After a week of really warm humid weather I awoke to a cool overcast morning- I’d say the temperature dropped by 10 degrees overnight. Bit of a shock to the system.

Spent a bit of time exploring Regensburg, described as one of Europe’s best-preserved medieval cities. It’s narrow cobbled alleyways and open squares of the old town with beautifully maintained traditional buildings makes the city special. The Steinerne Brücke, built in the 12th Centaury, is the oldest bridge crossing the Danube in this section. It is a massively constructed stone bridge, currently being fully restored. I just had to cycly across that.

The Danube is at it’s most northly point at Regensburg, and from here it flows in a south easterly direction towards the Black Sea. Regensburg also signals the start of the heavy navigational use of the Danube, for the first large river barges that are used to transport goods can be seen on the river.

Today’s route took me through Straubing and to Deggendort, other towns that had large and beautifully maintained old squares, evidence that this part of Bavaria is not only wealthy today, but there has been wealth here for a very long time. Along here you also pass Walhalla, a huge marble temple built in 1842 and reproducing the Athenian Parthenon. A crazy folly that appears in your sights towering over you as you make your way down the valley. King Ludwig I who commissioned the building obviously had plenty of spare cash hanging around the place.

During the morning I visited Stöcklwörth Nature Reserve, a large flat grassland area that is being managed primarily for breeding waders. Breeding Curlew is one of the target species, so not only are Curlew doing poorly in Ireland and Britain, but here too in Bavaria. The meadows seem to be managed in a patchwork fashion, with a mixture of grassland of different heights available to the brreding birds. As I cycled along the path through the reserve, up rose a Curlew calling and flying overhead- obviously I had gotten too close to her nest or chick, so she was not happy. I moved on quickly not to disturb her any more. Hearing the alarm call of the Curlew took me right back to the 1970s, when I remember lying in bed in my aunt’s house near Abbeyfeale and hearing calling Curlew outside; how much the landscape has changed as the hills around Abbeyfeale have long since fallen silent – a silent spring indeed. Strange what experiences trigger a response from your past.

The remainder of the route followed the Danube dyke to the south and the Bayerischer Wald to the north, with a strip of very good quality farmland in between. At one point there is a steep southeast facing escarpment with some small vineyards. Apparently this is Germany’s smallest wine growing region- from what I could see there were only a handful of vineyards. Would have been nice to stop and try some of this wine, but it was too early in the day for an Irishman to drink alcohol- as everyone knows the Irish only drink after 5pm!

I was cycling out of some village and passed this very elderly man on a Zimmer frame. I remarked to myself that this is a fairly active man of such age to be out on his own, away from houses. Seemed to have a ring of ‘The Hundred Year Old Man who Climbed Out a Window and Disappeared’ about it. And sure enough, about a half a mile further on I met two very flustered nurses, half walking half running, asking if I had seen a man with a walking frame. I said I had, just down to the left. For a fleeting second, in honour of Allan Karlsson, I thought about saying ‘yes, just up to your right’.

The last 30km or so took me through very sparsely populated farmland, where the Danube formed a massive natural barrier to movement. Hemmed in by the dyke to the south, the only people moving here were local farmers and cyclists. I know this is good farmland; miles upon miles of mostly maize and corn, but it is boring. Nothing much here to disturb my ruminations.

Another thing that played on my mind was just how goddam perfect this part of the world is. Everything is in order (ganz ordentlich); the cycle routes are wide and well maintained and the villages are immaculately neat and tidy.There is hardly anything out of place. I can’t but wonder does anyone in this part of the world wake up in the morning and say ‘today I couldn’t be arsed to pull that little weed out of the crack in the pavement’ or ‘maybe I’ll argue with the wife today rather than rake the driveway’? No, I guess not- Bavarians are made of sterner stuff apparently!

Stopped for the night at Deggendorf, having covered 110km. Austria tomorrow…