Day 21 - Ulm to Reutlingen - ride total 1,608 k, 12,327 m

We got off to a good start today and found a good bakery at about the 20 km point to stop and have breakfast. It was a delightful Bircher Museli for me today. The first couple of hours were perfect riding conditions, probably high teens, fresh from the overnight train that had stopped, no wind and some mist along the sides of the trail making for a lovely early morning landscape.

Both yesterday on our ride in to Ulm and then again today we rode for some distance beside allotments that bounded the cycle trail. These are somewhat larger than those I saw in the UK and the "Allotment'ers" not sure if that's what they call themselves, put a lot of effort and work into their plots. Some have garden sheds that have morphed inyo summer houses where I can imagine they go at the weekend's to enjoy their garden, meet their fellow gardeners hang out down at the allotment.

Everything is very green which indicates they get plenty of rain and the soils have looked very fertile for the whole of our ride, except of course for the higher Alpine areas.

With Stephen still getting over his virus off yesterday part way through today's ride I suggested we take his bags with one going on Peter's bike and one on mine. The good thing is we are all using a very cool rack and dry bag system called "Aero Spider" which means we simply take his bag and bracket and attach it to the top of our rack. As expected Stephen did not agree to this (as expected), in which case we had to resort to the democratic process of putting it to the vote and the formal motion was passed and then was able to be put in to action. 

After our good bakery find the numbers of cafés had quickly dropped off however at one town I noticed an ice cream sign so we detoured down to it only to find out closed, we did though at that point see a Cafe sign so rode past the farm buildings to see umbrellas and a person drinking coffee.

Success. 

Two cappuccinos and a tea were ordered. We began chatting with the people here and actually the Cafe was closed however they were happy to make our drinks and give us a plate of biscuits. 

It turned out this town is and has been for well over 100 years a training/recovery facility for people with disabilities or psychological, alcohol, drug problems who do not cope well in mainstream society.

It was quite a coincidence as Peter has been involved with a similar organisation "Alkira" in Melbourne for over 40 years and is treating this ride as a fundraiser for it - he has raised over $32,000 so far. Specifically he is raising funds to help fit out a commercial café in which Alkira can train their participants to become barristas and the like. There were quite a lot of similarities he could identify with, so much so that we were then taken on a tour of the facility and saw their Cafe (similar to Alkira's) and also taken to their "Living Museum" which was a whole building that provides their clients and others a place to express themselves through art and also host at exhibitions for which we saw one that is being opened on Sunday.

Again we commented on how simply by chance we happened to stop at this place and then as a result what we gained from doing so. 

The pics show a couple of  "Sundays" I've had, no, not both today, one was yesterday's and both as nice as they look.




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