17th September 2016. Mainstockheim, Germany.

Darren set the alarm and got up early to go to the bread hut to buy some rolls, he came back 10 minutes later minus the rolls, apparently it wasn’t open.  The weather was looking rather scabby today and we ‘uumed and aaahed’ about going for the planned ride up to the next village which was 4 km further along.

Eventually we decided to pop over to the village on the other side of the river to get some supplies from the shop that Darren thought he’d found on the map.  Unfortunately we decided to go just as the ferry man went off for his lunch!

After a number of changes to the plan we finally went back to the van, got the bikes out and cycled along to next the village, Kitzingen.

It was a very pretty village, with lots of cobbled streets and lot of hills to cycle up and we discovered when we had lunch in the town square that the town was holding a beer festival so we sat and listened to an Oompah band and watched people walking around dressed in traditional outfits.  It was great.

Rain clouds were starting to loom so we made a dash back to the van foregoing an opportunity to go into Aldi’s which was further along the river but in the wrong direction.  We figured we could go into the shop in the village opposite our site (Albertshofen).  We figured incorrectly, we cycled up and down the village roads past a very big school, a hair dressers, a bakers (closed) and a small builders merchants but we could NOT find a grocers, strangely all these businesses were scattered randomly up various roads in the town.  ‘Curiouser and curiouser cried Alice!’

It was starting to spit with rain by then so we decided to give up the search and go to the river to catch the ferry.  I think the town had stretched while we had been zigzagging backwards and forwards through the roads because the ferry was much further away than we anticipated.  Nevertheless it’s funny how a bit of rain can motivate us to move so much faster.

Luckily for us the ferry was waiting on our side of the river when we got there and we cycled straight on.  As the ferry took us across I looked down the river to see about 20 canoes all moving towards us, it was a very colourful sight.

We got back inside our van moments before the heavens opened and it rained heavily on and off for hours, for once the weather forecast was actually accurate.