With the church being directly across the road, I expected an early start, but not 5:30am, when the bells started.
As I was not sure if breakfast was included,  (I was tired & looked like a hobo when I checked in), I did a google translate to read up on the hotel. It had been with the same family since 1907, and had the neat, tidy and efficiently run feel of a family run hotel. With another full breakfast as fuel (including my German version of a bacon & egg roll), I headed off towards Wurzburg at 8:35.

Already the day was warming up and showing signs of producing a thunderstorm. I found the river track, which was muddy from the floods. Eventually I lost it, and took the quite country roads, through a succession of medieval villages (eg Garstadt, Hergolshausen, Schwanfeld, Dipbach, Prosselsheim, Kurnach). I passed many wind generators, which are along with solar panels are very popular in Germany. Strange how the German ones are quite and do not upset the cows, horses or chickens, compared to the ones we have in oz that cause a succession of strange symptoms in people, farm animals and even endangered species. We don't have nuclear power stations as I saw today. Maybe that's the trade off for no Sunday trading (that's one of the many social rules)

On one stretch of country road, I tagged behind a cycling couple. After about 5km, I thought I'd better ask permission to draft, and they happily agreed to me sitting behind. They looked serious with high tech gear, so the 20yr old Lemond bicycle was no threat.

Eventually after finding every hill in Wurzburg, I arrived almost to the hour when I had met R&G on Sunday a week ago. I bought the cheapest train ticket on the slowest train (28euro + 5e for bike). The trip down was only 19e (I didn't know a bicycle ticket was another rule, but the ticket clicker didn't enforce it).

As I boarded the slow train with lots of other cyclist (mainly older couples with touring gear),  the rain started so I had excellent timing.

There are only one or two cycling carriages and the cyclists are usually a friendly bunch as they stand or sit to keep an eye on the stacked bikes. I sat opposite the owner of a classic 80s Peugeot racer. She was a  medical student who had perfect English and had been on a 150km training ride in preparation for a 300km ride in Sweden next weekend (Vatternrunden). So she could talk bicycles and cycling for 2.5 hrs and the trip went quickly.

I checked my emails on arrival at Frankfurt HBF (13:30) standing near the Starbucks. Received and sent one to home. Also Geoff had sent an SMS claiming clemency for being two (2) days behind in their blog.

As it was fine and I had plenty of time till my 20:30 flight to Sydney via Beijing, I went for a ride along the Main River and could see evidence of the paths being flooded earlier in the week. I also saw 3 enormous river boats carrying industrial materials. Most of these boats had been stuck between the locks, waiting for the river to drop so they can clear the bridges.

The train to the Frankfurt Flugh (airport) was easy, I packed the bike , checked in and am waiting for boarding. The buying of the bicycle box, packing and checking in gets its own blog entry as it was a bit of an adventure.

Heading back to Wurzburg - the start of my cycling adventure a week before. Note the little cycle track sign.

Heading back to Wurzburg - the start of my cycling adventure a week before. Note the little cycle track sign.

My first nuclear power station

My first nuclear power station

Note the VW style poppy flower on the handlebars. 

Note the VW style poppy flower on the handlebars. 

The bicycle signs are good most of the time.

The bicycle signs are good most of the time.

A river boat in Frankfurt - the flooded river was droping

A river boat in Frankfurt - the flooded river was droping

A short sight seeing ride at Frankfurt

A short sight seeing ride at Frankfurt