Saturday

Saturday So, Saturday was going to be our long day to Neubrandenburg. Two “normal” bikes riders decided to stay in Waren and relax. We knew it was going to be about 60 kms but it actually ended up being more than 70 with our unplanned detours. We went down to breakfast a little early so that we could get an early start. The first stops were at the grocery store and bakery in town because we knew we wouldn’t find anything in the towns along the way. And it really was a tough day. The path from west to east was very hilly because of earlier glacial activity and we hit a lot of sand on some of the trails was murderous. I pushed my bike more than once. Our first goal was to ride to the source of the Havel River. It was a steep , sandy downhill. When we got down there, there wasn’t really much to see except some water oozing out of the ground with a marker next to it explaining that it was the Havel source. We ate our lunch there, which we shared with another gazillion mosquitoes. I was glad we only stayed there for 15 minutes. We rode on farther to a town called Penzlin. We found a little cafe right in the courtyard of the old castle and had a nice, relaxed hour there. Then we just kept slugging on until we reached Neubrandenburg. Remember, we had already gone about 60 km. And surprise, surprise, the city was one entire construction site. Of course, we ended up taking wrong turns and riding many more kms than we had planned. We had to be at the train station (also a construction site!) at 5:30. It was 4:30 when we got there and not one of us wanted to take a side trip into the inner city for 30 minutes. We all sat down at the little grill near the train station and enjoy d something to drink. The original plan had been that we were going to take a bus with a bicycle trailer back to Waren. Unfortunately. The bus doesn’t take bikes on Saturday and Sunday. This is not very logical, since it’s a bike touring region and that’s when you’re going to get the majority of the bike riders. In any case, we got the train tickets, rode 30 minutes to Neustrelitz where we transferred to the train on the opposite of the platform and were in Waren in another 30 minutes. It certainly went quicker than the ride in! We got back and gathered everybody for another walk into the city center to find a restaurant. This time we didn’t go down to the harbor. We found a great place and I had some delicious salmon on a bed of spinach. Then it was back to the hotel for another night.