Sun, sun, sun

Day 19 was another day predominantly following contours. From St Wendel, I followed a little stream and a valley all the way to Neunkirchen, where I then hopped over a couple of small hills past Bexbach (although this took me slightly longer than planned as I ended up taking an unnecessary detour around the villages there). I soon arrived in Zweibrücken and found a cycle path that went all the way to Pirmasens, again following another river nearly all the way there. I had a nice lunch stop at the half way point and arrived in Pirmasens a little hotter than anticipated, due to quite a nasty, steep climb out of the valley and into the city. 

A coffee/waffle stop in Pirmasens later, I was back on the bike and heading towards Dahn. My planned route changed just as I was leaving the city as I saw a sign for Dahn on a smaller road, which turned out to be a brilliant change of plan, weaving through some German forest, beside a river in the afternoon sun!

I arrived in Dahn in plenty of time, so headed to an Apotheke which had a computer with internet access. With emails and blog done, I then found the campsite and pitched my tent. Due to not having much food with me and the fact that there was a restaurant at the campsite, I decided to treat myself to a proper meal so sat down to a large lasagne, a bowl of green salad and a small beer. During my route planning for the next few days on the bike, one of the chefs, who had finished for the evening, came up and started asking me why I had so many maps. Replying in German, we spoke for a good half an hour (reverting to english relatively quickly though), until another of the chefs joined in. After a great day in the sun and a lovely evening, spirits were slightly dampened, literally, when the weather turned and it started raining. Fortunately, it only lasted for a few hours and when I woke the next morning, it was nice and sunny, with everything not as damp as I thought it would be. Not only that but for the first time on my trip, I didn't wake up cold in my tent!

The next day's riding was a quick 40 miles back into France, finishing in Haguenau (just north of Strasbourg). After another hour on the internet in the Uni's Bibliothek, I decided to have a rest day the next day, to give my legs a break and to explore the city. On my way to the campsite, just outside the city (about 25 mins walk), I stopped at a supermarket and bought a large amount of food. Supper that night was a whole box of scrambled eggs, which I found out is very hard to do on a campstove, which had 2 whole kabanos, half a giant babybel and a large tomato added to it, along with a packet of BNs (I didn't eat them all that night), another waffle and a carton of Innocent Smoothy!

My rest day was extermely pleasant, apart from not being allowed to go swimming in the pool directly opposite the campsite as I only had a pair of baggy shorts. I had a nice hamburger in a tiny turkish shop, run by a turkish lady who was about 4ft tall and looked about 90, in a small alleyway beside one of the churches, another couple of hours on the computer in the Bibliothek (all for free) and then sat in a cafe for a couple of hours, with a good people watching position just off the main square in the centre of Haguenau. I was soon back in the campsite, all packed up for an early start in the morning, with all my clothes dry from a quick handwash in the sink.