Day 7: 2 Eiscafes makes a Good Day July 7,2015
Hotensleben to Ilsenburg 42 miles
We woke up and got out pretty quickly this morning. Just down the hill from our guest house was the old border set up the way it was up until the 1980s. One of the signs was in English, which was nice. So we had breakfast at the border and off we went. Next we encountered a HUGE Open cast coal mine. Andrea kinda wants one of the diggers to play with back home. We saw a lot of countryside today, following patrol roads and cycle paths all the way to Hornberg. Hornberg is an old beautiful town with timber framed buildings and narrow cobbled streets. We had an eiscafe at one of the little cafes tucked in the corner of one of those buildings. It started getting hot and we had to now go uphill on those quaint cobble streets... At least we had a caffeine boost. The route had us take on a path through the woods a ways out of town which got us totally turned around for a bit ... I think we missed a turn somewhere because we were distracted by the faces carved into he trees all along this path... so we had to take a longer way around to get back to our route. We took a break under the trees in Aberrode with our awesome packable chairs and ate some lunch. With about 4km left for the day we headed into a forest. Right on he edge of the trees there was a cafe. As we walked into the open air patio, we met some german backpackers who wanted us to sit with them. We all had ice cream together (we had another eiscafe) and chatted for a bit. Then we were off again to finish our day. We made it up the hill through the woods in the beautiful Harz national park. Such tall pines and deep rich smells of cedar... It was stunning... The smell of the woods changed a bit as we got into a bit sunnier area and obviously the wild garlic was in bloom... Wow is that stuff potent! But garlic and all, we made it to Ilsenburg. We came in at the top of this town on a hill and found the tourist info all the way at the bottom in the old train station building. But the lady was very nice and she called to get us a room. We found a Chinese restaurant for dinner. Yum! And right next door was a drink store, a"Getranke Markt" which had Radler beers for 40 euro cents!! We are taking a rest day tomorrow yay!!! Sleep, laundry, tub!
The World is Ours!