For today I wanted to get close to Ulm, a goal I exceeded, now camped on the other side by 15 km.
I left Donauworth this morning mistakenly not on the EV6 cycle path, but instead a path alongside a highway. For the beginning of the day, I covered vast distances on the map. Then I crossed back on EV6, and everything slowed down, as EV6 selects the “best” cycle path, not necessarily the shortest, and while experts defined that path, our goals don’t always match. As EV6 routed me up into the mountains to route through town after town, I started getting cranky. I finally resorted to using music to drive everything else out of my head, and things slowly got better.
No castles of particular note today, but in Ulm I visited the tallest cathedral in the world (which I mistakenly understood as Regensburg). Little question about the cathedral in Ulm. I’m sure there’s some qualification, but still impressive. Most cathedrals would fit in one wing of this one.
After cycling in Turkey (and Asia!), crossing Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, briefly passing though Slovakia, and crossing a large part of Austria and Germany, I’ve reached the chronological midway point of the trip (assuming the rains in Ireland don’t cut that time short, a planned possibility). In the next few days, I also cross the path of my first tour from England to Italy and back. Hard to believe so much time has passed, both this trip, and then to now.
The other night someone chastised the collection of people gathered in the palatial bathhouse, all using mobile devices, that we were on vacation. I responded that we all cycle our own way, on our own path. Here I can see that every day, hundreds of people doing the exact same thing, and everyone of them in their own way, suited to their own needs and desires. We can all learn from each other, and help each other, but in the end how we get where we’re going is up to each of us.
