The typical German hotel breakfasts includes – a selection of fresh bread rolls, cheeses, cold meats, sweet and savoury jams and spreads, tomatoes, boiled eggs, yogurt, muesli, fruit, juice, coffee. When we have a hotel breakfast, it is one of our two main meals of the day – the second one in the evening once we have finished our ride. We find it is not a good idea to eat a big meal while still riding – the odd ice cream or slice of cake keeps my energy up. The breakfast at our hotel in Delitzsch was especially good – it had extra luxuries, such as slices of salmon and little dutch meat balls. However, it was the faces drawn on the boiled eggs that sent me back to my room for my camera this morning!

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Today we rode 74 km from Delitsch to Zerbst. There are several large lakes to the north of Delitsch. We asked for directions from another bike rider (all in Lycra) early on in our ride – at the Paupitzscher see. He helped direct us around the lakes, and even rode with us for a bit. The route he suggested was slightly longer than the one Kris had planned, but probably more scenic. It took us between the two big lakes – Großer Goitzschesee and the Muldestausee.

For most of these rides you cannot see the lakes very clearly, much of the time you are just travelling on good flat paths through a marshy landscape with patchy trees and bushes. We did however get some good slightly elevated views of the Grosser Goitzschesee, which was a highlight.

We were intrigued to see this huge camping ground on the peninsular of the lake. Most people seemed to be packing up and leaving, with cars already queuing and quite a few others coming past us with their camping gear packed on bicycles. Later on we saw that there were also a number of other camping grounds around the lake, including on the other side. A sign informed us that this was the Sputnik Spring Break music festival which took place over the holiday weekend (evidently 10,000 visitors expected).
There was a huge traffic jam of cars further on – quite unexpected.

The rest of our route took us through a number of neat towns, with the road crossing the Mulde river every now and then. The river was dammed and very wide at Friedersdorf (I asked thought we had reached the Elbe).

The reflections in the water on either side of the bridge at Jessnitz were really striking.

We rode alongside the Mulde river on a dike for some time, coming off it just a few kilometres before Desau.
We travelled through Desau (a small city) on dedicated bike paths. It has excellent transport infrastructure – with the central city street design separating trams, cars and bicycles. There are even separate traffic lights for the bikes. This made it really pleasant to ride through the city. We stopped for an iced coffee at a cafe in the centre, as it was getting pretty hot.
The rest of our ride from Desau to Zerbst was not very interesting. However the bike paths were good, being separate and alongside largely busy roads. We were away from the rivers now, moving through wooded areas alternating with wheat fields.

Zerbst is an attractive little town, and our accommodation (Pension Schlosswache Zerbst) is an old Castle guard house opposite the town hall (Rathaus). The nearby castle was destroyed at the end of WWII and only the eastern wing remains, now in ruins.

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As today is a public holiday, all supermarkets are closed. So we had to go and eat in a restaurant. We went to a very nice Argentinian restaurant near out accommodation. It has a large cool terrace and garden at the back and all the patrons were seated outside. We arrived relatively early, and there were only two other couples and a large family group present. We parked our bikes in the bike parking area at the back. There was already another pair of bikes there and Kris immediately noticed a cloth with a symbol (an iron cross and the word “Reich”) on the back “male bike”. This lead to our speculation about who this bike belonged to. We both had our money on the young well built blond guy with a brush cut and pretty girlfriend. The other couple were elderly and fairly nondescript, sitting quietly and hardly speaking to each other (like some long married couples you see in restaurants). Once we had finished our meal we had some more beers and were waiting for the younger couple to leave to confirm our expectations – they seemed very relaxed and kept ordering soft drinks, deep in conversation We were wondering if we could wait them out – how many beers would we have to drink before the young lovers finally left. Eventually the older couple got up, and confidently went over to the bikes, got on and left. So it was the harmless looking old man – and we had been totally unfair to the young couple! They were still there when we left.