Day 5: Perfect Day - 24 Kilometres – Total 124 Kilometres

Day 5: Perfect Day - 24 Kilometres – Total 124 Kilometres

Today has been such a good day for so many reasons that it is hard to know where to begin.

I'll start with food. The picture above was, until this evening, one of the best meals I had ever eaten. Fortunately, my cooing, started sufficiently early to prompt Doris to suggest that I take a photograph.

Over the years, I have eaten my fair share of Bratwurst and Sauerkraut but this was in an entirely different league. It was served up by one of the oldest Inns in Germany, Gasthof zum Riesen, in the very old town of Miltenberg.

I have eaten in some posh nosh in my time, and enjoyed them greatly but it is the simple meals that have given me the most pleasure. My list is as follows: Pie and Mash in Kelly's in Roman Road; Salt Beef in Bloom's in Whitechapel; Sardines in Portimao in Portugal, Spaghetti Vongole in Porto san Stefano in Italy and, now, Bratwurst and Sauerkraut in Miltenberg. None of them was expensive but every single one of them made my soul soar.

And so to this evening. After walking for 24 Kilomteres, a fair amount of it uphill, we stumbled out of the forest, to encounter Gasthof Geyersmuehle nestling in the woods. We were shown a lovely spacious room facing the woods and decided to stay. It is said that quality is the gap between expectation and experience, rather than objective judgement, and perhaps this played a part but nothing prepared us for the epic quality of food and wine served up. A perfect end to a perfect day.

There were a number of other things that made today so enjoyable but one was certainly that my main physical challenges seem to be under control. In particular my Archilles tendon problem seems to be manageable. Not only did I walk through some of Europe's most magnificent scenery, along the majestic Main river, and deep into the Bavarian forests on its banks, but, for the first time, I finished the day without so much as a limp or hobble, for all the world, perambulating like a normal person.

Before we left, I pondered the challenge of “being” rather than “doing”. Interestingly, we have not turned a page of a book nor spun the wheel of our respective iPODs. We have simply walked, eaten, blogged, slept...walked, eaten, blogged, slept...and so on. Five days, not a page read, not a Podcast or record listened to. I have, frankly, had too much to drink to ponder this further without getting pompous, so I will leave it there for now.

Eagle eyed readers may have spotted that I referred to Doris's “Day 4” blog but that they couldn't find it. Alas , I fear, it is destined to be like Bob Dylan's Basement Tapes, hidden from public view, attaining legendary status but not emerging until another era.

The key thing that you may have missed is that, yesterday, Gisela, Doris's sister, and her husband Toni, drove their children Felix and Juliana, 140 Kilometres with their bikes in a trailer, so that they could cycle along our route and surprise us. And then insist on carrying our rucksacks for a couple of kilometres. Amazingly generous.

Today's music? It was a close run thing, with Bob Dylan's “Temporary Like Archilles” but I'll have to go for the obvious with Lou Reed and “Perfect Day”.