Cycle paths and a dip

Thursday 1 September - Anthony’s Travel Blog

Most of the ride today was on cycle paths that we can only dream of in the UK. We followed the Elster River then the Saale all the way to Halle. Even in the urban parts of today’s ride drivers seem so courteous and careful of cyclists. Or else they follow rules better here. Half of the group are on eBikes and I suspect these will not need charging tonight as the ride was fairly flat.

We had a packed lunch to eat at a lake and yes I did swim.

In Halle this afternoon we had a visit to the Handel museum in the town in the house in which he was born. He is held in high regards here, and as with other museums it was well laid out with great audio aids, an impressive statue of Handel is in the market place.

Then to Marienkirche where the resident French organist talked about the two organs. One small and one large, the small one is the one on which Handel first had organ lessons and is one of the oldest in central Germany. The explanation was in German and French; I thought there had been too many in English, the tuning system means it cannot be played with other instruments and it took a few bars to get used to this.

The evening meal was great fun with laughter and trilingual comments flying round the table.

It took me a while to get the word play for the Halle-luja poster!