Untitled Page 285

28.3.60
My Darling,

Golly but this has been an unexpectedly tremendous day - I have anticipated
a rather dull ride most of the day to Worms for the night, looking forward to
reaching Heidelberg the next day, with this sort of the necessary in between
day. But it turned out to be one of the loveliest and best yet.

It began well with the sun rising a bright red ball, its color reflecting in
the Rhein below, a clear blue sky overhead. We ate breakfast and I finished
my letter to Mom and Dad (4 pages), so we finally got away about 9:15. Stopped
immediately at a post office to mail letters, my second roll of pictures from the trip,
and to send the telegram (which cost $6 for about a 12 word message!). Then
we set out for Worms. The way was mostly very flat, through a wide valley
much like the San Joaquin except much greener. We followed the Rhein as
far as Oppenheim, where we took a short break to walk around the town, saw
an old tower and nothing else very special. It was so warm and sunny the we
tied our jackets onto our packs and rode in shirtsleeves for the rest of the day!
Really spring weather! From Oppenheim we left the Rhein until just north of
Worms, but it was still completely flat. And here we picked a good tailwind
and rode easily all the way to Worms, covering the 48 km from Mainz in 2 1/2
hours. So here we were in Worms for lunch, unexpectedly early. We ate in
small park, then lay on the grass in the sun to doze for about 45 minutes. Then
about 2pm we parked our bikes to walk around town for a while. Saw a really
nicely done monument to Martin Luther, whose statue is surrounded by those
of several of his Reformation brothers, with the pedestal containing shields of many
of Germany's cities and scenes from Luther's life. Right below his statue on each
side of the pedestal they have one of his most important sayings. From here we went
through several parks, past a section of the Roman walls ruins (Worms dates from
pre-Roman times somewhere, is probably the oldest city in Germany), to the
cathedral. This dates from about the year 1000, was heavily damaged during the
war. Yet rebuilt it looks in large part quite as it did before, especially
outside. The sculpture around the door was especially lovely in my opinion, and
its overall lines (which the postcard shows only poorly) very attractive. But
inside it was too ornate and at the same time too obviously restored, so that
the old sculptures seemed to clutter it up like in a crowded warehouse.

Having by about 4:15 seen most of the interesting things in Worms, we
decided to go on further for the night. We heard this morning that the stretch
along the Neckar from Heidelberg to Heilbronn is pretty rugged, up and down
hills biking. So we're allowing more time for that. Anyway we came east from
Worms to Heppenheim, just 5 km south of Bensheim. It was flat all the
way, but the wind was part cross - and partly head-wind so it was harder work