Because I just had to cycle the circular path around Schloss Karlsruhe. Not a reference to anyone’s aching nethers at all!

• distance cycled: 30 miles (Karlsruhe to Speyer)
• cumulative cycling: 470.2 miles

Thank goodness we had planned for this to be a short day: it was cooking hot. The thermometer at tonight’s hotel implied that today had reached 38°C. Our first stop was at Karlsruhe MediaMarkt to replace a failed iPhone cable and a lost pair of headphones. A few minutes later, sensible Elly sat in the shade outside Schloss Karlsruhe while possibly still drunk Bruce cycled around the inner ring road just to make a circle on the cyclemeter map.

After that, the the ‘official’ route (the signposted EV15 route, the guidebook EV15 route and the EV15 app all disagree with each other from time to time) took us due north along a very straight forest route (with a couple of stops for saddle-adjustment and foot-anaesthesia) to Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen where we meandered through a housing estate. (I blame the lack of signs – my navigation is always perfect, of course.)

A diversion a few minutes later had us circling around an industrial estate, looking for a way forward. Slightly further, I managed to temporarily lose Elly when a hedge separated a road-route across a bridge from the cycle-path. However, we found each other fairly soon and pushed on to the ferry across the Rhine between Rheinblick-Leopoldshafen and Leimersheim. (Cyclemeter is inaccurate here because my phone got too hot.)

We had lunch at the pub on the Baden-Württemberg side before taking the ferry across to Rhineland-Palatinate and on towards Germersheim street-museum. (We’d wanted to go there just to see what this museum exhibits. Part of the answer is ‘some ancient computers’.) Curiosity satisfied, we went on towards Speyer, but with a drinks-stop at a Burger King. Despite the drinks, we were still cooking, so I kept starring down at Google Maps, shouting out as the tenths of miles counted down.

We’re currently in an Ibis Styles in Spreyer, plotting our next moves and finding that the differences between a Styles and a normal Ibis are trippy carpet and that the stairs have their own house. Tschuss!

Schloss Karlsruhe	Eiskaffee at ferry-pub
The best wine-label ever!	vending-machine at the ferry-pub
outside the ferry-pub	crossing the Rhine
light-weight lentils?	approaching Germersheim
swans at Michelsbach	statue on the Rhein at Germersheim. There were many of these but this is where I stopped to anaesthetise my foot again
at the street-museum	at the street-museum
at the street-museum	hedgehog at the street-museum
at the street-museum	at the street-museum
at the street-museum	watching the registers!
the old Austrian way of building tunnels	a Tatung Einstein. Years since I’ve seen one of these!
Austrian tunnelling	more Austrian tunnelling
More Austrian tunnelling	a history of bridges, part 1
a history of bridges, part 2	European trade routes and the Silk Road
how we used to flatten roads	contraption!
The stairs have their own house!	trippy carpet!