Bike Tour in Frankostan

Erik and I in Alsleben, source of the Frankische Saale photo courtesy of Erik

Posted by James

Weekend before last my friend Erik and I did a 200 km (semi) round trip in Franconia (aka Franken in German, or Frankostan by analogy with Afghanstan, Turkmenistan, etc.) and a small part of Thuringen. The plan was to bike on a route from Bamberg -> Coburg -> Bad Kissingen -> Arnstein -> Bamberg, stopping in Coburg, Bad Kissingen, and Arnstein for a night in small hotels. The basic route was up the Itz River valley from Bamberg to Coburg, spend half a day crossing the watershed  boundary to the Frankische Saale River and down that to the mouth on the Main River, then up the Main to the Wern River and up the Wern, cross back into the Main watershed and finish at Bamberg, which is on the Main. The whole trip would have been about 300 km. Erik has done bike trips up rivers all over southern Germany and northern France, so he knows how to plan a good trip.

But the schedule required that we arrive in Bamberg around 1 PM and then do the 60 km trip up the Itz River to Coburg in the afternoon. I had bike reservations booked on two Inter City trains, one from Berlin to Hannover and one from Hannover to Wuerzburg. The final stretch from Wuerzburg to Bamberg was on a Regional Express, which does not require a reservation, though the number of bikes is limited. However, between Berlin and Wolfsburg the engine hit a raptor (maybe it was a goshawk?) and they had to stop in Wolfsburg to change out the engine because there was some damage. By the time we got to Hannover, we were an hour and a half late, and my reservation to Wuerzburg had lapsed. I tried to get another reservation on an Inter City but, it being summer, they were all booked out by people on vacation, so I had to piece together a trip using 5 stops on Regional Express trains through Thuringen and Bavaria, and I met Erik in Coburg where I started the trip. Erik did the stretch from Bamberg to Coburg alone.

Coburg is a beautiful town with a town square featuring buildings restored in the traditional south German medieval style. In the center of the square is a statue of Prince Albert of Saxony, who, at one time, was the ruler of the area:

I think Coburg is considered part of Franconia, which now is a part of Bavaria, but I guess at one point in time it was actually part of Saxony.

One of the great things about bike touring and long distance hiking in Europe is that you sometimes come to a place where there are great views. Here's a view of a castle on the top of a hill, on the stretch between Coburg and Alsleben, where the Frankische Saale starts:

This castle looks like it has been restored, we didn't get close enough to see, but it might be a hotel or restaurant. In other places, the castles are ruins and there's a kind of romantic atmosphere about them. Below, a ruined bridge abutment on the Frankische Saale:

Not quite as romantic as a ruined castle but still picturesque.

Near the top of the watershed, we crossed into Thuringen for a brief stretch, then back into Bavaria. On the boundary between Bavaria and Thuringen, we saw this reminder of more recent history, now rapidly fading into the rearview mirror of history:

This is a guard tower on what used to be the border between East and West Germany during the Cold War.

Our first day was supposed to be a 100 km day, and I had trained for it by doing a 100 km ride near Berlin (but without the hills, Berlin is pretty flat), but since the temperature was near 100 F (a century all around!) we broke off in Bad Neustadt and took the train to Bad Kissingen. This left the first day at around 75 km, but still a nice ride, with the exception of a couple hours in the afternoon when we were short on water, dive bombed by yellow jackets when we stopped for a rest, and sweating like crazy.

We spent the night in Bad Kissingen, which is a very fancy spa resort on the Frankische Saale. Many towns in the area are named "Bad" something or the other, and that usually means they have a spa and are organized as a tourist destination, but like Baden Baden, Bad Kissingen has been a spa since the late 1800's and many of the buildings stem from that period:

Above a photo of the main hotel, restaurant, concert hall, and spa. Needless to say, we didn't stay here, since it was the fanciest hotel in town, but we did have dinner at a Michelin one star restaurant. Below, you can see my bean salad, the presentation being definitely a 10 on scale of 10:

Though the food was quite tasty too.

From Bad Kissingen, we rode down the Frankische Saale the next day to its mouth at Gemuden am Main. Gemueden is a really charming town, with a beautifully restored town square. After negotiating some tricky construction sites on the bike trail and road into the city, we stopped in the town square and had lunch at a little cafe. We were joined by other long distance bikers. The Main Radweg (Main Bicycle Trail) is a major bicycle freeway, kind of like I5 in California, and, it being summer, there were lots of couples and groups underway.

