Day 16: Bruce Learns Not to Listen To German Do Not Enter Signs July 16
Coburg to Ludwigsstadt 38miles
We started today in Coburg. We met the hotel owner whom we had only spoken to on the phone yesterday. We also got to walk through the center walkway down to the back garage where our bikes were. The building is from the early 1600s and still has pieces of the original architecture like this internal quadrangle in the middle of a huge city. Very cool. We had coffee and cake from the bakery downstairs at the fountain with the pigeons to start the day. This is after the espresso shots from the espresso machine we had complimentary in our room. Bruce made them, it was lovely. We successfully navigated out of town via the Netto market (supply stop) and followed a bike route to Neustadt and had another coffee. Sometimes you buy a damn coffee just to use the bathrooms... Not ashamed to admit it! After some planning in the shade, we crossed over the border (East/West German) into Sonneberg where there is now a McDonalds in the former death strip....doesn't seem right somehow... Or maybe it does...We easily made it to the center of Sonneberg and then the village of Steinbach, where we then started our first major hill of the day up to Jagdshof... Long and hard up... then down to Heinersdorf ... Not long enough and too fast down. Today was kind of a filler day with lots of ups and downs but no big awesome thing to talk about. We tackled a loooong slow climb from Heinersdorf to Tettau and then over the old border and along the Rennsteig - an old german post road. The road was closed road due to logging activities just after Heinersdorf. We saw the sign at the edge of the woods... But it was ONLY a warning not a DO NOT ENTER! Then about 2km into the woods we come across the DO NOT ENTER sign... But we were already so far in... So we lifted the sign and traveled on... What is the worst that could happen!?! Absolutely nothing! We heard some logging activities up on one of the hills WAY above us but were never in any danger... But if we had heeded the sign's advice we would still be cycling around the detour... Humph! Not to mention that those loggers just taught Brucie not to listen to German DO NOT ENTER signs... Not a good lesson to teach a rule bending Scotsman... Just saying... In all of this huffing and climbing, we made it up to the pines and spruces again... Not good... and alpine strawberries... Very good! We even pilfered some blue berries. The raspberries aren't quite ripe yet. We even saw highland cows (heilan' coos) the long haired shaggy ones. We traveled through gorgeous german villages that time forgot and even watched a farmer stack hay bales with his huge tractor with massive spikes. It is crazy how small a tractor and hay bales look without perspective. Taking about perspective, we saw a mountain biker with an e-bike (electric assisted bicycle). This seems like cheating... Like really cheating! As the day finished up, the first guesthouse in Lauenstein was closed for their day off. So we had an Eiscafe and cherry sundae in the restaurant next door before going downhill to the main road. This downhill had an 18% gradient down through this town... Which for those of you who don't know makes you feel like a house fly on a bedroom wall. 18% feels like skiing the Matterhorn after a long day in the saddle. At the bottom was the Post hotel but they were way too expensive. So we pedaled on. We cycled couple of miles down the road and got a guesthouse, dinner, and beer... Long day... Sleep now... The World is......:::snore::::::
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