SUNDAY, 27th AUGUST : HASSFURT to BAMBERG.

Hassfurt seemed very quiet compared with other towns we've visited along the way, but we liked it there.  Once again, it rained heavily throughout the night and we thought we might have to delay our departure until late morning, but not so.  Once we'd had breakfast, collected the bikes from the garage and packed up, the weather looked more promising so we donned jackets, as it was quite cool, and set off at 10a.m.  The bike path led us away from the river which was disappointing and after about half an hour, we stopped to put on raincoats to keep the wind out as the jackets weren't doing a proper job.  

We stopped briefly in lovely Zeil am Main

and in crossing the river, again, a Travel Marvel cruise boat, sporting an Australian flag, passed beneath us.

Once again, the path led us away from the river and through a few small towns

until coming back to the river, we could see Eltmann ahead, a little bit of nostalgia as we'd stayed there with 'Boris', our motorhome 10 years ago.

Half an hour later, we thought we'd found a place to have coffee and a snack when we rode into Rossstadt

to discover the Landgasthof Schramm open and serving lunch!  Alas, when we ventured inside we found the place to be absolutely chokkers, with what looked liked the entire population of the town out for Sunday lunch, which led us to think that we might have to wait for a very long time to be served, so continued on towards Bamberg.  

The confluence of the Main River and the Main-Donau-Kanal

We'd passed these two ladies earlier and when we stopped to take photos, they passed us, then when we set off again, we passed them again.  

Not long after, we arrived in Bamberg, found our hotel, locked the bikes in the garage, unpacked and had a rest before going walkabout.  It appears that there was an annual festival taking place this weekend, there were hundreds of people about (including our two ladies who we saw walking along eating ice creams, they'd walked a long way so deserved them!) but we managed to find a cafe that wasn't full so were finally able to have coffee, and a slice of delicious apple cake as well!

a quiet street, no festival here!

A couple of the very fine old houses in Bamberg

It was a bit of a shock to the system after having hot weather for almost two weeks, to be back in warm clothes.  We walked up the street for our evening meal at an Italian restaurant, chose to sit outside though most diners went indoors, but when the rain came and the umbrellas over our table proved to be inadequate, we moved inside to finish our meal of a large, shared, freshly made pizza which was delicious, washed down by the usual couple of beers. By the time we'd finished eating and had a cup of excellent coffee, the rain had eased and we made it back to the hotel only slightly damp.