Auf Wiedersehen, mountains and lakes

After a few lovely, sunny days in Konstanz with the lady friend, it was time to move on. With the tour, that is. So, having ridden something like 750 zig-zagging km through alps and their lovely valleys, meadows, and lakes, it was now time to bid farewell to those landscapes and say hello something decidedly more agricultural.

I also traded longer, steeper, but fewer climbs, for shorter, slightly less painful, but definitely more frequent climbs. I can make myself suffer either way, so I dig it ;)

Side note: everyone I‘ve talked to about my tour has told me the best scenery is now behind me. I definitely understand that. The Bavarian/Tirolean alps are incredible. But still, I‘m pretty jazzed about the rest of the tour, because I simply don‘t know what else is out there. I don‘t expect it to be as dramatic as the limestone blades rising suddenly 2000 meters out of the valley, but that‘s okay. It‘s gonna be good.

Anyway, the universe was sad I was leaving the mountains, so it cried for me for the first 2.5 hours of the ride. Still, I was in a great mood and demonstrably stronger legs following the two days of rest, so the rain didn‘t bother me. I managed to squeeze a work call in, which was miraculous both because it stopped raining right when I needed to chat, and because I actually found a town in rural Germany that had cell reception. Victory! Granted, not the first town I stopped at. Or the second. But hey, it worked.

Ulm

I got into my destination Ulm around 5pm and was lucky enough to be able to crash with a friend here. After the first 10 days ‘solo’, it’s super nice to have visits from friends or friends to visit. So, Ulm. You don‘t really need more than an evening to see the town, which was good because I got in so late. It‘s got a lovely little city center with very stable-looking, classic “Fachwerk“ houses:

…along with the gem of the town, the church, pictured above.

Fun facts: Ulm‘s is the tallest church in the world, at least until La Segrada Familia in Barcelona is finished. It took something along the lines of 400 years to finish, and when it was completed in the late 1800s, it was the 4th tallest structure in the world. At 161.5 meters tall, it remains in the top-5 for structures built before the 20th century. Another fun fact: despite something like 80% of Ulm being destroyed in world war 2, the church was almost completely undamaged. Wild.

The ride