Germany certainly doesn’t do food by halves.

The portions here at the Westfaelischer Hof in Luegde (2 x 70km days, and moral of the story is don’t expect to camp if arriving after six…) are gigantic, and delicious.

Huntsman’s Schnitzel for Jutta and mine overbaked with cheese and mushrooms.

Subtle they ain’t, but talk about filling, after a hard and superbly enjoyable day’s ride, completing our second week on the road from Bielefeld.

Thanks to a touristy-route map lent by our dear friend Renate we found ourselves us MILES (actually, kilometers, of course) out of our way, but with very satisfying views and Things to Notice.

If we’d taken a straight line, we would have made it this evening to Hamlin/Hameln, there to commune with the rats of the Brothers Grimm fairy tale.

But as you’ll see scrolling down to the photographs, the detour rewarded us with some wonderful moments, and tomorrow Monday it’s onwards to friends Fee and Michael in Hanover.

With two Ns or one (I can never remember which way round it is.)

Another brief thought.

After several days of feeling pretty miserable comparing Brexit Britain with Germany (roads, surfaces, organisation, care for the environment, solar and wind power, beer, efficiency, grownupness…) I’ve decided there’s no point in measuring the two countries or their differences up against each other.

The Germans, loving them as I do (so rich to be immersed again in their language), can be very cutting and rude, point-scoring when one is perceived as stepping in any way out of line.

But as well as offering the most absurdly huge portions of hearty food, as a society organising their affairs – OK, dependent as we all are on fossil fuels and doomed similarly and all too soon to civilisational collapse – the Germans from my current cycling-across-their-lands perspective have Got The Plot.

They may not have nuclear submarines and a King. But they take life and pleasure very seriously, and do a rather splendid job of it. On the whole.

So they’re them, and we’re us. Just a thought, before some more pix…