We followed the northern and western loop of the 100 Schlösser Route by bike (non-electric), taking our own luggage from hotel to hotel. Usually we had a picnic for lunch and a hot meal in the evening, in the hotel restaurant or nearby.
The final statistics :
- Total distance: 625 km
- Duration: 7.5 cycling days and one rest day
- Average km per day: 83 km
- Total ride time: 43 hours
- Average ride time per day: 5h45
- Average speed: 14.6 kmph
- Maximum speed: 52.7 kmph
Highlights
lots of castles indeed:
excellent German food:
- bakeries in every village, all willing to put some ham/cheese with tomato, lettuce, cucumber and a boiled egg on a bread roll and making excellent muffins
- Schnitzels and Bratkartoffeln all over the place, apparently it was also the season for chanterelles.
- Kaffee und Kuchen – or in my case, hot chocolate and Kuchen. Kuchen means any kind of big pie or cake, I usually order cheese cake or chocolate pie.
beautiful fauna:
- When coming out of a curve on a long descent, I suprised a deer standing on the road. It looked at me coming at it for a second before dashing off into the corn. It was spotted, I think it was a fallow deer.
- While cycling through a forested area, we spotted a roe deer and its young standing on a grassy road into the fields. They were pretty far, which means we couldn’t see them very well, but also that they weren’t immediately startled by us, so we got a good look before they dashed off into the fields. They had a beautiful red brown coat, so they must have been roe deer.
- lots of squirrels and a few hares
- uncountless songbirds, from tiny wrens to small sparrows to medium starlings
- many birds of prey: falcons we recognized easily, but also bigger birds. Some dark brown with light underparts, some more grey, no idea what they were. We saw them often, but could also hear them calling out.
beautiful flora:
A lot of corn fields, too high to see past. Small villages and larger towns in valleys by rivers or canals and forests on the top of each hill. Green as far as you can see, dotted with colourful flowers.
Febe writes 