We woke to bright sunny weather with the day warming up from early on. Plan for today was get settled in, just take it easy and to ride towards the Black Forest region of Germany. Our final destination was Forbach, just south of Baden Baden.
Day 1 Route Maps:
Day 1 - Part1
Day 1 - Part 2
Once we got juice we headed east out of Memmingen along a rural route keeping us away from motorways. It's lovely countryside with fields full of corn crop, pretty German villages and nice smooth curvy roads.
Our first stop was Sigmaringen - time for a coffee and an ice cream (the first of many!) pretty town with a massive castle, Schloss Sigmaringen, right in the middle of town. Sorry, no pics of the noms noms this time. 😋
Bikes parked up with Sigmaringen castle behind
My GS and a German chaps RNineT
Over our delicious ice cream and coffee it was decided to detour to the Louis.de shop in Villingen-Schwenigen as Brian wanted to pickup a handlebar mount for his mobile phone. Having bought plenty of stuff from them online, I was keen to visit one of their bricks and mortar shops. Our route took us from Sigmaringen to Tuttlingen on the L277 which ran alongside the Danube. Cracking bit of road - if you're ever in the area, include it in your route. From Tuttlingen we detoured to the Louis shop and by the time we got there we were sweltering! Brian got his mount and fitted it to the XR and we were back on the road again.
Wolfach was a pretty little town, nice and quiet. Until we rolled through it! Think we might have upset the local cycling club who were enjoying a wee break from their efforts. 😂
Lunch was in Schiltach which is a very pretty town full of old traditional buildings. We ate in the market square after parking up the bikes and having a wee stroll around the town.
Our lunch stop
Pretty town square
Wayne and Brian start the bromance with a Titanic re-enactment!
Down by the riverside where we parked the bikes
Back on the road I started to play with the GoPro to see how things would look...
As you can see this is logging country big time. Apologies for the one-sided conversation I was having with Pauline, I didn't realise the GoPro would pick up my voice so well!! That's Wayne up in front and you can see the others in my RHS mirror.
At this stage we were pretty baked out of it after the detour which involved a bit of traffic and slow riding. Despite this, we pulled over at the Schwarzenbach-Talsperre reservoir for a quick coffee and a wander around. It's a popular bike meet spot with a cracking wee road leading up to it.
Fine bit of wallage!
So the last short leg brought us to our destination - the Waldhaus Hotel in Forbach. Highly recommended - the rooms are spacious and clean, and the staff are really friendly and helpful.
They have an honesty beer fridge - you just tick down what you've taken and it's added to your final bill the next morning. And the brekkie here is top notch too. Don't ask how I know, but the Wendy house in the kid's play area will happily fit a full sized adult...won't it Wayne? 😂
Our home in Forbach - great hotel!
Right next to the hotel is a covered wooden bridge spanning the Murg river. What a name - straight out of a Harry Potter book!
View from our outdoor watering hole
Out of the monkey suit, quick shower and then down to the beer garden for a well earned beer (or three) before dinner.
Derek checks in with home while I employ the selfie stick. Jim just chills. :-)
