Daphne's Drivel

 Cycling into the city of Salzburg yesterday was really easy. The path from Oberndorf took us through shady woodland along the Salzaach River right into the heart of the city. You immediately notice the commanding 900 year-old castle (Festung Hohensalzburg) on the top of the cliff overlooking the very Baroque old town below. Last night we attended an evening of Chamber music in Schloss Mirabelle in a most ornate room called the Marmorsaal (Marble Hall). Near the end of the performance, the lights went out - the whole of Salzburg experienced a power outage for about an hour. It didn't affect the concert but it was an odd experience. Restaurants had to close and we returned to the sanctuary of our guest-house with our solar camping lights! Prior to the concert we admired the beautiful gardens around the palace, and we didn't realize till after that the garden was where the young Von Trapps practiced Do-Re-Me in The Sound of Music. Today we attended a short organ recital in the Ca...

 The short trip to Cesky Krumlov in the Czech Rep worked out perfectly and was the change and rest we both needed. We picked up our car rental on Thursday morning in Passau and headed northeast two hours through the rolling hills of southwest Czechia to the UNESCO town of Cesky Krumlov. I had never been there before and Frank knew it from a very different perspective when he was stationed there during his military service back in the day. Cesky Krumlov is set on an S-bend in the Vltava river and is dominated by it's 13th century castle (photo taken from the castle) One of our favourite Czech traditional meals - svickova, which is beef in a special creamy sauce made from vegetables, and of course served with dumplings The "Five Petal" Renaissance Festival provided all kinds of entertainment. Great street food and drinks, music, elaborate costumes and actors strolling the town, in this amazing setting of cobble-stoned streets and narrow alleys Frank's brother and sister...

We've been without wifi for the last four nights, so I will try to share the highlights and lowlights of the last section of riding, and hope to be able to post this soon. We had quite a bit of rain on Wed, Thursday and Friday, but since then we’re enjoying pretty hot days, around 30C. Because of the rain and also not so many campgrounds, we have used hotels a few times, and thoroughly enjoyed them – well, once we got to them. More about that later. A particularly nice hotel in a tiny village called Kirch. Not very expensive either Packing up our gear at a hotel takes almost as long as packing the tent as we usually have to remove the panniers and drybags  and cart them in and out of the hotel. We don't  take the panniers off when we're camping If we were to give marks out of 10 for each day, most would be at least a 7, but Friday earned about a 2! That day things just did not go well. We decided to take an alternate trail that was marked on our map and was said to be much ...

 After a rainy day rest (we did only 20km) on Sunday on the shore of Lake Constance (well, a smaller sub-lake called Untersee), it was time to cross over the watershed, leave the Rhine and head north to the Danube and the town of Tuttlingen. This would be continuing on EuroVelo 6 and leaving EV 15. The latter continues to the source of the Rhine to the east end of Lake Constance and on up the mountains to Andermatt, Switzerland. This is what European camping can be like, especially on a holiday weekend along a lake! Fortunately most of our camps haven't been like this, but on rainy Sunday this was the scene  This shows Randolfzell on the shore of Lake Constance which the Rhine flows into, and to the north the town of Tuttlingen which is on the Danube. EuroVelo 6 cycle route connects the two. The landscape changed as we left the lake and headed up quite a few rolling hills through what is part of the Black forest region. It was really quite pretty. Being the holiday Monday, not...