Day 7 Neu Ulm, Germany. Sunday and Sunny Day Walking The City

Joan's View

We spent several hours yesterday looking for a mass to go to today. We searched for hours online, me on the laptop and Tony on his phone. We are surrounded by old Catholic churches, yet very few have a mass. The receptionist here at the Orange Hotel was no help so we asked the waitress in the restaurant last night. She found what she thought were two options, but after some research, they weren't Catholic or were far away. Our friend, Fr. Ken Schnipke told Tony before we left, good luck finding a mass and that if we found one, he would be the only guy in church. 

Well, Fr. Ken, we pulled it off! Tony found one after more online searching. We went to 10:30 mass at St. Georg in Ulm, and the place was filled about as much as our church back home, with plenty of other guys.

After mass, Tony zipped off the lower part of his pants. We have to add that because Tony bought these pants especially for the bike trip thanks to the advice of our neighbor, Bud. It's actually stylish fishing wear, but the clothes are lightweight for the bike too. Bud wears this fashionably hip attire when he is fishing in Florida.

Our tour today takes you through Ulm, just across the Danube from Neu Ulm, and the birth place of Einstein. Actually, there is supposed to be a marker for Einstein's birth place, but right now we just saw construction fencing around that area so maybe they are building a museum?

Our first stop is Ulm Minster. This church has the highest church tower in the world. It started out Catholic, but when the town of Ulm voted to become Protestant in the 1500s, the church went Protestant too. It is under reconstruction as well.















Outside of the church is this circle in the pavers that had cities and their distances from Ulm. Tony is making a shadow in between Zurich and Budapest, our beginning and ending points.

 Leaving there and wandering toward our next point of interest, Tony must have been hungry because his eye caught food at an outside cafe / biergarten. We took a break and had some flame cake as it is called here. Yes, it has gluten, but the crust was super thin so I ate some too and it was YUM.

Speaking of food, Tony got his first soft serve ice cream of the trip. Actually, he got it twice today. He must be trying to play catch up. 









Back on the touring circuit, we found the "Schiefes" Haus. I guess it's comparable to the leaning tower of Pisa. This crooked hotel is listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the "most crooked hotel" in the world. FYI, in case anybody wants to spend the night a little crooked. OK, I won't name any names of who I was thinking of. 🤣













We also found Ulm's oldest bridge and got a teenage girl to do a photo shoot for us. She said that'll be a Euro and laughed when she gave the phone back. I ran back and gave her an American dollar and told her thanks for taking a picture of an American. Their whole group started laughing.

Next stop was the old wall around the city of Ulm. We've had a picture at the Great Wall of China so now we have a picture at the wall of Ulm. It's pretty interesting that 85% of Ulm was bombed and destroyed by the Allies in World War II, yet this ancient wall survived.

Last stop on our tour was Vaterunsergasse, "Our Father Street." The reason for this name is that corpses were transported through the street during a time of plague, before being thrown into the Danube. Supposedly, the name arose because the time it takes to walk along the street is no longer than it takes to say an Our Father prayer. We didn't try it. There was construction down the street.

Back at the Orange, Tony worked on the bike while I worked on this blog. We might get to bed before 11:00 tonight!

Tony's Extras

I really felt good today wearing my stylist Bud Deland wear. It really looked good for church considering my other choices for church. 

The picture to the right is what St. Georg church looked like from the back. To the left is the picture behind the altar. It had a lot of gold and was beautiful. Joan could understand the Mass better than me, but I knew where we were at in the Mass. 
After the touring of town, I came back and cleaned the bicycle first. Riding in all these gravel trails, it was very dirty. It took a while to get it cleaned from all the stone dust in all the small areas. The chains were extra dirty, too. After getting it clean, I could start working on the maintenace items. I fixed the steering rod and front stem to make the steering smoother. I then adjusted all three bicycle derailleurs, and they seem to be shifting smoother now. The disc brakes have been sweaking and driving me crazy. I think I have them fixed now. The true test will be on the ride tommorrow. For all you Choice One UHC Motion users, I got my entire FIT on my lazy day off, yea $3. Funny thing is that on the ride days where I am totally exhausted, I earn nothing. Go figure.