What a day. I oiled my bike this morning. It was very grey. Fortunately it started downhill, but after a couple of kms it started going up again with about 10-11%. I noticed all the cars coming towards me had their lights on. Either compulsory driving light or weather trouble. Around the corner and another 300m and raingear was necessary – just 10km from the start. A least it only rained once that day – from km 10 to 76 when I stopped. Sometimes it rained so much I had problems seeing. A lot of hills as well. It was also the day with the first puncture – of course during the rainy part. But soon afterwards the rain got very heavy with gusts of wind as well. So hard the raindrops started to operate my Garmin GPS when rain drops hit the screen. At km 30 I noticed my heavy duty winter trousers which I believed to be 100% rainproof (also secured by spraying them a day departure) where not as rainproof as hoped. No option to continue to keep warm. Passed Giessen (which was a staying over point in the original plan). Looked a live with ,loads of shops and restaurants.
Well at 14h I booked a hotel in Marburg. Arrived at 15h. Two sentences and the guy asked from where in Switzerland I come. So much for me speaking Hoch Deutsch. Very beautiful house. After shower the sun was shining !
Marburg is university town with a lot of restaurants and bars. The old town is very beautiful lying on a hill. Didn’t manage to walk up to the castle – my legs were just too tired. I stayed in a very nice but special hotel. Inside it was covered in mahogany, loads of old furniture, radios etc. It had a small garden out to a creek with own boat landing. The keeper was very nice and offered to have my wet clothes in their drying room. He gave me a basked to put everything in. I sought of assumed it would be hanging up, but this morning when I got the basket back it was still lying as when I have it in – meaning in the bottom things were still wet!
Max elevation: 408 m
Total climbing: 959 m
Elevation gain: 748m
