Closing the circle

Sunday was our last day of the bike tour.  I can't believe how fast the trip went!  Fortunately we still have several days of sight seeing between Zurich and Paris to look forward to.

One of the main sights we wanted to see on the tour was the UNESCO World Heritage site in St. Gallen; the Abbey of St. Gall.  Since we arrived so late on Saturday evening, we stuck around town until we could go there at 10:00.  It was very close to the hotel so we traveled without our bikes - kind of a nice treat.

The main attraction at the monastery is the library.  We couldn't take pictures, which was a shame.  The floor was an elaborate wood carving and we wore overshoes (like giant slippers) to protect it.  Probably wise for us, especially, since we wore bike shoes with metal cleats.  The bookcases were also elaborately carved and beautiful.  Nerdy Librarian warning: I looked at the organization of the books and thought it was interesting they bothered to label the books with locations such as "B - Right" to indicate it belonged in case B on the right.  It was so simple I wondered why they bothered, since sticking a label to the spine would harm the old books.  Combined with an ornate ceiling (carved plaster? with frescoes), this library is considered to be the most beautiful baroque room in the region.

We also wandered around the site of the monastery and admired the statues, grounds, buildings and took a trip through the lapidary to learn more about the architectural history.

We retrieved our bikes and began our descent back to Lake Constance.  The first part was very fast and fun - it was a nice change to pretty much just steer the bikes down the order.   We stopped for lunch (pizza!) along the way.

In Arbon, our first city on the lake, we encountered a lot of tourists and activities - in addition to a fantastic view.  Cue the tripod!

We visited the Sauerer Museum to learn about the company.  They began making textile machinery in the late 1800s.  The son of the owner developed internal combustion engines to solve the problem of delivering the giant looms around Europe. It's a story not unlike Studebaker's. 

The rest of the route was along the lake path system, and was our most crowded journey to date.  It was fun to see the different types of people out riding their bikes.  Bike riding is very much part of every day life and not a "sport" like most of us are used to.

(this was just pretty)

We finally reached Kreuzlingen, the last Swiss city before Konstanz, and made our way across the border.  We happened upon the "old" part of the city, with a nice plaza area for people watching.  Just a few kms from our hotel, we stopped for one last break.   The people watching was great.  Here's an older couple.

We stayed at the same hotel as our first night, so it was easy to find.  Bob took a last picture of the bikes while I checked in, and we also recorded the odometers for posterity.  My bike computer was set to miles and Bob's was set to kms.  We are pretty sure they were at zero when we started.

We walked around the city a bit and found a great biergarten for dinner, close to "home." We were so darn hungry, we neglected to take pictures until we were halfway through.  We also had this awesome dessert made up of pancake pieces.  It's apparently an Austrian specialty called Kaiserschmarrn.  If you ever get the chance - order it!

Now we have a few days to rest our weary legs and behinds.