What happened to summer?

We've managed to find our way out of the Bavarian beer halls and are back online with an update.

DAY 32 - Rest day - Donauworth
Day off in Donauworth, really nice place but weather is pretty cold and rainy and everything is closed because it's Sunday. We buy 2 cushions to use as pillows so Mei doesn't have to use her expensive sleeping bag as a pillow anymore, i figure now we are cycling on the flat we can carry a bit extra.

DAY 33 - Donauworth to Menning - 83km/1306 total
Another cool morning but at least not raining yet. Cycle through more small towns and farms and even encounter a few small hills. Much more attractive scenery than yesterday, we soon realise that we have been blindly following the signs for the cycle path and our guidebook has some variations. Oh well, we continue roughly along the river following the signs. Great riding along some rough roads next to the river.

Pass through Neustadt for lunch, another nice town we don't have time to see properly. As soon as we leave the rain starts and stays around until Ingolstadt. We pretty much cycling straight past this big city and then get lost for a while trying to find the path. Some old woman points us in the right direction and we cycle past some old guy who points to the sky and laughs. About 1 minute later the rains starts properly, we hide under a tree for a bit and then just go for it. The trail is pretty muddy now and it's not very pleasant. We see a deer, a hawk and also a marmot like creature, nice enough but the rain is miserable. Cycling past an oil refinery the German monsoon struck us properly, our shoes instantly fill with water and can barely see where we are going. Decide to look for refuge and follow a sign for a Biergarten in some random town, i start laughing when the hail starts bouncing off my helmet, look around for Mei and she has ducked under a tree for some reason. We arrive in a town with the main street flooded and pile into the deserted hotel/restaurant/beer hall kind of place.

We stay there so we can try and dry out, weird place, no one is around except the owners and their mates playing cards and drinking beer.

DAY 34 - Menning to Regensburg - 75km/1381 total
Great start to the day, ok weather and good riding. Passed a nice spa town and were tempted to stop and have massages but kept going. After riding through so many corn fields we are relieved to ride past some hops. Much more exciting than corn. We lose the trail so head down to the river and find a dirt road, it's going in the right direction so we take it and arrive in Weltenburg. Nice place, big Monastery that has been turned into tourist attraction central with outdoor restaurant etc. Still very nice.

The guidebook says to get a boat downstream from here because the river runs through a gorge and you get a better view. We do this, only 20kms so it doesn't feel like cheating, the scenery is very spectacular too, limestone cliffs alongside the river...and a warm boat too. Arrive in Kelheim and continue on. Weather gets worse in afternoon and a HUGE storm hits as we are trying to put up the tent in Regensburg. Sick of this really, what happened to complaining about the heat?

DAY 35 - Rest day - Regensburg
More awful weather, walk into town in the drizzle and look around. Very impressive place, great buildings, nice bridge over the river. We go into a couple of churches which are very nice but were there were services in operation so our wanderings were a bit limited, it was Sunday so this is to be expected.

We hear that the world famous Swingle Singers are in Munich for one night only so we decide to get a train there tomorrow to check them out...we love their work.