Day 9 Eisenach to Weimar

In which Sid and Doris ride a mucky lane to find the Merchants’ Road into Weimar.

Today we headed East along the Via Regia, a merchants’ route. The plan was to have a relaxed day giving us time to see Gotha and Erfurt before getting into Weimar with much time to visit the tourist office.

So today:

• Distance: 90 kilometres over some rough terrain
• Climb: 520 metres
• Weather: a larvelly Spring day wiv Sunshine

The Hotel am Market had been a very central spot to stay, handy for a Keller bar with typical local cuisine. If meat and two veg and plenty of it is your idea of a good time Eisenach is here to oblige. The breakfast in the hotel was carefully planned so as to reduce joy, but cyclists will eat bread until sated.

We are in East Germany. Even now there is much left over from the GDR period probably including the attitude to the customers.

We left Eisenach via the house of possibly its most famous son, one Mr Bach, and set off into the Thuringian countryside.  [Sorry I couldn’t resist putting that in – let’s say it again – “Thuringian”.  Oh sorry, are you a bit damp now?  D.]

 

Coming off a particularly rough and up down road we came across people having a considerable adventure. She is on an ordinary mountain bike while he is on an arm and electric driven trike. They had a lot of kit to heft about. Chapeau. [Note from Doris: means “hats off to them” – look it up – D.] 

Moments later we came across a fabulous baby buggy with six infants out for a walk. Not clear if they were sextuplets or just on a trip out from the Kindergarten. [Joe – this is NOT a charabanc!]

The run to Gotha involved a field-edge track alongside a huge rape field to the left with the railway to the right. The track featured wet mud, gravel and quite lumpy aggregate which these bikes are not built for. Doris consulted various maps and said “trust me this only goes along one field”… but neither of us realised that the field was maybe 2km long.

By the time we hit Tarmac again Sid’s bike was making very unhappy noises (but not as unhappy as Sid’s noises). The mud guards are very close fitting and were full of muck. So friction did its vile antiwork.  Even by the time we got to Gotha another 10 kms on from the end of the track there was a lot of friction left in the system.

But Doris did find an excellent stick and we dug the bike out of its mire overlooking The View Of The Town from the Friedenstein Castle down into Gotha. Cyclists need fuel and grumpiness is a sign to fuel. Happily the Capri restaurant was on the run out of town where we were able to order in Italian, so much better than our German.

We are finding a lot of rough cobbled roads in East Germany. We and the bikes hate them but very often there is no alternative. Is surprising there is not more Arse Whine. By contrast they quite often lead to very smooth roads that are only for agri traffic, keeping the tractors and such off the public roads. These give free miles as compared with the gravel paths through the woods

Erfurt is very pretty and seems to be some sort of crossing point for cycle travellers. The centre of town is utterly postcard. It still has its synagogue, some town walls and quite a lot of references to Martin Luther who studied at the university before going into the Augustine monastery. The Merchants’ Bridge is like the Ponte Vecchio in Florence, if a bit smaller. We had the first holiday ice cream looking at the outside of the bridge from a more recent edition.

The car count today brought a rare Opel Kadett Aero convertible, a short wheelbase Nissan Patrol (a great favourite from our Arabian days), a Trabant actually moving and the winner: a Lada Niva. It may break down but can be fixed with baling twine and My Little Welder.

Weimar was happily just 25 kms away over a mix of hideous cobbles and very smooth agri tracks. Coming into Weimar was all down hill. Hitting a set of tram tracks at speed shed a rattle of muddy gravel. Hurrah.

Weimar hotels are all crammed with Bauhaus fans now there is a new museum so we will see what we can see in town tomorrow. Goethe and Schiller are the best known local celebrities and there is plenty of more recent history to enjoy tomorrow.

(Doris says: Wow!  6 days in a row cycling and our legs haven’t fallen off and we are still talking to each other.  Who knows, we might make Istanbul after all!