short trip on a bicycle

 Leave the town, pass under the railway bridge. The footpath is for pedestrians and for cyclists, and runs parallel to the main road. Sometimes  the path veers away from the road, but it always comes back. Sometimes it seems to be like an old country road, perhaps it is the one - time course of the main road before they modernised and straightened it. Follow the course of the path for some kilometres. There is a long stretch where the path is an avenue between apple trees, the apples not ripe yet. After a short distance of about seven kilometres there are houses on either side, it is now a modern residential area. Close and convenient on the main road leading to the Munich motorway. A country landscape with a considerable level of background traffic noise. There are family homes on either side of the road, each with a space for a car, some with a tidy prefabricated garage.

There is a narrow tunnel under the main road just here, follow this path. It leads down to a reservoir on the river, this is part of a hydroelectric power plant. Glimpses of it were visible from the road on the way to work, and now there is time to take a closer look at these things.

Arrive at the shore of the reservoir, it is a large water surface and there are hundreds of swans there. 

Also there are small diving birds that fly above the surface at a moderate altitude. These birds regularly dive into the water with a major splash, only to take off again shortly afterwards. They must be hunting. It is a beautiful view, and it is pleasant to just stand at the rail fencing off this reservoir, looking out over the water at all the distant fowl. A cormorant flies past in a straight, purposeful line close over the water surface. This is a bird that is going somewhere, unlike the circling of those small white diving birds. 

The swans just swim about in the distance, being majestic.

There is a signpost with a notice informing it's readers that feeding of the birds is prohibited, as is boating and swimming.

There is a small guest house there. Settle down and order a glass of water, and  a salad.

This is a pensioners luncheon.