June 20, 2018

 Happy Birthday Dave and Kelly

We had planned a short day of about 50 kms today and camping. I needed to get some washing done, clean the bikes and update the blog. Obviously that didn’t work out. The day started with the church bells waking us up at 7:00. I had woken at 6:00 and gone back to sleep, the bells were an excellent alarm clock. Leaving Worms we got totally turned around. Partly due to a detour and the directional signs pointing in opposite directions and partly because we didn’t look at the map properly when we left the hostel.

Eventually we got on the right road and headed south-east down the Rhine. We only briefly saw the river today as we were on the other side of the berm for most of the day. We cycled along small farm fields and through woodlands. The farms are not very big here compared to Canada, but they seem to work. Because of the early spring they can often get two or three crops of the same field.

The woodlands were really nice and cool. We went through one area where there was a detour due to birds nesting. We passed these geese that had babies but were not too aggressive. A couple of ladies warned us that the geese further along the path were more aggressive and we should be careful of them. As we cycled past the Canada Geese, one of them hissed at us – I told it we were from the same country and it should be nice to me (or I would kill its cousin and eat if for Christmas dinner). I am glad we didn’t encounter any swans along this path as they are very protective of their nests.

It was a really hot day today – a high of 33 degrees, cycling through the wooded areas was really nice.

We got to Aldtrip where we knew there were several campsites and a small lake. All of the campsites were for permanent campers and trailers (private) and no tents were allowed. Our only alternative was to carry on to Worms and another night in a hostel, or go back to the other side of Aldtrip to a possible campsite. Cost for bed & breakfast and evening meal (3 courses) at the hostel is E61.

The signs were not very good today and we got misplaced a couple of times. This sign might explain why.

As we entered Speyer there were directions to the Youth hostel, which outskirted the downtown.  The youth hostel was close to the Technick Museum which has lots of exhibits of planes, trains and automobiles and a lot of hands on exhibitions.

Tomorrow we cross the river and continue heading south through Germany. If we stayed on this side of the river we would enter France. We should be in Karlsruhe and hoping for a warmshowers. We should be in Lahr by the end of the week. I am looking for a cheap hotel in the area as there are no campsites.

Lahr is where we used to live and we want to spend a couple of days looking at our old “stomping ground”.

Once we had settled in to the hostel, I updated the blogs and did a bit of washing.  Ralf headed out to try and find the continuation of the maps that the the young guy gave us in Koln.  The first bookstore called the second bookstore who directed to him to the third bookstore who had the maps we needed.

Speyer was a Roman City and is one of the oldest Cities in Germany.  Ralf had taken his camera with him on his walkabout and got some excellent photos of the \”AldtStadt\”

The route today

Windmills No windmills spotted for the last few days – Running Total is Ralf 13 Jacky 6 Mat 5 so long as you count towers that look like windmills without their sails!