Saturday, May 25, started with a delicious breakfast at our hotel in Meersburg, JUFA. Just like every hotel in this part of the world, that included Müsli. And since I was going to be riding my bike all day, I was more than happy to have a rather large heaping portion of it.
Our large tour group had a plan that day, in which we had a choice between two different distances. Our end point would be Lindau, an island town near the east end of the Bodensee which lay just on the other side of the state line in Bavaria (most of the German shore is in Baden-Württemberg). Halfway between them was Friedrichshafen. Anyone could either ride all the way to Lindau (43km), or if you were a slower rider, just ride 20km to Friedrichshafen and take the tour bus the rest of the way; it would be leaving at 2pm. I bravely announced my own plan: ride all the way to Lindau, and THEN turn around and go back to Friedrichshafen in time to catch the bus! If I could pull that off, I would rack up a total of 66km or about 41.25 miles.
Unfortunately it was raining out, and a little chilly. I had worn my Fiesta Wildflower Ride shirt, which I had gotten from that ride in San Antonio in 2018 and was my first proper bike jersey. And for a large portion of today's ride, I had to cover it up with my rain jacket.
So, everyone took off and headed southeast along the lake. Because I had a longer journey than everyone else, I quickly shifted up into the higher gears and zipped past everyone else in the group. The rain wasn't too bad, but I could've done without it. The worse problem for me was the cold weather. It wasn't freezing out, not even close, but it was just bad enough that one of my feet went numb and stayed that way for most of that day's ride.
Friedrichshafen may have been the end point for the slower riders, but for me it was merely my first stop. The town's name means "Friedrich's Port" and was named after a former king of Württemberg. As I later discovered, it was where Graf (Count) Zeppelin's eponymous company, which built his eponymous airships, was based. There is even a Graf Zeppelin museum in Friedrichshafen, which I had to pass up in order to squeeze in all my planned miles in time. I think that missing out on things like that unconsciously contributed to my descision the next two days to take it a little slower. The only place I stopped in this town was a bakery to get a pastry for a little energy boost.
The rest of that ride wasn't particularly memorable. I powered on and on until I unknowingly crossed the state line into Bavaria and finally found a sign telling me I had entered Lindau's town limits. And at that point I instantly stopped, turned around, and headed back the way I had ridden. Almost immediately I got lost in a little village, wasting too much time riding around in circles trying to find my way out. Thankfully I did, and pushed myself back to Friedrichshafen where I met the bus with only ten minutes to spare! I managed to use those ten minutes to eat a small bowl of unsatisfying soup at a nearby restaurant before the bus took off toward Lindau.
I had thought that Lindau was just another lakeside town like the last two we saw. It turns out that while most of the town is on the mainland, its historic heart is on an island just offshore, across a short bridge.
Unsurprisingly, the island hosted its fair share of tourists. There is quite a lot of history to see here, and unlike in Meersburg, we actually had some time to stop and look around a while. First, I got a small ice cream cone. I very rarely eat ice cream, but after biking 84km today I needed to treat myself. Then after the ice cream, I and a few people from my group found our way here:
This is the old city hall--das alte Rathaus--which is now a museum of some sort. Sadly, no photos are allowed inside, so this is all I can show you. We weren't in the building for very long, but I can tell you a lot of the space was dedicated to an old library. If you watched "Game of Thrones," remember the Citadel? It's like that; towering shelf stacks containing old, dusty, heavy tomes that must be at least 500 years old. The stacks are all surrounded by clear Plexiglas so you can't actually touch the books.
For centuries this is what sailors would pass through to enter the port.
So we've spent the day riding eastbound along the north shore of the lake. So were we going to stay there and keep going around the lake from that point? Nope! I'm not sure why it was planned this way, but what we did instead was ride our bus back westward, the way we came, past Meersburg our starting point, and further west to a town on the west end of the lake called Sipplingen.
We checked into our hotel, named Krone am See ("Crown on the Lake"), where we had a couple hours to shower and change clothes before dinner. This hotel was in a great location by the lake shore, from which it was separated by a road and a railroad. Between the roads and the shore lay the restaurant, also called Krone, owned by the hotel. It was at that restaurant where we had our dinner, and, in my case, more beer and wine. A great ending to our first day of biking.
This was the 52km route we took that day, starting at Meersburg and ending in Lindau, with Sipplingen--the town where we spent the night--being off the map to the northwest. Remember, I did the Friedrichshafen-Lindau portion twice, bringing my total distance up to 84km.
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