Deggendorf to Passau

Another perfect day of cycling as we made our way inexorably from Deggendorf to Passau. Along the way I saw some remarkable ancient ruins. While some of these were built by the Romans almost 2000 years ago and were in surprisingly good condition many others were wearing yellow jerseys and riding bicycles.Unfortunately these were suffering the unmistakeable ravages of time.

The cycle path in this section followed the river for long stretches at a time. The surface was mostly very smooth bitumen and I could not help wishing I was flying along on my road bike without the encumberances of panniers and a seat which was progressively turning my nether regions into raw steak.

Another feature of this ride is the wide variety of smells you encounter along the way. One particular crop had the distinctive aroma of old ash trays, at other times you are bombarded with the less than fragrant odour of blood and bone and rotting cabbage. Some of these armomas were undoubtedly emanating from the nearby farms but the vast majority was almost certainly coming from those aforementioned yellow shirted ruins.

We arrived at beautiful Passau in the early afternoon. This city is world famous as the meeting place of three rivers, each one of these has water of a distinctively different colour, resulting in the amazing phenomenon of a striped Danube for several km downstream.

The next two days will be bike free and give us a welcome chance to rest our backsides and catch up on laundry.