Wittenberg is really a lovely town. I'd only been through by bike a few times, but after taking a good look at it by night and in the morning, we were very impressed by the history and the beauty of the place.
We set off in the morning full of motivation and energy, since it was only spitting and the weather was warm. Passed a great Hundertwasser-School (you Germans will know what I mean) near our Bed and Breakfast and then cruised on through the drizzle southwards along the Elbe. Within an hour, the rain had become worthy of an English summer party and by lunchtime we were talking full blown May-time Swedish downpours. It was bucketing down and I began to wonder whether it was my fate in life to be soggy on every decent cycle tour in my life... I have cycled over 1500 km in recent months preparing for this holiday and hardly got wet. Today's run was supposed to be the nice easy route we already knew as a warm up for more challenging stages... Well we managed it after soaking 2 sets of clothes and warmed up in the shower a very long time.
After a nice meal and some local beer, life got better and we took a stroll around Torgau. Blimey!! What a beautiful town. It's a bit like Americans imagine Germany to be like: huge great coats of arms on old castles and bears in the moat, with falcons flying around the cloisters.
We were so impressed with this town, we spontaneously decided to take a proper tour around the castle maybe tomorrow morning and arrive a little later in Meissen. Tina needs to get her bike's breaks adjusted anyway, so we'll have another late start.
Check out the Torgau official Web site. It even claims to be the "wet nurse of the reformation". :-)
http://www.torgau.eu/p/d2.asp?artikel_id=1154&liste=&tmpl_typ=Detail&l=
The weather forecast is not great. More unsettled stuff to come until the end of the week. But we think all our clothes will be dry by the morning and Tina and I still have these silly holiday grins on our faces despite the shitty conditions.
Distance: 77 km
Ever since cycling in Tasmania in January this year, I have taken an interest in road kill. I don't expect to see too many decomposing wallabies or devils on my way to Boologna, but nevertheless, the bits and pieces we see on the road are now part of my revived...
I Spy section: 7 storks, 1 heron, numerous birds of prey (buzzards, falcons... anyone know what the English is for Gabelweihe?) including one young buzzard(?) with white plumage trying to keep dry, 4.5 dead voles (the cat had a good time last night), one half of an almost adult blackbird being pecked at by 2 magpies, 4 alpacas (in a fence admittedly).
Oh yes - the excitement of the day: Some idiot aresehole of a yellow van driver driving at high speed down a country cycle path where only tractors at best are allowed. God, we literally had time to get the fuck off the path and check we were both OK. The van swerved and scraped along some bushes to avoid us. By the time I looked behind me, there was nothing to see.
We were going 25 km + his speed, 50ish at least (Tina thinks more) = human porridge
Some way behind us there were 2 groups including about 20 older people. I really hope nothing happened. The nearest police station was around 30 km away, but I still feel that git needs some sorting since he was playing with people's lives. We were lucky we had a couple of seconds to react and he didn't come from round a corner.
Anyway, we survived our first day well enough and are now looking forward to heading towards Meissen and the Czech republic in the next 2 days.
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