Yesterday I made it from Undeloh – a small town south of Hamburg to Hannover. It was the first warm and sunny day. South of Undeloh I went through this really old village with all the classic farm building restored (image above)

All the roads were cobblestone – and the route followed these for miles into the countryside. I quickly learned you have to ride on the side of these. I guess those roads really help when it is rainy and muddy!

The landscape turned into large plains of heath ..,

You can see the sandy soil of the trail. In Denmark where there is similar landscape they couldn’t farm these areas until the potato was imported after the discovery of the americas. Of course later industrial fertilizer was invented and that changed everything…

And yeah – spotted my first goat north of Hannover …

Made it to Hannover in the evening…

Walked by the famous war monument – Aegidienkirche.

Today I headed south out of Hannover. The temperature had picked up quite a bit. Initially the trail was mostly in the woods. In the shade, that was great. Some part got really challenging though. As you can see above – one section I think I might have been the only person using this year 😐

Got entangled in this nasty stuff! Fortunately it doesn’t itch for long ..

Starting to get more hilly also – a few good climbs today. …

Saw snails climbing the trees and resting. There was literally many snails on each tree trunk. The French would loved this – much easier to pick ..

After ~130km got to the small town Paderborn. The downtown area is really nice – lots of small canals and old buildings.

Saw this little fellow in one of the canals …

Finished the day by stuffing myself with calories – double schnitzel with egg and bacon on top … and a local beer