of the heat. It worked, it was just getting really stinking hot as we rolled into Donauwörth around 1230.

This did come at the expense of seeing more of Ingolstadt, which is unfortunate. I had wanted to take an hour or two in the morning to see the military history museum, which is apparently very good. Next time I’m in Germany!

Donauwörth has a small old town section alongside the Danube which we biked around a bit after we dropped our bags off at the hostel. Then we learned of a public swimming beach at a lake just south of town and headed there for a few hours – a wonderful way to beat the heat!

There are thunderstorms forecast for tomorrow afternoon, but luckily we have a short day of under 40km to get to Dilligen and should be off the roads before noon.

Hot today, up to 32 C and probably warmer out in the open with no shade.

We started off in Kelheim and after braving that 22% grade back down (still not fun, especially with the bikes fully loaded) we cruised across the old town to the boat docks and stuffed fifty plus bikes into a riverboat for the 45 minute ride up the Danube gorge just upstream from Kelheim, which saved us 300+ metres of climbing on the first few kilometres south of Kelheim.

The gorge was spectacular; after ten days biking along the Danube it was nice to see things from the water for a bit. We even saw a cave that had supposed been used by Donau pirates at one point, which nearly lead to this post being titled “The Pirates of the Danube”!

Because of the ferry schedule we started later than usual and got to bike well into the hot afternoon, not getting to Ingolstadt until 1500 or so.

Ingolstadt looks lovely, an old university and army town full of neat buildings. The hostel is an old 19th C barracks on the edge of the old town, with massive thick brick walls keeping the worst of the heat out.

I’m planning a loop around the old town and its surviving fortifications tomorrow when we ride out; we walked part of the town tonight but heat and fatigue kept me from seeing everything I wanted to see.

Off to Donauwörth tomorrow, weather supposed to be just as hot and about ten clicks more that today’s fifty-some km!

The 22% has nothing to do with Bavarian schnapps or some other liquor, which wouldn’t really have been a problem until tomorrow morning, but the entirely insane slope heading up to the hostel here in Kelheim. Everyone walked their bikes, even those of us younger than most and carrying fairly minimal gear.

Cursing in a variety of languages was also audible, trust me…

Aside from that Kelheim is a lovely town, especially the old town where the Donau and the Altmühl rivers meet. Nice easy 40-some km ride along the Donau to get to Kelheim from Regensburg; including a very leisurely coffee break and a pretty slack pace we left Regensburg just past 0830 and arrived at the hostel around 1215, after the lunatic slope slog.

We were chatting yesterday with a German couple who were riding to Regensburg for an afternoon and dinner who also mentioned that a rather unfortunate number of Bavarian hostels were at the tops of notable hills, so its not just our experience, it’s a thing.

“Flat along the Donau except for the cliff before the hostel” is becoming one of our standard group jokes over breakfast.

Off to Ingolstadt tomorrow, fifty some km after a short ferry ride down a gorge to avoid a gnarly set of climbs.