Cycling 3 Days in Germany

28 Sep Cycling 3 Days in Germany

During the summer of 2009, we headed to Europe for our first major bike touring adventure and our first stop was Germany. We spent the majority of the first week or so visiting with family and friends; however, we did manage to get out and cycle 3 days around Germany before setting off on the big trip.

Day one is a ride up to Bamberg along the, “Aischtalradweg” (Aisch River Bike Path).   The plan was to spend the day visiting Bamberg and then ride back home.  Well, like most plans, things did not go as planned.   We took way to much time exploring Bamberg and all the small towns during the ride, so when it was time to return home, it was to late.   We would have been riding in the dark and at the time we did not have lights on our bikes, so this was out of the question.   Plan B kicked in, we headed to the Bahnhof (train station) and would take a train back to Neustadt- NOT- well not directly anyways. The tracks leading back to Nuremberg were under construction; however, we could take the train to Wuerzburg before catching a train to Neustadt.  After arriving in Wuerzburg, we decided to stay the night and ride our bikes back to Neustadt in the morning.  We spent the next morning (Day 2) exploring Wuerzburg before taking a train to Kitzingen. From Kitzingen we started our ride back to Neustadt traveling through towns that we’ve passed through by auto hundreds of times, but never once stopped to sightsee.   Shame on us!!  It’s amazing what you see when traveling by bike. Towns like, Kitzingen, Iphofen, and Mainbernheim are very nice towns and offer some great sights when you slow down.

Our final ride while in Germany (Day 3) was to Rothenburg o.d. Tauber.  Rothenburg is another town we’ve traveled to hundreds of times by car; however, this day was the first by bike.  Again we were on the “Aischtalradweg” (Aisch River Bike Path), but headed in the opposite direction from Bamberg.  This route took us through Ipsheim, Lenkersheim, Bad Windsheim, Illesheim (Storck Barracks), Burgbernheim, and Steinach just to name a few. While passing through Burgbernheim we decided to visit the local Waldbad (Forest pool) for a quick refreshing dip.  The locals were excited to see how warm the water was (low 70s), but for us this was too cold; regardless, we enjoyed the swim and felt refreshed.  Following the swim we continued on to Rothenburg where we enjoyed a nice lunch and walk around the town before catching the train back to Neustadt.

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