Thursday, June 12, 2014

Day 34: to Kapfelberg (88; 2119)

An absolutely super day, in which fortune has been favouring the bold.

I returned to Regensburg old town first thing in order to visit the cathedral which is marvellous; beautiful stained glass and wonderful sculptures of St Peter everywhere. Also the full set of bones of the 13th C founder of Regensburg in the crypt, lovingly wrapped in gauze and bound with gold braid. 

Unlike many I have visited of late the cathedral was completely silent, the loudest noise being my bike clips on the stone floor. 

I've always thought cathedrals to be wonderful places, sort of like National Trust parks in that you can't quite believe that something so awesome is free and available to all. This year I have become a bit of a connoisseur and I have to say I find them incredibly moving - Santiago is not the only cathedral that's had me welling up. Not that I have suddenly found the god that they are built for. But the human durability and love of beauty that they represent is something really special.  Time away from the scurrying of the rat race (or at least from work concerns and my usual sources of stress) has made me much more interested in such matters. Or perhaps I am just destined to become an old buildings buff in my old age.

I also picked up an exact replica of the Swiss Army knife I just lost which was exceedingly satisfying and lessens the blow.

I finally set off into a sunny but breezy morning, notably cooler (below 30!) yet still no thunderstorms.

For lunch I got detoured into the small town of Worth, which I imagine had to petition hard to get cycle signposting into it. Like on camino it happens fairly often that you get diverted into a one-horse town, presumably so they increase the chance of you patronising the local businesses. Whether it's useful or really annoying depends on how good the town's facilities are, whether they're open, and indeed whether you actually need a stop. I had a quick carb fix in a nice bakery and listened to the daily business being conducted for a bit. There's a lot of 'gruss Gott' here (which I think is literally 'God's greetings'), even the local cyclists were greeting me with it.

I hit one possible camping site early afternoon but for some reason kept pushing on even as multiple reasonable alternatives flew by. I finally went for a campsite a good few km off track but highly rated on my camping app. It was up a massive hill, but as a result has a view out a long way across the Danube plain. It's really a lovely spot and, even better, has three other cyclocampers who are friendly! (Two of whom are cycling to Dubai via Athens, Turkey, Iran... Hardcore). Very nice to have people to chat with even if they did invite me to watch the World Cup with them, which starts tonight.

Perfect weather, excellent cycling, and now some company. Perfect day!



2 comments:

  1. "Gruss Gott" is the common greeting in most of Bavaria (and Austria and some of Switzerland) for people with whom you are not acquainted. It's short for God greets you. And fortune certainly favours the bold! Keep going!! (Even if you are not headed towards us...)

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  2. I feel that way about cathedrals too.

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