Wangenbourg

Today we had a big leftover meal planned, tomorrow we are heading to the Black Forest, and we have very minimal space for food. This morning, the different transportation options for my beautiful red birthday roses provided a lot of laughter. The following options came to mind:

Putting one in each cylinder, or I could hold the bouquet while riding, or we could stick them in the steering head bearing, or we could drape them in front of the handlebars... We couldn't stop laughing!

During the leftover meal, a cheese stood out as particularly unpleasant, even though we are both 'cheese-proof'... Gerhard suggested that it probably spent the night in our motorcycle boots and aged a bit overnight :-)

(But seriously: in spring and autumn, I always enjoy the warm feet while riding the motorcycle. It's probably some kind of exhaust heat that is generated while riding. But at temperatures over 30 degrees, it's rather unnecessary and quite sweaty...).

In the afternoon, we planned a small tour to Wangenbourg with a possible visit to the Alsace Memorial Memorial Site.

In Wangenbourg, we stumbled upon the Wangenbourg while unsuccessfully searching for an ice cream cafe...

Nice, but unfortunately, no ice cream cafe...

By the way, it might be interesting to know that Alsace has the highest density of castles in Europe! So basically, there's one on every corner, some more intact than others.

We continued through beautiful forest areas and wonderful motorcycle roads to Oberhaslach. There was supposed to be a remarkable waterfall (and of course, you can guess it easily... a castle ruin). So we parked the motorcycle at the parking lot and started the challenge.

Looking at the map was reassuring, we could handle around 500 meters even in our motorcycle gear.

So, off we went... first, a lot of downhill meters... which was still manageable. After about 400 meters, we encountered two hikers at a junction. Gerhard asked for the right way (but forgot to ask how far it is). That rascal... probably his French skills didn't allow him to do so :-) I asked instead... and the two ladies answered me in German... sometimes things are quite simple. Unfortunately, their answers were not clear and varied between 15 and 30 minutes.

Slowly, our motorcycle pants started to smoke, not to mention the boots. 

But the next section was fairly flat, so we continued. After what felt like 2 km, we arrived at the Niedeck Castle ruins.

According to legend, giants used to live here (although the ruin had a reasonably sized door...), and Adalbert von Chamisso wrote a beautiful poem about it:

Well, the view was, as expected, absolutely fantastic...

...but it couldn't make us forget about our desolate, well-damped condition...

After it became visibly steep downhill behind the castle, and even the faintest sound of rushing water couldn't be heard, we decided to cancel the fitness exercise and make our way back.

For the final ascent to the moped, only old hiking tricks helped: look only at the path below, and definitely not up the mountain, otherwise you would collapse immediately, walk slowly, breathe regularly, and don't do anything stupid (and try to laugh... Quite difficult for us).

In a rather disheveled state, we got on the moped and cheered at the rush of wind. And as a reward, a few kilometers further, there was also an ice cream. Well, from the freezer, but we would have taken a partially eaten one as well :-)

That's all about today's challenge.

Best regards from us and see you soon!