Berton Ride - Day 10

Day 10: Today we woke to a beautiful, cool morning, enjoyed another mammoth German breakfast, and rolled out north through pastures and little towns along the Loisach River. The ride today featured so many changes of scenery. We saw farms, towns, horses, sheep, schoolchildren on the bus, rafts on the river, tractors in the fields, and just about anything else as the scenery seemed to change around every corner. At about mid-morning we found the famous cycling trail that we will riding for the remainder of the week: the Bodensee-Königssee Radweg. It's a 264-mile trail that runs east/west from the southeast corner to the southwest corner of Germany, just north of the high hills and mountains of the Alps. We will be riding east with a few detours here and there. In a village called Benediktbeuern - which happens to be the hometown of Susi, Thomas's wife - we stopped at the historic cloister biergarten for a quick snack of beer, pretzels and Weißwurst, a white sausage that is eaten in a particular way (Thomas showed us). We sat outside under an umbrella in a pretty courtyard and enjoyed the last of the morning. We biked further as the weather warmed and the humidity dropped. We admired the beautiful hills and cliffs around us on this most beautiful of days. At about 1 pm we reached our destination: Bad Tölz. This town has a lovely town center and a beautiful tree-lined promenade. The Isar River flows through it, the same river that flows through Munich. There used to be a US military base here. After a few hours rest, we decided to take advantage of the perfect weather, so we rode about six miles to a lake called Kirchsee. We all swam in the rather chilly water, and to congratulate ourselves we rode along the trails to the Reutberg brewery and had a big dinner along with some of their beer. Thomas's wife, Susi, joined us there for dinner as did their son Luis, so along with Caro who biked with us again today, we had four of their family members with us for the meal! We rode back to our hotel after dinner in the cooler evening temperatures to complete a 48-mile day. It was another great day on the bicycle!