Germany Life

BIKE RIDE AROUND MULBERRY ISLAND
Today I left early before it would get too hot and road my bike south through Freudenheim and onto the small island in the Neckarkanal. Our friend Werner Siebert was so very nice to put together a small booklet of interesting sights around Manneheim for us with maps and descriptions of the places. I used this to decide where to go today. In 1819 the Grand Duchess Stephanie of Baden planted Mulberry bushes on the island for the breeding of the silkworm and was hoping to have local silk made from them. But the silkworms didn't produce much or the strands where not very long or the Germans with their big hands were not skilled at handling the strands so the project was a failure. But there are still Mulberry bushes/trees on the island and I also saw a lot of raspberry or blackberry bushes, apple trees, and a plum tree that had some ripe fruit that I and many birds had the joy of eating this morning. My ride was about 3 hours long. Not so many miles I don't think as I just enjoyed the ride and seeing everything.

This portion of the ride is getting close to Ilvesheim.
The Neckarkanal is on the north side.
The path is dirt and a little narrow so going slow is good.

Going across the Neckar bridge from Ilvesheim to Seckenheim.

This is the lock bridge for cyclists and pedestrians only, as I come back across the Neckar.
The train is on its own bridge and goes zooming by.
From here I noticed there was a path going towards the west end of the island and going under these bridges.

I took this path but I am afraid I was not suppose to as I saw signs with something about "verboten" but I thought it didn't mean bikes because it was a nice path and it was on the map.

The area has lot of raspberry or blackberry bushes along here but I didn't see any ripe ones or maybe the birds ate them already.

Here is one of the storks with red feet.
They fly away pretty fast but I got pretty close before this one flew away.

There was this small hazard on the path on the east side of the island going back towards the Feudenheim bridge again. My bike just fit under the tree.
But someone took care of it by painting a green stripe on the tree before you whack yourself.
That is a pheasant feather in my pouch that I found on the ground.

This is a sequence of photos I took of a barge going into the lock. I was fascinated at how it barely fits in the lock. It is going up stream towards Heidelberg.