Tag 7: Fulda --> Bad Brückenau

Breakfast at the church in Fulda, just as windy as on the Cologne Cathedral square. Overall, there has been a unpleasant wind blowing since the day before yesterday, at least until tomorrow, always from the wrong direction!

Afterwards, continue driving, past the Garden Show, I sit down on a bench there in the (not yet existing) sun, unpack my mini guitar and start playing. I had just strummed the opener 'Here Comes the Sun' when an - somewhat peculiar - woman passed by, talked to me and then disappeared again. And afterwards it was actually quite frustrating, many ignored me, some laughed at me, exactly two people threw a total of 3 euros into my bicycle helmet hat. In a good three quarters of an hour. And I tried everything: Beatles, oldies, German folk, Tell Me Where the Flowers Are (at least someone could have smiled at a garden show), Schlager (Michael Holm sang at the Garden Show on HR4 that day!), but little reaction. That really frustrated me. I can try to make it sound better by saying that they were all in a hurry to get to the entrance so as not to miss too much of the HR4 Schlager program, but I'm afraid that was not the only reason.
Eventually I noticed that my face was getting more than a little warm from the sun and took it as a sign to stop and continue on.

The plan was to ride up the Fulda River to Ebersberg-Schmalnau, where R1 (Fulda Cycle Path) and R2 (Four Rivers Tour) separate, which should lead to the Sinn River, a small river that leads to the Main River with its own cycle path. Again today, the wind conditions were quite unpleasant, and finding accommodation was also problematic, so I decided to leave R2 early and ride to Bad Brückenau am Sinn via two decent hills, unfortunately also along the A7 motorway, where I took a tiny room at the Hotel zur Mühle.

Before that, I had to pass under a bridge with two not really likeable couples (uhsimbadische Baare, they were from Franconia), but shortly afterwards there was a very delicious cake (berry pie) on the way to make up for it.

Bad Brückenau is a tiny little spa town, far from being upscale, rather charmingly old-fashioned, but it borders on the almost similarly named "Staatsbad" Brückenau, which is a different story altogether. The word glamorous was probably invented there, huge old spa and concert halls, hotels, bath buildings, all from the time of King Ludwig I of Bavaria, who always resided and ruled in the Staatsbad in the summers. Truly impressive and still used in parts today, by anyone! The AOK insurance company didn't seem to be involved there, in any case. All slightly bizarre.

Well, next to it there was Cornelia's Rhönstübchen and I had a piece of meat with spaetzle there, which was a reconciling end to the day. Only 63 km, but they were tough, a total of 556.