Sunday, July 7th, 2024

Distance ridden 0 Kilometres

Distance hiked 12 Kilometres

I awoke to sunshine and a feeling of confusion. Had England actually won a penalty shoot-out, or had I only dreamed it ? A quick look at the BBC sports website confirmed it was the former. Goodness me !

We had decided upon a day of rest, but of course, doing nothing does not work at all for us. Not that doing nothing was ever a line in Lucie’s plans. We were in a hilly, rural area, so a hike through the countryside was firmly on her list. Even I thought that a day off of the bike might be nice.

We had a very nice breakfast. The constituent parts were the usual “standards”, but it was well presented and of a good and filling quality.

We pulled on our boots and set off before 10:00 in sunshine and steadily increasing warmth.

The way-marking used in Germany is different to that at home, but the tracks showed up on Lucie’s Czech map program so we strode with confidence up a gravel track and into the woods. We soon had a good view back over Leidersbach, which was revealed to be strung out over quite a few kilometres along the valley floor with a few incursions towards higher ground. We could see our lodgings, already far below and the modernish, brick-built church was clearly visible. There were various stations of a “Way of the Cross” along our initial route.

At one point, we found an old mining cart (which, try as she might, Lucie was unable to move …)

As is the way of these things, we climbed higher and higher. Luckily upon fairly gentle gradients, this was not mountaineering, but we did achieve quite an elevation. It was time for our little tripod to make itself useful !

I again remarked upon the large number of butterflies fluttering here and there in the patches of warm sunlight amongst the trees. Whether this is as a result of less pesticides being used, or whether it is just a very good year for them, I do not know – but there were hundreds.

As the morning progressed, it became very warm indeed. The criss-crossing network of paths was a bit confusing in places and, with a poor ‘phone signal, we did wander slightly off of the planned route a couple of times.

This was nothing serious though, just a bit of “extra” exercise overall and we were able to locate our lunchtime objective, the Hohe Wart Haus without difficulty. This place was on an unnamed road, so it has no street address, but plenty of people had found it by foot and by mountain bike and it is also accessible by road (and by horse-drawn carriage … )

We enjoyed quite a light lunch. It was a filled baked potato, for me, another dumpling and mushrooms for Lucie and a couple of beers which we figured that we richly deserved !

Then, it was back down the hill again. The first descent was quite tricky, because the recent rains had obviously used THAT self-same route for their descent to the river far below, but it was nothing too tortuous. We both love the forest. It is such a peaceful place and, despite the throngs of people at the top of the hill, we hardly met anyone else.

Eventually, we emerged from the trees and out into farmland. There were pleasingly, from an environmental point of view, a number of areas that were left uncultivated and a had masses of diverse wild flowers. Lower down, the meadows had been cut for hay. In the hot sunlight this smelled gorgeous and looked ready to be collected or baled. Above the field, a large Kite patrolled in the search for its lunch, but the only things moving were us and, luckily, it was not that hungry.

We came straight out of the fields and into the town, like crossing an invisible line. We came to our road, but that would have been too easy. Guided by the map program, we crossed it and made an admittedly small ascent to another road that ran above the town, but on the other side of the valley.

Small German towns and villages have a tendency towards an almost surreal, not to say fanatical, level of neatness and conformity. Because of this, we were both struck by the fact that there was a number of obviously occupied properties that we walked past which had no facade, just rough brickwork. This was unusual enough to make it noticeable, even to us outsiders and we hoped that no dire misfortune had befallen the local “facade” man … The local church was built of pinkish bricks and looked almost brand new.

We regained the coolness of our hotel and enjoyed a cooling beer in the courtyard beer garden before retreating to our spacious apartment.

In the cooler early evening, we re-emerged and enjoyed another excellent meal in the vine shaded courtyard of the hotel. I had pork medallions with, guess what, mushrooms and croquettes, which was truly well done. Lucie had a smaller meal, baked Feta cheese, because her eye was on the desert ! We shared that desert, a local speciality called Kaiserschmarrn, a sort of thick, diced pancake with apple purée. Again, I forgot to take pictures, so please use your imagination.

We returned to our rooms and you need no imagination to guess what I did then.