Day 27 -Sigmaringen to Ehingen

 73.8 km - Total so far 1,496.40 km - Route pedalled.      Relive Video (with pictures)

Video of the day: Europe Day 27

We are safe and secure in Ehingen, Germany.

We were woken up early by noise outside before the alarm went off. With a long day of 70+ km ahead of us we wanted to get an early breakfast and head out ASAP. Everything was going as planned until we turned the corner behind the hotel.

That early noise we heard were the street vendors setting up. They offered quite a selection from clothing, houseware, pots and pans, etc, etc. What really caught our attention was the smell of popcorn early in the morning. 

The ride today was great. No residue of the tiredness we felt yesterday and we were able to maintain a much better average speed. A lot of the ride was on flat terrain with a couple of really long and fast descents.

We got to see part of the walls of an old home under renovation. The structure is timber frame (much like an older barn) and the space between timber is filled with whatever they had on hand. See picture below.

Since we were covering distances at a good speed, we decided to make a coffee and pastry stop. We saw a gasthaus with many e-bikes parked and we decided to stop. Once seated, we realized that the patio was located over a small canal. You can clearly see the canal behind Hélène in the picture below. This place also brews its own beer and a patron told me their beer is very much appreciated all over Germany. Their desserts are very nice as well. I picked up a bottle of their unfiltered pilsner beer (beer is cloudy and delicious).

Google translate said it was apple fritters with ice cream 

About 10 minutes after leaving the gasthaus, we were surprised. We had hit a few climbs before but this baby was a monster. Those of you from Ottawa might be familiar with the 18 % grade of the road leading to Mont Cascades. Well this baby was by inspection at least 18% and looked like a short descent at a ski hill. The trail to the start of the climb was pretty flat so precious little momentum to help. I had seen this climb on a video and it did not look this intimidating. The only way up for us was pushing the bikes! 

Photo taken 1/3 of the way up

Once we got to the top, its was possible to sit at a picnic table under a roof and get an ice cream from the vending machine. We did none of that. We took a quick breath or two (well maybe more than two) and headed off.

Vending machine has ice cream

We continued to enjoy lots of scenery and finally made it to our self check-in hotel.