Our home for the next two months is perfect for our needs. It is small, comfortable, efficient, and most importantly, it's in a great location. Ron corrects me: at our age, location is not as important as a step-in shower, and a comfortable bed. We are thrice-blessed!
We spent our first full day in our new home taking care of the basic needs. Grocery shopping (we have both a Rewe and a Lidl!), household shopping (granny cart, can opener, ice cube tray, toiletries, paper products, etc), and of course, bicycles! Ron researched bicycle shops on the computer from our home in NC, and had already ranked the five bike shops in Erfurt. I got lucky at the first shop, and found a perfect-for-me pre-owned Diamand touring bike. Since we brought our helmets and saddle bags with us, I only needed a lock and I was on my way! Ron found his Hercules brand bike at the third shop, conveniently located nearest our home, as it would become a second home of sorts to Ron. I particularly love the Bicycle Barbie on the counter.
Christoff (Ron's new bike friend) said that the Barbie is new, and gets a lot of attention, which is why he thinks Barbie was falling off her bike when we were buying Ron's bike. I straightened her up, and put her hands on the handle bars. Then I thought it might be nice to position Barbie so that she is giving customers a welcoming wave as they enter the shop. I never saw Christoff move so fast!!!! He rotated Barbie's arm back down safely to the handle bar again. He said he didn't want anyone getting the wrong idea. OMG - Barbie's elbow doesn't bend, so my intended wave was the unmistakable "sieg heil" salute! I can't recall ever being more embarrassed. But Christoff saw the humor in my faux pas, and Barbie never lost her smile. We have since visited the shop, and Barbie's hands haven't moved. Ron suspects that Christoff has super-glued them to the handlebars.
The next order of business was to get ON the bikes, and RIDE. I consulted our Radwege in Thüringen map (Bike Rides in Thuringia), and we decided we would start big - 50 kilometers from Erfurt to Jena on the Radfernweg Thüringen Städtekette. The Towns of Thuringia Cycle Route is a long distance cycle route that links seven of Thuringia’s prettiest towns, Erfurt, Weimar and Jena being the three that we would visit on this first ride. Truthfully, we didn't know it was going to be 50 km - the map had it as a 40 km section on the 225 km route that links Eisenach, home to Wartburg Castle, in western Thuringia and Altenburg in the east.
Since it was our first ride, and the internet is sketchy at best, we thought it prudent to have "turn by turn" directions on paper. LOL. The link for turn by turn directions listed the villages we would go through - we were on our own to watch for and follow the little squares attached to the directional posts and follow the symbol for our route. YIKES!
It was actually helpful to have a list of the villages, so that I could mentally tick them off and know we were heading in the right direction: Azmannsdorf. Vieselbach. Wallichen. Niederzimmern. Are we there yet?!
Hopfgarden. Tröbsdorf. Weimar. Ah, Weimar, I smell sausages and can see a street market. Let's take a little rest. Ehringsdorf. Mellingen. Lehnstedt. Kleinschwabhausen. Großschwabhaus. Jena. Jena? Yes, thank the Lord, JENA. I was too exhausted to eat at my favorite food truck - but was grateful for a seat in the city center as evening fell. And yes, we took the train home!
Bike Talk (back by popular demand)
Radweg #1 Erfurt to Jena
53 km
32.3 miles
8.2 Average mph
1,046 hours in the saddle. Not really. Linda made me put that in.
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