June 17, 2018

First and foremost you will be pleased to hear that I am not in jail. I don’t think you can be put in jail for thoughts, at least not in Germany.

The boys in the large group that arrived on Saturday, that had been playing the god awful music, decided that as they were camping with limited adult supervision they would not go to sleep and talk all night. There was one kid that I was ready to strangle as he did not have a volume control.

The boys were told at 12:00 to be quiet and again by other campers at 1:00 and at 2:00! I was not one of them, because it would have been an international incident. Although I have ear plugs they are not very good, they do not shut out all the noise. Ralf slept blissfully next to me. I think I got about 4 hours sleep.

The next almost incident was when I went to pick up the fresh baked croissants that I had ordered yesterday. The woman had no idea how close she was to being killed or very seriously injured. She said there was a problem with the order. I told her I had ordered two croissants – she very quickly gave them to me and everyone was safe for another day.

We left the campsite at about 9:30/9:45 rather late for us as we do like to get an earlier start.

The tent had been covered in cherry bird shit, so we needed to wipe that off and let the tent dry before we could leave.

Despite the late start we had an excellent day. The route was easy to follow. The signs were all in place where they needed to be and no graffiti covering them. The route was good well-paved and people were very friendly. Everything you need for a good days cycling.

The Rhine today was what I thought all of the Rhine was going to be like. Castles on hilltops, with vineyards or green forests.  Of course I do have to remember that the North of Germany is very industrialized, and is not as pretty as the middle and southern part of the Rhine.

Three times today we were changing the maps to the next area (the maps that the young cyclist had given us) and three people asked us if we needed help.

We passed through a Town called KonigsWinter – King Winter, I knew my hubby was a prince.  I think this building was probably the family estate – needs a bit of work.

Erpel was a pretty little Town.

We chatted to a couple who were hoping to do a big trip on their tandem. He was from Lancashire and she was German, they lived not far from Remagen (where the ferry crossed from Linz).  We told them about warmshowers and recommended that they join.

Along this stretch of the river there are also areas where you can take a tour along the Rhine.

A lot of the Towns were having summer festivals.  At Remagen we had to walk our bikes through a pedestrian area where the sidewalk cafes were full of people having their Sunday afternoon coffee and cake.

In a small village called Namedy we spotted this beautiful old house.  It is actually a moated castle built in the middle of the 15th Century originally belonging to the Husman Knights of Andernach.  Since 1909 it is in the ownership of the Rheinish Line of the Hohenzollern Dynasty.

With Ralf\’s new zoom lense he could get a good picture of the door.

It was Sunday and there were a lot of cyclists out enjoying the shorter routes. Although last week in Holland and Belgium there were a lot more cyclists enjoying themselves on e-bikes.

In Andernach we looked for a campsite. I thought I had seen one on the map. Unfortunately what I had seen was not a triangle indicating a camp site but a horses head indicating a wild life park. Please do not laugh, I didn’t have my glasses on. Anyway we arrived in Andernach with the only campsites 5 kms back up the river on the other side. We don’t go back!

Ralf waved down a fellow touring cyclist and asked if he had seen any campsites or a way across the river. He thought there might have been a ferry crossing a couple of kilometres down but didn’t recall seeing any campsites. We chatted for a while and then he headed towards Bonn and we tried to decide what to do.

As I had an awful nights sleep I wanted a good nights sleep tonight so we opted for a hotel with breakfast. We had pizza for dinner.

We are staying at the Hotel am Martinsberg for E70 per night including breakfast. I know we have to start sticking to the budget, but sometimes it is worth breaking the budget for a good nights sleep.

The weather today was overcast but warm, it looked as though it was going to rain all day.