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Well honk my hooter! Look who I found about 10 miles into the ride today:
Yes, it's mon bon ami Remy, camping on the bank of the Danube and packing up to be on his way. He had made his way up from the Bodensee the day before and was recuperating from all the hills. So we rode together for about 20 miles before saying goodbye. It was good to spend a few hours with him, and the ride was truly spectacular.
The Danube isn't a wide river at this point, but rather narrow, cutting it's way through various bends and turns, with the steep, bare cliffs on either side showing clearly how the natural erosion has occurred over the years. The natural terrain lends itself to semi-circles of cliffs overlooking the river, which, in turn, lends itself to building fortresses and castles on top of those cliffs to control the river traffic.
It seemed like every bend in the river lent itself to another castle or abbey perched on top of a a cliff. Each one from a different era, and each one with it's own storied and bloody history.
And then you end up at one of the seats of power of the old Hohenzollern dynasty in Sigmaringen.
The Hohenzollerns, in addition to ruling this part of southern Germany, also ruled East Prussia for many years. This is the part of what is now Poland that encompasses Gdansk and parts east of there. In addition to being one of the main components of the German state which caused WWI and WWII, the Hohenzollerns ancestors, the Teutonic Knights, were religion-mad militants, hell bent on importing their particular brand of crazy to the godless Slavs. Their main export was zealots, and they would send their unlanded youth to the Gdansk region (then Danzig) to fight the heathens and establish a name for themselves. These young noblemen were called "Junkers" and until all of the Germans were expelled from Gdansk in the aftermath of WWII, these guys were the ruling class of the North Baltic coast. Considering the general misery this bunch of twisted dudes caused upon Europe and my ancestors, I got shivers up my spine when I came upon their Place of Power.
Anyway, the day ended in a town called Munderkingen. It was rainy and wet all day, so the Planning Committee met and chose to stay in a hotel, despite the fact that the expedition had already spent the two previous nights in a guest house. Various motions were passed to permit such an unprecedented move, and the night was spent at the Hotel Adler in Munderkingen. This is a highly recommended establishment, with the nicest family on Earth running the place.
The funniest part of the day was no doubt the scene at the kebab place where I had a cheapie dinner. There was a young guy running the place, bossing around his two elderly parents, shouting out to-go pizza orders and screaming at them to go faster. While eating my dinner, he came over and said, in fairly good English "Where you from?". I told him I was from Seattle, which caused him to launch into a fairly hilarious stream-of-consciousness monologue about he and I were going to open up a chain of fine kebab houses in Seattle and how I was going to sponser his greencard. It went something like "You find space and tables, then you give greencard then I come to USA and then we have finest restaurants then I pay you money then when I come over you help find space and you get the tables then I run kebab shop then we make good money then..." it went on for a while till I said "greencards are pretty hard to get" and without a goodbye or anything he left to deliver some pizzas. When he left, the two older folks visibly relaxed, and the guy put on a soccer match.
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