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"If you have a weakness for romantic old cities, you should find the strength to pedal up the steep but short road to the upper city [of Muhlheim an der Donau]." This is a quote from our Danube Bike Trail guide. Of course we climbed the hill and enjoyed a meander through the town.
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That was before
last year when Rob had to slow down with his pulmonary hypertension and we
tried a tour where we averaged 40 miles a day for 25 days. It turned out okay.
We had time to get a leisurely start to each day, visit with our Warm Showers
hosts or other folks we met along the way, wander through art museums, stop for
a swim now and then, and find refuge from the ever-present rain. In the end we
still covered a thousand miles, which sounds rather respectable when we talk
about it.
But when we decided
to take eleven days to ride along the German Danube, a distance of about 360
miles, I still wasn’t sure I wouldn’t get bored. I didn’t. Now, as I am looking
back over the trip I am wondering why it was so memorable, even as it was
unexciting.
An art colleague has often suggested that
I bring along sketching materials on my bicycle trips. “When you’re taking a
break, just pull out your sketch pad,” she says.
I explain to her
that I’ve tried it, and it doesn’t work.
It’s a puzzle, even to me. Where does the time go, especially when we’re
only riding 40 miles a day? We really don’t do that much sightseeing. In
Germany, not speaking the language, it made no sense to go to museums in the
small towns and cities we passed through.
Mostly when we
stop, in a town or alongside the road, the first priority is to locate a restroom or a private hideaway in the woods. Then I'll search through the pack on top of my bike rack where we store our food provisions. Is it time for lunch or just a snack? We'll settle down on a bench, or a stone wall, or a patch of grass, eat a piece of fruit and some nuts, spread some peanut butter on a graham cracker, or slice some cheese to have with crackers. Half an hour, 40 minutes go by. I might write in my
journal. I’ll pull out our map, look at where we’ve been and where we’re going.
Do we continue with our current plan or make a new one? Rob and I might talk,
about nothing much. “Did you see that black swan?” or “I wonder what that big
structure in the river was.” Rob likes to just sit and look around. If
we’re sitting in a grassy park, and the sun is shining, I’ll lie down on the
grass and take a nap. If we’re in the middle of a town, we’ll admire the
architecture, watch people go by. Before getting back on our bikes we'll put away any food we haven't eaten and check our water supply, maybe revisit the restroom. We're not often in a hurry. On our bicycle trips time is plentiful.
I’m a list
keeper. I always have a list going, with all the chores I have to get
done, errands I need to run, things I want to do – rake leaves, go for a run, put up deer
fencing, call the pest control company, go to Trader Joes and the dump, write our
Christmas letter, practice piano, make dinner. My list usually has about 20
items on it and there is never a prayer that I will get everything on it done
in a day. Or a week. In my heart I know that, but still, at the end of the day
I don’t congratulate myself for everything I've crossed off, but rather chastise
myself for all that I have yet to do. So, after dinner, when most people
will sit down with a beer and enjoy watching television or relaxing with a good book or jigsaw puzzle, I’m looking at my list
and figuring what I can still complete when I’m exhausted – pay the bills,
research investments, clean up my email.
When Rob and I get on our bicycles and set off on an adventure I leave my list behind. Life becomes simpler. Make sure we have enough
food for the day, discuss our route, have some idea where we’ll spend the night,
get on our bikes, and ride. I keep my eyes open and constantly look around me. I don't want to miss anything that Rob will mention when we stop - did you see that fox? - or a place to swim, or a car about to pull out in front of me.
Our itinerary is
always flexible. If we come across a beautiful campground early in the afternoon,
we’ll stop for the day. And on this trip along the Danube, it wasn’t beautiful
campgrounds we came across but picturesque towns and cities. Most aren’t in any
of the tour books, only in our bicycling Danube guide. What a treat it was to
discover these gems without having to share them with hordes of other tourists. I often thought that these were treasures that tour groups and people driving the country in rented cars passed right by. So we spent a lot of time pedaling into these beautiful towns, riding or
walking our bikes up and down the cobblestone streets, soaking up the centuries-old atmosphere. I was never bored.
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| As we were standing by this beautiful half-timbered house in Muhlheim an der Donau and looking out over the valley below, a gentleman came outside. We tried to talk to him but when he realized we only spoke English - which he spoke sparingly - he called for his friend to come outside. She spoke English fluently and gave us a short tour of the town, pointing out the several-hundred-year-old rathaus (town hall) and an old castle that is still privately owned. |
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| Straight ahead is the rathaus (town hall). |
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| The friend was happy to practice her English on us. She needed to know "business English" for her job. She told us that her mother had ridden the Danube and thought that the Germany section, the one we were riding, was the prettiest. I don't know if that is true, but we were happy to hear it. |
We’re reading a
lot today about the importance of being mindful, or living in the moment. Be in
the present, not the past or the future. That is certainly one of the joys of bicycle touring for me. No lists. No schedule. If we don’t ride as far as we might have
planned, it’s usually because something better came our way and we’ll get there
tomorrow anyway. Or maybe not if a better choice comes along.
