Out of Heidelberg

This was Friday's ride. It wasn't long, but it got me out of town and on the road.
Heidelberg:

http://www.mapmyride.com/route/de/heidelberg/700127338803011327

I found out quickly one of the advantages to having California plates. It's hard for the cops to pick it up with their laser guns. (CA plates are about 1/3 the size of German plates.) Not far out of Heidelberg, I woman cop stepped into the road in front of me and waved a stick with a blinking red light at me. She explained that in the last village, a cop had radioed ahead, saying I didn't have a plate and he couldn't get a speed reading. After seeing my CA platee, she was very friendly and apologized.

I stopped in Neckarsulm to visit the German Two-Wheel Museum. It's impressive and well worth a visit. There is a wooden bicycle from 1817, and a great collection of bikes, both pedal & motor.

And this was Saturday's ride

http://www.mapmyride.com/route/de/neckarsulm-augsburg/676127339101518720


The German tourist industry around 1950 decided they needed to imorove their image with Americans, so they started advertising what they called the "Romantic Road." It was a route that wound through a string of beautiful quaint little towns in Southern Germany. The program was a success, and they created others - the Castle Road, the Wine Road, the Toy Road, etc. Since Heidelberg is a major stop on the Castle Road, it was an obvious route to follow. The Castle Road stretches from Mannheim to Prague, and the are 95 castles along the way. Some are ruins, some are private residences and some are tourist traps. I stopped at the Langenburg castle, which has a public restaurant. It was a nice fantasy to sip my cafe', eating a delicious apfel strudel and survey my lordly domain.

I left the Castle Road and picked up the Romantic Road at Rothenburg. Schloss Neuschwanstein further South may be the model for Disney's Fantasyland castle, Rothenburg has taken his business plan and run with it. The place is tourist central. You can buy a full suit of armor for 1200 Euros. When I walked into the main square, there was a band playing "America" from West Side Story. They
egued into Rock Around the Clock. Not exactly what one might expect, but it was a crowd pleaser.

That night I stayed at the Augsburg youth hostel. Also there was a group of 8 voice students from Yale, who were there to give a concert. In the morning they invited me to a rehersal in a small room at the hostel - just them, their professor, and me. Wow. They sang a group of Deutche lieder, composed by an Augsburg native. Amazing voices, and far more appropriate to the area than "America."More castles, more wonderful little roads winding through farmland and tiny villages all the way to Oberammergau. That's where, in the middle ages, the plague decimated the town, and in desperation, the villagers vowed to perform a Passion Play every 10 years if God would spare them. There were no more deaths, and they've been performing the play ever since. That's four hundred years of one play, every 10 years.