B2B Day 9 – Wertheim to Obernburg

Day 9 – Wertheim to Obernburg

This morning the weather looked rather changeable – blue skies, then five minutes later heavy clouds, then a few minutes later blue skies again. I imagine we will get wet on our 36 mile cycle ride today to Obernburg.

We had breakfast which was very good – croissants were on offer, as was scrambled egg with onions, ham, tomato etc in it.

As we were standing on our balcony looking down at the cycle path James saw and recognised some cyclists we had seen yesterday. It’s interesting how you become familiar with some people and see them multiple times. We’re way ahead of Wowbagger’s German cousin so I can’t imagine we’ll see him any more.

We were ready to leave by 10am and after a small bit of bike fettling (James tipped the nose of his saddle down slightly) we were off.

Oh yes, in the underground parking area was a tractor which was a Porsche!

We crossed over the river Main as we set off, passing through Kreuzwertheim and discovering that we were cycling into a stonking headwind. Unfortunately our journey today was mostly west and the wind was a westerly, and very strong.

This is looking back at Wertheim, sorry about the rather dark photo!

It was hard, hard work pedalling our way round from Kreuzwertheim to Hasloch. The wind was funnelling up the river valley so even if our compass direction changed considerably, we were still fighting against the wind. We were probably only cycling about 7-8mph for quite a lot of the time.

It started getting a little chilly so I decided that now I am 40 it’s acceptable to put socks on with my sandals, which I duly did.

After Hasloch we went through Faulbach (since when was Bach lazy?) where we discovered we were alongside a single track railway line with level crossings with no automatic gates. The train just whistles when it approaches, which seemed rather old-fashioned and sweet. When a train came past, however, it was perfectly modern – it had three carriages, one of which was a Fahrradwagen (bicycle carriage) and both others had bicycle spaces marked too.

We fought our way onward against the wind, looking at the dark clouds with some misgivings. We stopped for some food (banana and biscuits) to have a short rest as it was such hard work.

We cycled through Dorfprozelten and then Collenberg which was rather nice, watching a ship going through one of the locks.

We then went to Freudenberg which was very attractive with a castle perched impressively up on the cliffs above.

We carried on and then realised it was about to rain so we sheltered under a tree which was surprisingly effective. The rain lasted less than five minutes and, having waited a further five minutes to be sure it had properly stopped, we carried on into blue skies and sun. The weather here is very changeable but very quick!

We were looking forward to arriving at our lunch stop, Miltenberg, as we were feeling like we were expending a lot of energy. When we got there we found a nice restaurant/café and I had some asparagus soup followed by marzipan cake which had very impressive strata.

James had a sensible lunch (bread and ham):

but was tempted by my cake so had mandarin cheesecake afterwards.

He also drank a Radler which is a classic drink around here – it’s a cyclists’ special drink, half beer and half lemonade, and apparently is very refreshing. I just had a cup of tea, of course.

After we finished lunch it rained again, so we sheltered in the cafe a little longer, watching the clouds through the window to see when it was safe to venture out.

We headed off at a quarter past two with fifteen miles still to go. The bad weather and the headwind made us a bit nervous but luckily our route headed more north than west now and the wind was much kinder.

The route was a bit faffy getting over the bridge at Kleinheubach and again as we weaved our way through Großheubach but we were soon back on an easy path, relieved that the wind wasn’t so against us. A very short rainshower didn’t hold us up – we just kept going and it stopped after a minute or two.

After a long stretch with just cycle path and hillside we reached Klingenberg am Main, at which point we crossed over again to the left bank of the river. This was a bit awkward as there was a diversion on the cycle route which ended up requiring me to cycle up steps – not easy! So we retraced our path for 50 metres or so and got onto the road instead.

Crossing the bridge was meant to be on foot (Radfahrer absteigen) on the pavement but it looked too narrow so I cycled across on the road. James walked on the path and said it was really bumpy. They were building a new bridge next to the one we crossed so presumably this is being improved.

We then cycled through Wörth am Main which was very interesting due to the view on the other bank of the river – a barge on various bogies to launch it into the water sideways.

We had passed a bar called U-Boot which was in a sort-of submarine shape so we then wondered if U-Boots had been built at Erlenbach (the other side of the river) but can’t find any information on that.

We knew we were on the final stretch now so found the going easier and increased our speed. Between Wörth and Obernburg the cycle path was closed and instead we were routed along an excellent road that had no traffic on it; it seems a new road was built next to it which has taken all the traffic. It was a lovely fast surface so we zoomed along.

We arrived in Obernburg at about four o’clock and made our way to the hotel via a slight detour when I took us down what I thought was a good route but which ended up by a fountain with lots of steps up to the road.

The Hotel Römerhof is really nice, with a large room, cosy looking bar/restaurant downstairs, free and fast WiFi and friendly staff, although I find the accent very difficult here. Our bikes are locked outside down a side passageway – not under cover, but out of sights. A bit of rain will help to wash them down a bit!

I made the mistake I had expected to make before now but had avoided – showering with my Garmin heart rate monitor on. Fortunately it seems to be OK.

After we had freshened up we went for a walk around the town which was lovely – lots of attractive buildings, although everything was shut as it’s Sunday evening.

I saw this tea for sale in a closed shop, “Feel young” tea, probably something I need now!

Well, not everything, we found an open bakery and bought some cake for later.

We walked across a pedestrian footbridge to see the Main river again – tonight is our last night on the Main, tomorrow we will be on the Rhein (train-assisted, getting the train from Hanau (east of Frankfurt) to Wiesbaden (opposite Mainz, where the Main flows into the Rhein)).

And saw this really unusual church (it turned out to be a catholic church) which was really interesting inside as well, although I didn’t take pics in there as the priest was sitting in the pews.

As we were resting before the evening meal we heard loads of church bells ringing, then a brass band and some singing. There was some kind of procession going past our hotel which we watched from our window. It was clearly some kind of Christian procession but not sure what for specifically.

We ate in the restaurant below the hotel which was nice, although I was a bit surprised to be charged 1 euro for some tap water. However I ordered extra olives on my pizza and they didn’t charge me for that…

Weather for tomorrow looks similar to today, so not particularly warm and with some showers, but I think it should be a bit warmer on Tuesday fortunately. Wednesday we will be driving home

Statistics for today:

Distance: 36.55
Moving time: 4 hours 3 minutes
Moving average: 9 mph
Maximum speed: 21.86 mph
Calories burned: 1174
Maximum heart rate: 148
Average heart rate: 106

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