Stuttgart to Lugano

August 3, 2009 Stuttgart Train Station
I just purchased tickets to Basel, Switzerland and four-day Swiss passes. The Swiss passes will get us on to Lugano, plus we can use them to travel to all the mountain sites over the next four days. We are pretty excited about getting off our bikes and doing some hiking. We will take day trips from Lugano and then get back in time to have dinner with Vic Rush. At least, that is the plan.
Yesterday afternoon while we were waiting out the rain, Jordan went into the cafe to use the bathroom. I was engrossed in my book so I did not notice that she had been gone for about an hour. I asked the waitress if she had seen my Tochter (German for daughter). She said she had seen her talking to a gentleman inside. I went in to see if all was OK. Jordan was engaged in conversation with a genial man, who looked about 60 years old. I introduced myself and he told me his name was Fritz Kurz. He had a notebook open and seemed to be working on something. He told us it was his memoirs. He then began to tell us a tale that reminded me of Forest Gump, in that he happened to rub elbows with several historical and theatrical figures, sometimes at crucial periods. His was a theatrical producer, and was the first producer to bring "Cats" to Germany. (Jordan verified this on Google later that evening.) That afternoon he was working on the part of his book where Robert Redford stole his long-time girlfriend. There was then some kind of litigation between him and Redford. Obviously, they are no longer on friendly terms.
We discussed a range of subjects, including the 1972 Munich Olympic massacre of Israeli athletes. Fritz said he was on the scene doing some sort of film work. He just happened to be in the same room when Willy Brandt, the chancellor of Germany at that time, asked him for his advice on what to do. Fritz said he advised Willy to let the terrorists leave Germany so it would be another country's problem. That did not happen. Security forces attacked and I think all the Israeli athletes were killed. By my calculation, Fritz would have been around 22 years old at the time. He had another story about advising Helmut Kohl later. Maybe it is all true, but I was more than a little incredulous.
Politically, Fritz was very conservative. He loved Ronald Reagan, liked Bush, thinks Obama is wet behind the ears foreign-policy wise, and thinks we should never waiver in our support of Israel. He thinks Islam is a morally bankrupt religion, and fears for Europe's future because of the growth of the Islamic population. I tend to agree with him on that point, although I think many religions have morally corrupt offshoots. It just seems that more peoploe are killing for Allah right now, than for God, Yahweh, or whatever. The growth of the Islamic population is a fact. Through immigration and reproduction, their numbers are increasing rapidly. We first noticed it with all the "Kebob" restaurants we started seeing in France. We continued to see them throughout Germany.
Finally, around 6:30PM, we said goodbye to Fritz and started riding towards Esslingen. It was getting a bit late, but I thought we had time to make it. Then it started pouring again. Jordan disagreed with going to Esslingen at this late hour, anyway. When I decided to turn around and return to Nurtigen, she asked me how it felt to always be wrong! We got under an overhang that happened to be right by a Subway sandwich shop. We ate dinner there and waited out the rain. After about 45 minutes and two rainbows, it stopped enough to bike three clicks to a hotel that I found compliments of the Garmin.
This morning we got up and had a great Fruestuck (breakfast) at the hotel. We went out to the garage to assemble our bikes and a German postman came past us on the way from dropping mail off at the hotel. The postal workers have very interesting-looking bikes. He stopped and we talked for a little bit. He said that Germany was getting better for bicycles because of environmental and economic concerns. I mentioned to him that he must get in pretty good shape riding the bike all day. He laughed and then showed me an ingenious electric motor that assisted his pedalling. The battery was just under the seat, attached to the top tube. It did not look very big, but as he said goodbye and gave a couple pedals, the power kicked in and away he went. Pretty amazing!
Our ride to Stuttgart was beautiful. We took a bike path most of the way along a very pretty river. In size and cleanliness, it reminded me of the Youghighenney. There were even a couple class three rapids. I took a video of the best one and will post it on the blog. We reached the Bahnhoff (train station) in Stuttgard around noon. We just boarded the train and are headed first for Basel, Switzerland and then on to Lugano. Should get there by 8PM.