We needed no alarm today so Andy slept pretty late. Amelia woke up a bit early and set out on a walk to the river for the purpose of photographing the west bank in the morning light, which she hasn't done before today. Because of the holiday, the streets were nearly empty at 7am. A few joggers were out, and a few folks taking a stroll, and a couple of street cleaners and that was about it.
There was no breeze so the river was completely glass like.
This is Johaniter Kirche which is now a museum. The directional signage there is for the bike path system. We have been to every place listed except one, which is a bit too far for a round trip (50 miles?).
This is a pano of the street in front of the Goethe Institut. The institute is behind and these are the businesses opposite it on Spitalbach Straße when no one is out on the street. It was pretty cool to walk quiet empty streets.
This is the oldest book store we've encountered. The ad on the window days "Love with the first click" and is advertising their website. So THAT is how businesses stay around over 400 years, changing with the times.
Early morning look south down Gelbinger Gasse (our street).
Amelia came back after wandering around for an hour and Andrew finally woke up. Unfortunately, he received an email that one of his brothers (Ted) passed away suddenly from a heart attack this morning back in Alabama. So the day was rather hard.
Around noon, we went on our previously planned bike ride which seemed a better way to deal with grief than sitting in our apartment. Our goal was the town of Braunsbach about 10 miles north. We heard that the Gasthof Löwen (Lion) there has good food.
We biked there at a leisurely pace and found it was full of people, mostly cyclists. We ended up sharing a table with this nice couple, Hans and Ulrike. We chatted for about an hour. We mostly tried to speak in German and they mostly tried to speak in English. It was rather fun.
Amelia had Schweinsschnitzel and pommes frites and Andy had Jägerschnitzel and späzle (Swabian noodles).
Just south of Braunsback, this elevated autobahn passes over at a very high level (it's flat not rounded like it looks in this pano). It was way way way high (ti's still quite a distance away in this photo). Note the bridge over the Kocher here has a separate safe area for the bikes to ride over. The bike paths (Radweg) here are fantastic. Have we mentioned that cycling here is amazing?
The cycling trip was about an hour each way with a little extra time to stop and take photos. We saw at least a hundred other cyclists, individuals and groups and families, including some who were touring long distances (obvious by the type of bike and all the things packed on it). We even met one guy who asked us for directions which we gave him (auf Deutsch) who was biking home to Berlin. It'll take him about four days more!
Eventually we made it back to our street, Gelbinger Gasse which looks like something out of a fairy tale.
After showers, we went to another restaurant on our street, Die Sonne [<--- click for website] (The Sun) which serves traditional German food and local Schwabian specialties.
Andy ordered something we couldn't translate off the local specialties part of the menu that turned out to be Schwäbian trip in a (German) red wine sauce with roasted potatoes. It was good! Reallyl!
Amelia's was pork filets (the small size serving) in Riesling cream sauce severed on a bed of vegetable strings (thinly sliced into strips) with a side of fried graded potatoes (sort of something between a hash brown and a potato pancake). Amelia was tempted to lick her plate...
After dinner we ran into some of our fellow students from the U. of Michigan and we went to the Italian ice cream restaurant that is down the stairs from our building.
Then some last efforts at homework were followed by merciful sleep.
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