Day 12 - Worms - Heidelberg - Sept. 5

It was only to be a 45 km ride today so the plan was to leave at 10:00 giving us time to check out the very old churches in Worms – the oldest being from 1000 AD. I’ll say that we all went into a church today – that’s all I will say for it being a Sunday. None of the group understands enough German to make it meaningful. Saturday night Bill took us on a really quick tour on our way to the restaurant so we saw the Martin Luther statute right in the middle of the city. We went back the next morning to take photos…there is history in this town. We had time to check out some of the other churches as well. The catholic church was a lot more ostentatious than the Luthern one quite like it still is in other countries. Neither church that we went into had a service going yet so we could not get a flavor of what happens in a service.

I will have to say that the Breakfast Buffet this morning included scrambled eggs and sausages – the first warm breakfast we have had on this trip….everyone made sure to include this on their plates today.

By 10:00 the van was loaded - the group all stood around in a circle and a prayer was offered thanking God for another beautiful day and asking for safety on the roads and for our families and friends back home. Getting out of Worms by bike was interesting – thankfully traffic was not as heavy since it was a Sunday and there were no trucks on the road. Somewhere the cyclists missed a turn on the bike paths and had to back track to find the right route. Once out of the city, we passed through lush farm land – onions being the produce harvested here. Construction on the roads does change the planned route – today we had to carry their bikes down a gangplank to a newly poured bridge over the river, cross over and then take a gangplank to the side road where the route was. Good thing the construction crew was not there. Being on bike paths makes it impossible for the van to keep contact with the cyclists – that was all right today since the route was very straight forward.

A late lunch followed at an outdoor café very close to a farmer’s cow barn. It was a lovely place that served the most delicious apple tarte – in spite of the farm smell and the flies. Because it was such a beautiful day, many families with small kids were out on the bike paths as well making it a bit crowded. The 45 km trip turned out to be 60 km which was fine with us. We were outdoors enjoying ourselves. We arrived at the youth hostel at 3:30 in time to put our bikes away, get our luggage into the rooms, clothes changed to catch the 4:00 bus into Heidelberg to view the sights there. This is another very fascinating old German city. Some brave souls climbed up the 300 plus stairs to get a view of the city from the top of the Heidelberg Castle. Others popped into a church to hear a harmonica and pipe organ recital – we didn’t sit down but could hear the music from the lobby and it was great. Each could do what they wanted….some even had dessert before supper, enjoying an ice cream cone while walking back to the bus to catch our ride back to the hostel. The streets downtown were teeming with people all enjoying the outdoors. The story is that the oldest church here had a wall put right down the middle of it because the people could not agree on something…..the wall’s not there anymore but sounds familiar doesn’t it?

We ate an early supper giving us lots of time to catch up on laundry and e-mailing and phoning home – that is needed sometimes…..speaking of laundry….we do common laundry at times and stuff goes missing – give John Koning’s blog a read and you will read all about missing items and found items…it’s rather interesting. http://johnhelenandskoki.blogspot.com and the pictures are really good….

Distance Cycled 60 km. Flat tires 0  Total flats  11