20km, 25-38deg, fine and hotter. Our first task for the day was to change hotels as it was just too hot sleeping without aircon, the thing wasn't even blowing air, hot or cold. We have an 80+km ride on Monday in heat forecast to be 37deg so we want to be refreshed before we start. The hotel we were in gave us a refund of the cost of the second night without question as they knew they were conning people by not saying anything about the busted aircon before they checked in. The new hotel was absolutely luxurious and the staff amazing. We dropped off our bags at the new place and set off on the bikes to explore. The hot conditions are much more bearable on the bike and we covered a lot more territory. First off we checked out the Water-tower. It was built in the Baroque style in the 1800s for drinking water but is now a major attraction with its beautiful surrounding gardens and fountains. Next we rode along an avenue created as a memorial to Dr Carl Benz, the car man. A bronze life-size replica of his first car was there. We then rode around the massive Leisure Park with its gardens, sports facilities, lakes, tea gardens and swimming pools; a very popular spot on a hot day. This brought us onto the Neckar River, past the giant comms tower and eventually onto the banks of the Rhein. Despite the fact that it was Sunday there was a steady procession of barges going upstream each carrying about 4,000 ton of cargo. They were pushing a lot of water at the bow. A wander through Germany's second largest Baroque Palace got us out of the heat for a while. Built in the 1700s for the then rulers of this independent state, which later became part of Germany, it must have been an amazing place to see back then. Like most German buildings it suffered extensive damage during WWII. It is now mostly a Uni but it has an impressive section of the old palace with furniture and treasures preserved for us tourists to get a little taste of what it was like. By the time we were done in the Palace, it was over 35deg in the shade (41deg in the sun) so we retreated to the hotel for some lunch and a bit of Tour de France on TV. We ate dinner in-house, Italian style like most of the restaurants in the area, and it was nice. A short wander and icecream for some of us, finished another great day. Second last day of cycling tomorrow, which is really sad.