Fulda, 13 June, 9 am. Team E is in the starting block. The bikes were ready, the sun came out beautifully, so we decided to hit the road: a group of 13 cyclists, some of which had come all the way from Helsinki, some from Berlin and some just joined in Fulda.
The tour was planned for 87 km, but then we found a recommended long distance bike route from Fulda to Hanau (“R3”), which we decided to follow.
It was not always the shortest path, but very nice tracks (for most of the time). We started with some unexpected hills, which the team managed courageously, and the followed the raikway line. We stopped in Steinau (also called town of the brothers Grimm), to get our intake of culture into German literature. That is also where we met a couple with bike and two cute dogs in their baskets (see photo).
Picnic lunch was served by our “guardian angel” Brian in Bad Soden. Some of the team enjoyed a local ice-cream afterwards 🙂
The afternoon was devoted to head towards Hanau. The hills were getting lower, the valley wider. Soon we arrived in Gelnhausen, which has a beautiful old city centre.
The bike track became then closer to the motorway, which does not necessarily mean more efficient, as the signposted R3 was zigzagging all the time, adding extra mileage to our counters.
We did see a number of storchs in the fields, as already before on the tour. Some of us started dreaming following the storchs by flying to Hanau, rather than zigzagging through the fields…
In the end we even managed to get split into two subgroups, just half an hour before arrival, but thanks to our modern communication tools we successfully reunited at Hanau.
In the end we made 106 km today !
We also arrived late, so we had a shower and went for local Turkish food, and went to bed early.
Tomorrow’s tour is annonced 71 km … how much will it be ? Surprise 🙂