Goodbye to Germany

The day before I left Seattle on my trip, my neighbor lent me an old smartphone of his to use as a navigator and as a translator. As long as I have a wifi signal to latch on to (which is surprisingly uncommon), I have access to Google Maps, which has been incredibly useful, because the bike signage from town to town is often confusing, ambiguous, contradictory, or outright nonexistent.

Well, yesterday morning I took a short break on a bench on the side of a bike path, and when I got up, I evidently left the phone on the bench. I was six kilometers down the road before I realized I didn't have it anymore. I did a quick check of all my bags to make sure, and then about-faced and hightailed it back as quickly as possible. I knew it didn't stand a chance of still being there, though; countless numbers of cyclists and pedestrians had passed by in that amount of time. Sure enough, I returned to an empty bench. I was incredibly disappointed, because a) it wasn't mine to lose, b) there went my easy access to a map, c) there went my translator, and d) I had used the camera to take a bunch of pictures when my camera battery ran out, which were now gone. Bummer.

I started off Thursday morning from Radolfzell for the last time, and quickly left the flatlands, and entered the foothills of the Black Forest mountains. Now, the Black Forest has always lived in my imagination as a place like Fangorn Forest: dark, dank, and not to be trifled with. Sadly, I get the impression that any resemblance to that passed long ago. Instead of monstrous trees with canopies that turn day into night, I saw just an ordinary, average looking forest. Granted, I only took one path through it, and I’m sure it might be different elsewhere, but it looked to me like a bunch of young and 2nd-growth trees. (I have noticed that German houses sure seem to love having walls and walls of firewood in their yard.) I thought it was particularly telling when I saw a sign indicating how to identify a tree by its stump.

How to identify a tree in Germany.

To be fair, growing up in the Pacific Northwest, I have a pretty high standard for forests. The Black Forest made for mostly pleasant riding. At one point I mistakenly followed the wrong kind of bike route sign, and ended up on a highly technical and extremely challenging mountain bike path that took me over steep hills, instead of around them. Fortunately, once I found my way back to the right path, it took me down a gentle river valley, surrounded by forested hills in every direction. 

About three hours down the path of this river valley, I noticed a rubbing sound coming from my back tire, and a little rolling resistance to go with it. I stopped my bike to pull out the branch that had probably lodged itself in there, and what did I find instead? Sandwiched between my tire and one of my brake pads was my missing phone! I have a hard time fathoming how, but evidently it hitched a ride there unnoticed for the last sixty kilometers or so, even through mountain bike terrain. Weird. Lucky.

The path eventually led me across the border and into the Alsace region of France, which is where I arrived this morning. I'm in the city of Strasbourg right now, but haven't yet had much of a chance to look around, other than the mind-boggling cathedral that puts the others I've seen to shame. The Strasbourg Cathedral was built starting in 1176, and is an awesomely impressive example of gothic architecture. Evidently it was also the world's tallest building for more than 200 years.

The entrance to the Strasbourg Cathedral.

Enough from me for now, time to go explore!