Today was to be our first loop touring day retracing our steps from the previous day only in a clockwise direction. The weather forecast was not looking promising, but we really needed to get out and snag some of these Brothers Grimm sites on the Fairy Tale Tour (FTT). After a nice continental breakfast that's part of our room arrangement, we geared up and headed for Gudensberg where after a little searching we found the lovely town park which is home to a cute little fairytale stage.
From there it was a short ride to Fritzlar which still has a walled old city. In the parking lot, a kind lady gave us her parking pass which we displayed on the rear license plate (we probably didn't need it as motorcycles generally park for free anywhere). As we walked through the wall gate, it was like we were transported back in time. The ancient cathedral was a focal point, but there were dozens of classic timber framed houses some of which were terribly out of square due to settling. We hooked up with a local tour guide and stayed with her until the cathedral, but decided to see the remainder of the city on our own. We still paid her, and stayed inside the cathedral (this town has maintained its state of being a strong Catholic community for many centuries) in an effort to let the rain subside after which we went back to the TI office where a helpful clerk showed us some important things to see and we also purchased a detailed guide to the event we are doing. It has lots of detailed info about each town along the route. After wandering the main square admiring all the various timber frame buildings, we made our way back to the motorcycle.
Bad Wildungen was our next stop. It's perched on a hilltop which made the riding a bit challenging at times. We parked in a motorcycle space in a hillside garage and walked through town in search of the TI office. We found it and acquired some more helpful information before visiting a shop devoted to the event and having a fish lunch. On our walk back to the bike, we visited the cathedral which is now a Protestant church but has over the centuries flip flopped between being used as a Catholic and a Protestant church. It has a very nice and old mural on the altar that depicted various biblical accounts. Otherwise the church was very plain inside.
Our next two stops at Waldeck were high points of the day. The first stop was at the famous Edersea dam which was breached by the British in May, 1943 and rebuilt before the end of the war. At the point where we parked our bike, we had sone pleasant conversation with some Dutch Harley Davidson riders who were attending a nearby Treffen (camp out). There were hundreds of riders attending the event from what we could see as we rode by it.
After visiting the dam and walking over the formerly breached section, we headed up the twisty road to the Waldeck Castle. The police had radar traps set up probably due to the HD Treffen down the road. After we parked at the Castle, we hiked up to the observation area where we snapped a few pictures. The museum there is a prison museum, so we didn't bother to visit. We did enjoy a refreshing drink in the restaurant overlooking the lake.
We continued our ride to Wolfingen where we stopped at an Aldi to provision up. While waiting at the bike I could see a big storm coming in. Before Angela got out of the store, the clouds unloaded, and everything got drenched. When she got out of the store she had to put everything wet on. Fortunately our path of travel was away from the storm, and the outer garments had a chance to dry. Back at the hotel, we spread out the wet clothes to dry on the heat registers and prepared a little snack. Unfortunately it was not enough, so we went downstairs to the restaurant for a small bite to eat before retiring for the evening.
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