June 24, 2012 (Day 12) Bike Day 6
Bike from Güstrow to Rostock
57.2 km (35.5 miles)
9:20am – 2:00pm
weather: chilly, rainy
Today is our last full day in Germany. Tomorrow we get on the ferry for Denmark! We had to go out with a bang, too, because the day was incredibly rainy. With a 90% chance of rain in the forecast, there was no waiting out the rain at all, so we took off soon after we dropped our luggage in the hotel lobby. We actually made it about 5km with just misty air before the rain started.
A room full of luggage from all of us cycle tourists staying here.
Today is a Sunday, as well, and on Sundays, absolutely NOTHING is open in small town Germany. We actually wanted to stop at a store of some sort to pick up an item or two, but everything was closed. Gustrow was a ghost town, and even when we got to the much larger city of Rostock, there were no stores open except for restaurants.
There is little to say about today’s cycling adventure. We started off biking along a canal on a paved bike trail, and then moved more into paved country bike trails. The rain was constant and true to the forecast. We had a light rain, followed by a more moderate rain, followed by a heavy rain, and then back to a moderate rain. The sky was gray and cloudy and we pretty much just biked straight to Rostock without many stops for sightseeing.
A rainy, rainy day
We did get stopped by a train in one of the many small towns we passed through and had to wait more than 5 minutes for several trains to pass before we could move on. There was the typical line of cars, but also we had a line of about 8 bikes before the gates opened up for us. Most of our biking was on paved roads today which was welcomed in the rain. We just ended up drenched, but not muddy.
Riding next to the canal, before the rains started.
In Rostock we actually met up with 4 other English-speaking cyclists on our tour and we all got together to locate our hotel which was near the train station. With all of us together, we were able to find our hotel just as the luggage van had pulled up outside and unloaded our luggage. Soon we will be dry! Everything was soaking wet. Thank goodness for the saddle bags provided by the bike tour company, though. They are dry bags and everything inside stayed perfectly dry.
After shower, laundry, and dry clothes, we took the city tram to the center of Rostock to do a little sightseeing even though it was still raining out. A pottery market was just shutting down, but we got to walk around and window shop. There were some amazing pieces that I’m sure are all handmade from right here in the region. We passed several historic buildings and noticed that still, no stores were open. There were more people on the street than I expected, but no one could shop. We were all out for a stroll in the rain. We visited a little museum and were able to hide from the rain for about an hour looking at artwork and other various things. Everything was labeled in German, so Mark and I had fun making up stories for each piece of artwork.
Main square in Rostock
We had an early dinner (6pm!) at Leon’s Ribs, Steak, and Fish. We’ve actually found restaurants all along the bike route open much earlier than the normal 7:30pm European dinner time. This place had absolutely amazing ribs. The small plate was stacked with probably a full rack of ribs at least. The most amusing part was that they stocked Stubbs BBQ sauce, made in Austin, TX. A German company simply added a sticker to the bottles with the German translation of the ingredients. We are curious who decided that Stubbs BBQ sauce was the way to go. Dinner was fabulous, but there wasn’t much to do after, so we headed back to the hotel.
We have some recorded tv to watch, games to play, and blogs to type, so we can stay occupied. =) Tommorrow we set out for Denmark.