Hail you steep hill!
Is it possible to discover new things in a surrounding you used to know for years? Yes, it is! Upon bicycle or hiking tours life is full of surprises: once you take a wrong turn by accident you might suddenly bump into something special. Curious?
We have been on the road for a while, when I notice the really steep climb in front of me – one of the kind, where you cannot see the end of it at the start. My but was already hurting me, it was warm and I had reached the point where I started to wonder what made me getting up on seven o’clock on a Sunday to cycle about 60 km through the Wallachia instead of lazy dazing on the balcony? And suddenly there is the wow factor just in front of me. The struggle, the heat, the thirst – all gone. Something caught my eye – a piece of jewellery. Nobody expected it. In front of us lies castle Wohldenberg. It is a very nice site with dungeon and a brilliant parochial garden, open to everybody. A clear recommendation to me.
Before we cycle to the promised cooling-down to the “Freie Bad” at Bodenburg, we rest at Upstedt and have a picnic under the “Dicke Linde”. The really thick trunk has sufficient space to five adults and offers a nice and shadily place on that day.
Barbecue heaven at the lido in Bodenburg
Our next stop is the Freie Bad at Bodenburg. To illustrate the historic event I have to mention that I dislike lidos since my adolescence. Most of the time you cannot swim because you are either bothered by kids jumping on your head or the water is already poisoned from urinating so that the expected refreshment is missing. However, the convenient “Freie Bad” is a completely different story. No noise, no blubbering, no overfilling. Instead: Men using a grill, a relaxed kiosk owner, friendly bath attendants, pure water with a refreshing temperature of 20 degrees. Once more a recommendation.
Mummy-pushing at the spa garden
Now someone from the group wants to stop at the spa garden of Bad Salzdetfurth. Oh dear, that sounds like mummy-pushing and spa concert. Guess who is on the stage upon our arrival? Exactly, the local brass band. It strikes up to a rendezvous, the regional nursing homes have some time off! Well, there are also the Salinas and it is actually about them. They are really interesting. At first they seem to be oversized barns. Inside it is (pleasantly) cool and as a stroller you are continually sprayed with some kind of salty spume. It is supposed to be proficient for the respiratory ducts and more. As Mrs. Ackermann as a testimonial on the Salinas webpage vividly puts it: “When I inhale on a regular basis, I can better cough up and the catarrh is clearing up.” I am strolling around the old town a little bit and take some pictures of the picturesque half-timbered houses.
Five o’clock ice-cream
We move on. The fruit wine tavern at Lechstedt is on the programme. Everybody is pedaling quite fast, the fruit wine almost on the lips. Upon leaving Bad Salzdetfurth we ran into a pageantry and can hardly escape. Reaching the fruit wine tavern we experience our first and only disappointment that day. We get there at about 3:30 pm and the menu of the day is thrusted to us. Breaded schnitzel and meat loaf in the blazing sun in the afternoon? We ask for cake and ice-cream. They are out of cake already. At 3.30 pm? Some of us are asking for a little snack such as sandwiches – it is written on the regular menu. Well, the regular menu, the waitress explains, is available after 5 o’clock. Dearth in the service sector? I.e. the cook can arrange for a Boeuf Stroganoff but not for a sandwich? Well, if they do not want to make money … Maybe they do not expect us to give a tip in the end. Slightly hungry we are leaving the nice but little sociable place around 5 o’clock and cycle to the railway station in Hildesheim. We start our way home from there.
With a length of 70 km and some ascending slopes (I did not expect around Hildesheim) the tour was in between quite exhausting. But it was worth it! Once more it was apparent that even in my own neighborhoods there a news things to discover.
