Day 29.5 - Alarming / Day 30 Schweinfurt Bound

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The Bike Lodge Hotel had everything a cyclist staying overnight needed, including washing machines and driers which we were in dire need of. Washing clothes in showers and basins only gets things so clean. As soon as we hit the room we filled a bag with clothes (including the days riding clothes) and took them down to set on a wash cycle and then back to the room to relax.
Some time later an alarm went off and persisted. After about 10 minutes there was a knock at our door. The manager was there saying that an alarm on one of our bikes (mine) was going off. With horror I realised I hadn't taken my alarm fob out of my pocket before throwing my shorts into the wash. It must have shorted and set off the alarm, and to make matters worse I couldn't get the fob out of the active wash cycle. Luckily I do have a spare fob and was able to (eventually) find that and shut it off. The manager said he'd been to every room initially thinking it was a a fire alarm. VERY embarrassing.
The manager mustn't have minded too much because he ended up driving us back into the main part of town and having dinner with us. His choice of restaurant was sensational. Jeff and I both had one of the best meals we've had so far. Pork shoulder with crackling that just fell apart with potato dumplings and red cabbage. Now I'm not one for cabbage but this tasted amazing!
When we went back to the lodge the manager (Benny) rounded up all the guests for the night (only 6 of us) and shouted us all a drink and we chatted until 10:30pm (quite late for us). It was a great end to a great days ride.

The next morning we had breakfast at the hotel (always good for loading up) before heading off to Schweinfurt. It was a day initially of riding along the Main River again before heading inland to cut off a big bend in the river before meeting it again at Schweinfurt. Riding by the river is so relaxing. There's no need for any urgency to our riding because we seem to be finishing the ride between 1pm and 2pm most days. Very civilised, and does give us time for the more mundane chores of washing clothes, bike maintenance, food shopping (and writing blogs). After leaving the river today we had some more climbing but apart from one climb they were all in little spurts. I did manage to complete my July climbing challenge of 7,500m on the last day of the month so I was happy with that.
We're back on the river now until Nuremberg which is two days riding away, that's where we'll swap over to the canal that takes us to the Dannube.
Tomorrow we head to Bamberg.
Distance travelled today: 63kms
Distance travelled so far: 1,720kms

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Photos

Pork Shoulder with Crackling with Potato Dumplings and Red Cabbage
The pork was fall off the bone tender and the crackling very cruchy.
The red cabbage was almost sweet and nothing like I've ever tasted before.
The potato dumplings were almost gelatinous, a very strange texture, but still yummy.

We ride through these quaint towns all the time.
Note the very German style of church towers we are now seeing.

Decorative Bikes
We see bikes for decoration in quite a few places.

Comments

[Mike1234]

Nice manager
Great of the manager to go to dinner with you. Nothing like local info. Watch out for those European watching machines as they all seemed to shrink our clothes last time we visited. Bamburg is beautiful. Safe travels.

[Mark63]

Are you sure it was the washing machines and not the pastries that were shrinking your clothes