Rain, rain, go away!!!

We´ve reached the end of the biking part of our adventure, and out of the three days we were riding, it rained for two of them. Actually, I think it´s rained every single day we´ve been here, and has been cold too. Where did the summer go?

We stayed at a great guesthouse outside of Dinklesbuhl, so we had to make a 20 minute walk into town. Naturally, the first walk was in the second worst rain that we would see on the trip. The town was beautiful though, and an afternoon on a patio reading Time magazine took the edge off. The woman who runs the guesthouse didn´t speak any English, so we had to get by through single words out of the phrasebook. We did understand, however, when she asked us why our bikes were "schisse." Good question, we asked ourselves, as we wrapped our smaller pack in plastic garbage bags.

We rolled into Rothenburg ob der Tauber yesterday around 4:00. We were soaking wet, and pretty tired. The plan had been to bike to Shillingsfurst and visit the castle there, before heading on to Rothenburg. It started raining just as we left Dinklesbuhl in the morning, and by the time we got to Shillingsfurst, it was raining so hard we couldn´t see. We stopped for lunch, and thankfully the rain slowed down, and we decided to just keep going, since Erik was soaking wet, and we were both pretty cold. In keeping with the theme for the daz, once we got to Rothenburg, the lady that runs the hotel that we are staying at wasn´t home, so we sat on the sidewalk for 20minutes before she showed up. The sun had come out by then, so we were just starting to warm up when she got there.

But we made it, we did most of the biking we had planned to do, and want to do more in the future, on real bikes with real raincoats, etc, etc. There was a nice Dutch family staying at the hotel in Rothenburg. They had been camping for a week and decided to call it quits after a night of rain coming up through the bottom of their tents (travelling with two small kids, to boot). At least we were sleeping in dry hotels in between each bike/swim. Also at the hotel was an English family whose car had broken down. We were a pretty depressing bunch.......but the breakfast was great!

Rothenburg ob der Tauber is also great, except that our footwear in 10 degree rain is limited to flipflops. We´ve spent today checking out the museums and other indoor attractions, and we had a great piece of Black Forest Cake at lunch. We´re off tomorrow for Wurzburg, and have just checked the weather. We´re not too happy to find out that it´s supposed to rain for the next five days. We both packed for the hot weather we had in Paris before we left, so I think we might have to pick up some warmer clothes. Or just eat more sausages.

I guess that´s it. Despite the weather, we are having a lot of fun. German food is pretty straightforward and is just what you need when you´re freezing. After biking in the rain for four hours, I don´t think a serving of pate would warm your bones.

We´re off to find a hotel that we can´t afford to stay at and squat in their warm lobby and drink their beer.

Hopefully we didn´t accidentally book a convertible for next week....