Ruhetag. Cold and rain on a Sunday in Germany. I did some blogging, reading, lots of reading/planning for the Czech republic.

I went to a service station and washed of all the mud from my bike. The last couple of days biking in the mud had left a thick coat of mud on my bike.

When the bike was clean and back at the hotel I installed my new bigger mudflaps, hopefully this will keep the mud of the bike. As the forecast for the foreseeable future is rain and cold I expect there to be more mud.

Sunshine and cold. I walk to the Ingolstadt nord station which is about 30 minutes away by foot. I manage to buy a ticket from the machine and get on the right platform. The train is not very modern but they have an ambulating vending cart that sells everything from coffee to beer. At 17.40 Euro one-way the train is much more expensive than in Spain.

I arrive at the München Hauptbahnhof, it’s full of people and trains. I get out and start walking towards the SCHWEDISCHES HONORARKONSULAT, which turns out to be a room in a lawyers office. Lots of Swedes are here to vote, I stand in line and then cast my vote. The rain comes and goes, I start to walk to the Globetrotter Ausrüstung shop, after a few rain showers I eventually get there.

They have an immense selection of maps and guidebooks. I am looking for a map or guidebook for the Prague-Vienna Greenways Route, I want to bike from Vienna to Prague and this seems like the best way. Unfortunately there are not maps or books for this, there are free information on this site but as I don’t have a printer they are of little use. The clerk in the store can speak Swedish and has biked in the Czech republic so we spend a long time looking at many maps.

Eventually I decide to bike the river Moldau to Prague and the river Elbe from Prag back north. I get the guidebooks and an overview map of the Czech republic in case I get lost.

I meet up with my old friend Winfried and we go for lunch at Weisses Brauhaus, excellent food and beer. Afterward we go for a walk around München but we are constantly interrupted by rain so we and up in a cafe inside the Haus der Kunst.

Afterwards I walk back to the station in the rain and take the train back home to Ingolstadt. Once back at the hotel I grab my laundry and bike 4 km to the laundromat.

When I bike back to the hotel it’s almost dark and I am very tired but I have a bag of clean clothes so it was worth it.

Just another normal day, cold, dark and rain. It was very easy to get out of Ingolstadt, just a few kilometers and I were back on the river. The route is flat and there is mostly tailwind so easy biking. I manage to find a gaststatte along the river that serves an amazingly good and cheap lunch (8 Euros with drink).

At Weltenburg Kloster there is a ferry that goes on the river to Kelheim, I take this ferry instead of biking over the mountain next to the river. It was very nice to sit on the ferry and watch the canyon in which the Donau flows.

At the end of the day it starts to rain, I try to find accommodation in Bad Abbach, I guess the rain made people seek shelter early so there is nothing left but the most expensive they have. At 60 Euros it’s amazing value for money, but again I didn’t need that much value.

But it was warm and dry, the dinner was also very nice.

Cold and some rain. Headwind the first 20 km in to Regensburg. In Regensburg I manage to take a wrong turn somewhere and miss the whole town, I just follow the river and get out on the other side.

Strong and very cold wind today, it is a mix of side/tail/headwind. I see some other cyclists today, one has stopped for a small break along the river. I join him, he’s Australian and is traveling from Newcastle to Budapest, we talk for a while about how hard it is to keep going when the weather is like it has been for the last couple of weeks. After a while a German cyclist also joins us, he’s going from Berlin to Salzburg.

We end our meeting and the others speed away, they ride much faster than I do. I go hunting for accommodation, since I want to have a day of rest tomorrow I want something nearby shops or restaurants. I check some places out but they are closed until 17 and I am not going to wait for a couple hours to find out if they have rooms or not. After a while I find a proper Landgasthof in Sossau, the place is huge with more than 400 seats in the restaurants different sections. I will not spend a day of rest here since there are no shops, no Mastercard and no Internet.

But I stop for the night and at dinner I meet the German cyclist I met earlier today.

It’s very cold, the sky above the hotel is blue, I heard that the staff had to remove ice from their car windows this morning and that it’s snow at 800 meters altitude (I’m at 300 meters now).

I eat breakfast with the German cyclist and then I slowly pack up and get going. I have to stop and get cash, lately food and accommodation has gotten cheaper but no one accepts Mastercard so I have a constant need for cash.

I bike around for a while but I can’t find any accommodation that is open, then I spot a pension, they have a room, Internet, nice price and shops and restaurants nearby. Perfect. I decide to stay two nights and have a proper do nothing at all day tomorrow.

I spend the afternoon in my room and make final preparations for my Czech adventure. At the moment the weather in the region I am going to travel is 4-6 C, rain, rain, wind, wind.

There is also talk about a storm that has created severe flooding in Serbia, it is moving north, not ideal for my river and mountain route. But according to the forecasts the storm will be gone before I turn north in Linz.