We were a little disappointed with our Airbnb host although we regularly conveyed to the host of our delay. We had communicated well in advance of our arrival and also informed our changes but she was annoyed that we arrived late and claimed that we did not communicate to her.
Yesterday was one of the longest trips and I think we were a little exhausted. We departed Durlach and had breakfast down the street. Our departure was delayed because we were too tired from the previous route – 105KM. Since we stayed slightly away from the Rhine River track, our initial route took us through the City of Karlsruhe and then to St. Bernhard. We noted that the directions in Germany are pretty good and they have dedicated cycling paths – good wide road paths. For the first time, we were not close to the Rhine River and EuroVelo 15 route was nowhere to be seen. We also felt that the weather was getting warmer as against in Switzerland but similarities in the towns we were going through - looked the same and extremely quiet – small towns. With the temperature raised little, long monotonous rides, we were getting tired faster as we have been hitting the road for almost 14 days.
We reached Speyer and it was beautiful to see Europe’s biggest Romanesque church is in Speyer and is a world heritage site. The Speyer Cathedral is the biggest still-standing Romanesque church in Europe. As a burial site for Salian, Staufer, and Hapsburg rulers, the cathedral is an important symbol of the Medieval Germanic Holy Roman Empire. Opened in 1106, it can look back on a 900-year history.
Speyer stands on a small rise above the Rhine, a location chosen by the Romans for a fort as it was one of few riverside places between Mainz and Basel not susceptible to flooding. This locational advantage continued into medieval times when the Kaiserdom cathedral (which was Western Europe’s largest Romanesque church when consecrated in 1061), was built on the same rise. Speyer became an important imperial city within the Holy Roman Empire as the location of the Imperial Chamber of Justice and burial place of eight Emperors.
From Speyer, we headed towards Manheim. Along the way, we cycled through gravel cycle tracks into the woodland of the Waldpark nature reserve. The maze of winding tracks through Waldpark is complicated but well signposted - the route starts as gravel but soon becomes asphalt, heading west, north-west, and finally north-east.
The city’s symbol, Wasserturm, is an old water tower east of the center. Mannheim can justifiably claim to be home to the automobile as Karl Benz produced his first petrol-powered car here (in 1885), and his wife Bertha took the world’s first recorded long-distance motor journey, 104km from Mannheim to Pforzheim in 1888. A replica of this first car stands near Wasserturm. The Daimler factory still produces buses and diesel engines.
We had dinner and then headed towards Manheim. We reached our Airbnb home at about 9.30 pm. Again, it was a long day – 75Km.