Friday 2 August 2013

Friday 2 August. Dommitzsch to Kloden.

We were a bit later leaving the hotel this morning as Shiel wet the bed!

The hotel/pension was more expensive than others we've been to but apart from the location, directly on the ferry, the rooms were no better than any we've had before. If anything we've found an inverse relationship between price and quality of service. The hotel has the advantage however, if you are tired, that it has its own restaurant, where we breakfasted this morning. It was served outside on a balcony and already by 8:00am it was too sunny without some shade and we had none.

We had to wait for the ferry whilst a tourist boat went past, Clara Schumann. The ferry is held by an upstream cable, in this case to the northern shore, so when boats move up and down river this ferry has to stay on the northern bank.

We walked a short way up the ferry road and then turned left along the stop bank. We are using Viewranger maps of Germany and the road we were following suddenly stopped at a new farm field not shown on our map. There was nothing new growing and after walking about 100 yards across scrub we again reached the road. Only farm vehicles were allowed on the road, but we assumed pedestrians were also. We then headed back to the stop bank for the shortest route to Mauken, as it was already very hot.

It was then we saw a sign which, if I understood it correctly, was the ultimate Basil Fawltey stereotype of a German sign. It said every activity was forbidden on the stop bank. I should have taken a photograph.

There was a paved way running beside the stop bank and we assumed that whilst only walking, or doing anything else for that matter, on the stop bank was prohibited,  that we could walk along the paved way.

On our way we passed 3 regions where the paved way widened to allow passing or parking, and each was near a little hunting/shooting house typical of rural Germany (see photographs below).  It appears that some forbidden activities may be allowed. We wondered if it might be a sign left over from DDR days keeping the workers out of choice hunting areas. We did pass a few more signs but the restrictive lines were more and more faded out as we approached Mauken, until eventually they were no longer visible. It could be our interpretation of the sign was correct in that it only applied to the bank itself.

It was now getting really hot but now and again there were trees where we could get shade. We took an inland route to Kleindroben, where we got our water bottle filled at a house and then after a rest at a shaded park bench headed the last couple of km to Kloden.

There was an old castle signposted 100m off the path at the entry to Kloden and we went there for an orange juice and an alchol free beer. The first drink place we had passed all day. My beer tasted fantastic!

We went wrong looking for our pension, Kastaienhof, but a local women looking out of a window kindly came out in the heat and walked with us part of the way.

We got a nice greeting at the pension and access to a washing line. The landlady even came out with a plastic container for our washing.

We ate out at the castle (Burg) where we had taken refreshment on the way into Kloden. We had an excellent meal with a good bottle of wine. The waiter than directed us to some upstairs rooms in the castle where there were interesting display of old farming implements and old school books, some used for teaching English and others Russian. There was also a gruesome cellar with old torture implements. On returning to the pension our washing was dry. 

We had taken 6. hours to walk 20.7 km.

How did Shiel wet the bed? She didn't screw the lid on her water container properly before resting her pack on the bed.

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