Today we cycled 129 km from Günzburg to Ingolstadt – a new daily distance record for us. 

Unfortunately Strava was acting up and didn’t record the stats properly (including elevation gain). The cycling route was perfect in the morning. At lunch in Donauworth, Denis suggested that we go as far as Ingolstadt which would make it a longer day – we were both fine with that. (We usually book our night’s accommodation at lunchtime when we can see how we are doing. Touch wood this strategy has worked well for us as there seems to be plenty of availability.) However having planned to push the distance boat out, we got a shock when we encountered serious hills immediately after lunch. We soldiered on. We had planned an afternoon break at Neuburg and boy did the prospect of ice-cream and a cold drink keep me going!

Denis is able to take photographs while cycling, I’m not and have to stop to take them. We’re both just using the camera on our phones – at the end of the day Denis share’s his photographs through AirDrop. It’s also very handy since the phone records time and place for each photograph. It’s amazing how good the cameras on phones have become.

We are now crossing Bavaria.

Some photos as we cycled along today …

The signs give an idea of how extensive the cycle networks in Europe are

And this one, showing again how plain and simple the official “trans-Europe” Véloroute 6 can be at times!

This is Donauworth where we stopped for lunch

Today was a day of cycling across beautiful Bavarian countyside, neat farmland with villages and towns dotted in the distance. The red tiled roofs made the buildings stand out.

I’m not sure what this crop is

Lots of solar panels on roofs

Cycling across the countryside both here and in France, we noticed a lot of religious statues/crosses on the edges of fields along our route. 

The farmer who owns the field below won’t be happy to see so much of his crop lying down, (called lodging). I decided to look up the cause – I had felt it was due to wind.

The Alberta Agriculture and Forestry website states: Lodging in cereals is often a result of the combined effects of inadequate standing power of the crop and adverse weather conditions, such as rain, wind, and/or hail. Lodging is also variety (cultivar) dependent. For example, a tall, weak-stemmed wheat cultivar has a greater tendency to lodge than a semi- dwarf cultivar with stiffer straw.

I’m sure Canada knows a thing or two about growing cereals!

At our long-awaited afternoon stop in Neuburg, we noticed a lot of people in traditional Bavarian dress – there was a festival on in town this weekend.

We deviated from the marked Véloroute for the 20 odd kilometres from Neuburg to Ingolstadt, our end-point. It was perfect in that it still followed the river and was flat, but it was a very undeveloped path, (two paths for some of the distance, though not inferior to the sometimes very simple Véloroute.) Note the levee – the right hand path is higher than the left.)

Just some brief facts about the Danube –

It flows through ten countries, more than any other river in the world. Originating in Germany, it flows southeast for 2,860 km passing through or touching the border of Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, [our end point], Croatia, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Moldova and Ukraine before before emptying into the Black Sea.

We joined the Danube in Tuttlingen on Tuesday but the Danube actually rises about 30 km further west in Donaueschingen in the Black Forest. 

There were markers along the way – metre markers to the Black Sea. 

The Danube as we approached Ingolstadt

When we reached Ingolstadt, we checked with our hotel to see if we could stay an extra night and yippee they had availability for Saturday night. We felt we needed a rest day after cycling 525 km in five days.

Our Sligo friends have arrived in Passau and will cycle to Vienna. We will catch up with them between the two, next week.