There is a good feeling to a town just waking up of a Sunday morning. There are very few people around, there is an air of quiet calm and the whole atmosphere is conducive to wandering around at a leisurely pace- which we did. Also, because there is very little traffic early Sunday morning, it does give a feel to what towns must have looked like before the advent of the motor car.
I tried to be clever and put a link to Regensburg website... but I failed. However, there are a number of websites about the town and they are well worth a visit, as, indeed, is the town itself.
After wandering around and taking in a number of the town squares and the medieval buildings we decided to stop for a coffee. Unusually, it was not raining so when we sat outside a very upmarket, elegant, hotel and ordered coffee we didn't do our usual trick of lowering the tone by sitting there dripping wet and drying clothing on the back of chairs. That's not to say we didn't lower the tone slightly but it made a change having an early morning coffee and pastry in a leisurely manner and not having to huddle under umbrellas.
After this civilised interlude we set off and hoped to get half of the way to Passau. As we were leaving the town a couple, he dressed as a medieval yeoman, and she dressed as as his female counterpart were walking over the bridge and leaving the town. Obviously the revels that we witnessed on the previous evening had lasted all night.
Various views of Regensburg- it is, unsurprisingly, one of the Unesco Heritage sites.
After doing our sightseeing bit we set off following the Danube and made good progress until it started raining heavily. As we were out in the countryside we sheltered under trees which offered some relief until the leaves started to shed water and we got comprehensively soaked- again.
Setting off between showers we headed for the town of Straubing. We nearly made it to the outskirts when the heavens opened again but luckily we just made it to a bridge and therefore avoided another soaking. By this time the sky was looking fairly evil but the rain relented for a short time which gave us just enough time to cycle as fast as we could into the town and found a restaurant.
This was a restaurant/ bar just outside the main part of the town and, following the advice of the owner we ordered goulash and had an excellent, and very substantial, meal. The place had just been taken over by a young couple and they were insistent that we took their business card- we really didn't have the heart to tell them that we seriously doubted that we would be going that way again. However, if you want a good meal if you happen to pass through Straubing then I can recommend Zur schonen Aussicht- email - zsa.staubing@yahoo.com
There, I've done my bit to promote their establishment.
We then went through the town proper and a number of very attractive towns. The signposts for the route we were on proclaimed it to be the 'Route Baroque', and by the photos below you can probably see why.
Attractive and well preserved- the buildings, not us, unfortunately.
Having done just over sixty miles we ended up at a campsite just outside Deggendorf. This was next to the Rhine but was also next to a railway track and a construction site where they were obviously time limited and so worked all night. The site had a very thin layer of grass on top of a gritty, shale base. It is also where I had the salad comprising of 90% sliced sausage.
On the upside, it did have a washing machine and a tumble dryer and to compensate for the poor surroundings we had three beers and so had a good night's sleep.
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