September 2nd: Ulm to Dillingen

Ceri: It’s our 9th wedding anniversary! We celebrate every year on our bike adventures somewhere. Next year will be 10 years married and 10 years post op so definitely worth a bigger celebration …. perhaps?

We loved Ulm and loved cycling out along the river in the cool early morning . Heaven knows how the conversation started, but we met a charismatic lady on the cycle path full of stories, and a guy in a cherry picker above us joined in. How random can our days be!

After Ulm the landscape became flat and boring for miles. And just when we needed a change from the open flat farm land, the forest gravel track began, but that too became pretty monotonous. At least miles were covered quickly with no distractions.

We’re following this book :

And it regularly offers alternative routes from simply following the river. It adds a few kms but always worth it. So we went off piste again.

We reached the really pretty town of Günzburg where we enjoyed a long leisurely coffee. One thing we’ve noticed about Germany is the number of people smoking. We’re not used to it anymore. I reckon 50% of the people in our outside cafe today were smoking. Cigs are cheaper here I guess.

Of course, cycling with Neil inevitably includes a swim wherever possible, and today was the day. We came across a huge cafe on the Danube which was conveniently closed. We were able to use all their facilities to enjoy our picnic at the table and swim in their ’beach’. The local Hydroelectric company on the Danube has created beaches along the river with shallow gravel areas providing easy access for swimmers and areas for smaller fish and riverbank creatures to enjoy. We had a glorious swim.