Start: Roth
Finish: Nuremberg
Distance: 17
Total: 1369
Today was a straightforward 17 mile day carrying nothing in my backpack except water. The weather forecast had a zero chance of rain so I didn’t even take my rain gear with me.
The day started at 7:30 with a half-mile walk to the train station nearest my hotel to catch the train back to Roth where I stopped walking yesterday. I didn’t eat breakfast at the hotel this morning; opting instead to stop in one of the bakeries along the way and eat on the 30 minute train ride. Because I was leaving from a different station than I came into yesterday, I was just assuming I would find a bakery between my hotel and the station. Bad assumption. I saw nothing, so I had to wait until I got to Roth to get something to eat. I knew for a fact there was a bakery there because I saw it yesterday while I was walking around town looking for a hotel. So I got to Roth, started walking through town, and stopped at the bakery. They had a good variety of pastries to pick from but had nothing to drink except coffee. I don’t drink coffee, so I ate my pastry and drank my own water as I walked.
The first five miles were along the highway with no shoulder. Luckily the traffic was fairly light and I could step off the road into the grass when there was a conflict. Eventually I made my way onto a trail built along the top of the levy that runs along the Rhine-Main-Danube Canal. This 106 mile long canal connects the Main and Danube rivers and passes through Nuremberg. I walked about eight miles on the levy. There was zero vehicle traffic; just an occasional bicyclist, jogger, or someone out walking their dog. The only negative thing I have to say about the levy road is that it was made of very dusty, white rock that was basically just dusty powder. I totally trashed everything below my waste and was a dusty mess when I got off that road.
Just before I turned away from the canal, I walked past the Nuremberg River Cruise Dock. There were two Viking River Cruise boats at the dock with 10-15 tour busses picking up cruise passengers for the excursions. I found the location of the dock a bit unusual; it was literally in the middle of nowhere; you couldn’t see any of the city from where they were docked but the city was maybe 10 minutes away by bus.
I eventually got into the outskirts of Nuremberg, which like other large European cities, has almost no suburbs. For a city of 500,000+, I got to within three miles of the city center before I saw any apartments, businesses, etc.. Because I was walking along the canal for so long, I never found a place to eat lunch until I got within 15 minutes of my hotel. I was pretty tired and hungry after walking almost six hours on nothing but a pastry.
I’m staying at the Holiday Inn in Old Town Nuremberg. Tomorrow is a day off and I’ve never been to this city so I’ll do some site seeing tomorrow and post pictures of this historic town on tomorrow’s post. I hope everyone has a great weekend. JB.
