Wanderung 32

We had a nice, relaxed German-style breakfast at our hotel before setting off for the day into extremely variable weather: sunshine, clouds, intermittent rain, and on a couple of occasions, pelting sleet! We stopped off at Lidl , hoping to pick up another cheap polyester bicycling shirt, but Lidl is like Aldi in that their special goods are very cheap but of limited quantity and thus their special non-food goods usually sell out very quickly. So those shirts had all disappeared, and we continued to wend our way out of Hitzacker and along the Elbe, riding either on top of or alongside the dike until it was time to cross to the other bank of the Elbe just South of Doemitz.

The wind was howling at that point and rain with sleet pelting down which made riding much more difficult. Plus, the bridge in front of us looked just like "The Coathanger" bridge that crossed onto the island of Fehmarn on Wanderung 30 that I had thought so dangerous. I was spooked by the memory plus the tremendous crosswind we now had, and we started off pushing our bikes across the bridge. But that quickly became tedious and several people passed us on bicycles, so in the end we got on our bikes, powered up, and carefully completed our crossing.

Fortunately, when we turned eastward on the bike trail on the opposite bank, the wind again became a tailwind and not so unpleasant, so for a few moments we had a very cheerful ride along the dike. But by the time we passed the old, star-shaped fort at the edge of Doemitz and turned toward the town center, the rain and sleet had returned and I had the darnedest time locking up the bicycles so that we could wander around a bit and find a place for lunch--the locking cables were much stiffer and slipperier in the cold and wet.

But circling the old main square around the pretty little brick church, we did see some of the nice old brick houses. One house even had a stork's nest on its chimney stack, complete with the Daddy stork! But there were also several closed businesses, which together with a total lack of pedestrian traffic gave us the impression of a town that was economically declining. We finally found a small bakery that was open and had a bench in back crowded with local folks, but with an empty table for two near the door. So we ordered some Broetchen with meat along with coffee and tea to warm up, and contentedly ate while having a warm respite from the cold rain. Unfortunately, Monika fell on the rain-slicked steps as we came out the door, but she said she wasn't hurt and we went back to unlock the bikes and resume our journey.

But that didn't work out well either, as Monika took a sudden left turn, and by the time I had managed to stop on the wet cobblestones, make a U-turn, and get back to the street she had veered onto, she had completely disappeared! Having absolutely no clue where in the maze of old, narrow streets she might have gone, I was forced to just go back to the central church and wait for her to realize we were disconnected and backtrack, which is our standard tactic in such situations. But instead of backtracking, she made some guesses about where I might have gone and meandered around the town exploring those possibilities before finally parking her bike and walking back to the place we had become separated.

Finally reunited, we returned to the dike path and continued upstream for another 10 kilometers or so until we reached Kietz, where we expected to find our hotel "Elbeflair". But my iPad with the GPS and Komoot map on it finally gave up due to a completely discharged battery, so we had to stop and check our location with Monika's iPad. But when we stopped, Monika fell over with her bicycle! I pulled her and then her bike up, but she had to walk off a leg cramp before we could start off again. As it turned out, we were only about a block down the bike path from the Elbeflair Gasthof, so we could finally put the bikes in a shed, rest a bit, and dry out our wet clothes.

Once we were thoroughly dry and warm, we walked around the 1-square block that is Kietz. But most of that block is farms and pastures, so I'm not quite sure that it even qualifies as a village. Still, we saw the town church and many contented farm animals plus a couple of humans as we completed our circuit walk. Afterwards, we had our evening sandwiches that Monika had bought at a Penny Markt as we left Doemitz, read our book, and puzzled out exactly where we wanted to be 4 days from now and what hotel or B&B to stay in. Usually we only plan 1 day in advance, which is a lot easier, but with the Easter weekend approaching, which is a 4-day holiday for all Germans, we both thought it wise to try to look at our probable route and book rooms ahead as far as possible.