This post is based on emails to my parents during the day.

09:51
Drinks-stop at Gaststätte Flaming-Eck in Kleinmarzehns. 15km so far today but spent quite a while finding our way back to the cycle route.

Then we faced the worst surfaces yet on the D-route 1. Until now, lots of tarmac, some concrete with expansion gaps every 5 metres, some brick and cobble (flat top, not the nasty round-head ones inflicted on the UK). But this was a farm track with very loose sand and gravel. Sort of OK if going flat but uphill caused skids and nervousness, downhill caused brown steam to emit from the shorts. Not much fun on laden touring bikes.

13:25
26 miles so far today. 13:20 when we arrived in Arsenalplatz in Lutherstadt Wittenburg

Long break to find toilets in shopping-centre and buy some anti midnight-starvation supplies.

And then we got onto the Elberadweg! We’d hoped to be here last night but no worries: this is an adventure for us.

Most of it is beautiful. Wondering through countryside that I hope my photos can show, because my writing can’t!

14:27
Stopped for lunch in a Gaststätte in Elster on the Elberadweg. So far mostly tarmac and brick. My arse likes. My tum likes a litre of apfelsaft and will like salad mit extra Kartoffelsalat. My first of the trip 🙂

Not to be: the Kartoffelsalat was made with mayonnaise 😦 Germany, you need to learn from Austria! Olive oil, bits of gherkin, lemon juice, garlic are what you need in a potato salad.

21:40
Here’s the map.

Actual distance well over 60 miles. I stopped Cyclemeter while we were waiting for a ferry. Then we did a lot of twisty back-roads before I realised it was off.

Good feeling when we crossed from Brandenburg to Saxony-Anhalt. We’d changed state. (My socks became liquid.)

Knees not as worked as yesterday. Signs for Elberadweg not the same in this Land but still plentiful, wanting to take you the scenic route! We ignored the last one and headed straight along a road to Torgau.

Elly had looked up Hotel Pension zur Markt and we found it without any hassle. The receptionist was amusingly boggled by me being vegan. ‘No fish? No cheese? What do you eat? What can we give you for breakfast?’ Thank goodness I can cope with dry muesli (especially this morning’s one which had tiny pieces of raw chocolate), tea and above all European breads. Oh my goodness, how I will miss those back in Edinburgh.

Evening meal was in Herr Käthe, a restaurant nestling in the castle walls. Huge foiled-wrapped baked spuds with fine beans, carrots and pine kernels, then a fruit salad. All washed down with a half-litre of my darkest beer yet: Ur-Krostitzer Schwartzer from Leipzig.

Now back at hotel, about to crash. Aiming for Dresden tomorrow