Throughout Franconia, on the bridges we often encountered this guy:

He's Nepomuk, also known as St. John of Nepomuk because he originally came from the town of Nepomuk in Bohemia, which is actually in the Czech Republic today. Nepomuk was tourtured and thrown into the Vltava River from the Charles Bridge in Prague on command of King Wenceslaus of Bohemia. Opinions differ as to why the king ordered him killed, on the one hand that he backed the pope in Rome over the pope in Avignon while the king did the opposite - i.e. politics - on the other, that he refused to divulge to the king whether the king's wife had confessed an affair to him, thereby preserving the sanctity of confession. Nepomuk is often depicted with a stone tied around his legs indicating the instrument of his demise. He's the patron saint of bridges in Franconia.

Our trip up the Main valley was difficult. The Main acts as a kind of wind tunnel in summer, and most people ride in the opposite direction, downwards so they have the wind in their backs and a favorable downhill topography . From Gemuenden to Wernfeld, where we turned up the Wern, the wind wasn't so bad, but the next day, from Arnstein to Bamburg, it was pretty intense.

We stayed overnight in Arnstein then woke early on Sunday for the last push, to Bamburg. Erik had to catch a train around 4 but I had made reservations at a small hotel so I could take the IC straight to Berlin the next day without having to change trains. We biked through Schweinefurt (which means "pig ford", i.e. the place where the pigs ford the river) and though we didn't see any pigs there, we did see these delightful brass pigs in a fountain at Hassfurt up the river:

We had a hard time finding a place to eat in Hassfurt but eventually we found an ice cream parlor (called a "dealer" in German, like ice cream is some kind of drug :-) and each had one ball of ice cream for 80 euro cents. Next to the ice cream parlor was a beautiful old church, dedicated to the Virgin Mary:

Here you can see a nativity scene over the door, carved in white stone.

The last stretch from Hassfurt to Bamberg was pretty tough going. My bike is a mountain bike, which with its extra wide tires isn't so great for touring due to the increased rolling friction though it is paradoxically really great in the city because you can ride over curbs and on cobblestone streets without a problem. Also, unlike Erik, I didn't have clip on shoes and clips on the pedals, so I lost something like 30% power on the upstroke. To top it off, there was a 20 mph headwind coming down the valley. We avoided the headwind a bit by getting off the Main Radweg and riding up on north side valley slopes, which also cut off a big loop in the river.

But by the time we got to Bamberg, we were pretty beat and really hungry. So Erik found a doner stand and bought a huge doner sandwich and I found an ice cream place and had a huge celebratory sundae. Then I checked into the hotel, and we went to the train station. Erik found an earlier train and we bid each other goodbye as Erik headed home and I headed off for the evening in Bamberg.


Bamberg is built on hills overlooking the Regnitz and Main Rivers. I walked up hill thorough the pedestrian zone, visited St. Martin's church and the cathedral which sits on the very top of the hill. Bamberg was the seat of a politically powerful bishop during the Middle Ages, who was constantly at odds with the city of Nuernburg. The signs of Bamberg's powerful political position are everywhere in the beautiful architecture and art throughout the city. The Regnitz River and the Main meet in Bamberg and the Main-Danube canal, which parallels the Regnitz here, also runs through the city, so the urban views are dominated by water and bridges as you can see in the following photos:

In the lower photo, you can also see the medieval city hall, with its paintings on the sides.

I found a small Italian restaurant with a view of the river and had pasta and some salad, then went back to my hotel and channel surfed for an hour before I passed out. The trip back to Berlin the next day wasn't quite as uneventful as I had been expecting. The air conditioning was out in a car where I had a seat reservation, so the conductor insisted we move to another car after 11 AM. Why the time limit he didn't say. In Lepizig, the conductor came on the intercom and insisted that everyone with reservations in cars that were lacking air conditioning get off and take the ICE to Berlin. Needless to say, I ignored his advice, since the ICE won't take bicycles. This is the third time in the last 9 months that I've had a checkered experience with the Deutsche Bahn, and, considering the cost of tickets, I have to say that their service really hasn't lived up to my memories of courteous, fast and on time service during my last lengthy stay in Germany in 1978-79.

But the train arrived back in the Berlin Hauptbahnhof on time and I topped off the tour by biking home rather than taking the S Bahn.