Simbach / Braunau ....49 klms

Rain, cold wind & 11 degrees made for a character building morning, fortunately the ride was not all that long & was punctuated by a bakery stop where we stood inside in the baking warmth waiting for our wet frozen fingers to uncurl from the shape of the handle bars. On arrival the hotel was magnificent, only 6 weeks old & with every mod con including heated tile flooring in the bathroom ( great for frozen cyclists ). In the same building downstairs was another really big bakery that served everything from every sort of pasry & bread to wine, beer, coffee, hot meals including schnitzels & pastas, gourmet chocolates & much much more.
right across the road is a supermarket that had big fat freshly picked cherries, cheap & booze really cheap. A tall 500 ml can of beer was 34 euro cents
(about 55 cents Australian ) The premium pilsner was a massive 75 euro cents for a 500 ml can. It just shows that we are being skinned alive for booze at home. I bought a 6 pack of Radler in 500 ml bottles for 1.59 Euro (AUD $2.80)
So we are pretty happy to be here for 2 nights.
Tomorrow we explore my familys' home town. The weather forecast is better, but whatever happens we will soldier on....

 

A cow house. Cows live in barns as the land is too valuable for grazing. EVERYTHING is cropped & the cows hand fed. You can smell one of these from a kilometre away as the muck is kept in big pits outside, then spread on the fields. The cow houses are usually in the middle of the villages, but no one seems to notice the smell.  (yesterday)

 

This is only a small pile if winter fire wood, most are many times larger than this. (yesterday)

 

Morning tea. (yesterday)

 

Head down bum up. (yesterday)

 

Great road, everything so green. (yesterday)

 

Alison running back from a nature stop. Toilets are scarce. ( yesterday )

 

Lunch stop at the small village of Gars. This is the WW1 memorial.( yesterday )

 

Our first crossing of the river Inn, which further along, forms the border between Austria & Germany. ( yesterday )

 

New houses under construction, viewed from our hotel window. The whole of Germany has massive amount of construction going on, comercial & domestic. Also there is constant renovation going on everywhere. Thats why everything looks so good, nothing is allowed to decay. We have seen many photos of the results of bombing during the war & nearly every city & town we have passed through was bombed into oblivion & has since been rebuilt & renovated. 

( probably several times since the war ) ( yesterday )

 

This is Cologne, but most towns & cities looked the same after the war.

From the window of our room, a wild deer was grazing right here about 10 minute before this was taken. ( yesterday )

 

A chemist shop in the village where we had morning tea at the bakery today.

 

Cold, wet & rainy, character building conditions today.

 

A warm room in the bakery under our hotel this afternoon.

 

Part of our hotel bakery.

 

This lovely girl who spoke no English & used my very poor translation skills to look after us this afternoon & tonight for dinner.

 

A six pack of 500ml pilsner, only 2.29 Euro