June 18, 2018

What an amazing day on the Rhine Radweg. The breakfast at the hotel was really good and kept us going all day.

The hotel was a Bett & Bike hotel, which means they provide space for bikes and encourage cyclists. We spotted this lovely sculpture outside another Bett & bike hotel.

 We had a couple of power bars to keep us going, we didn’t need to stop for lunch. I have been having some trouble getting used to the taste of the local water. It tastes highly chlorinated and my tummy feels as if I have been drinking draino. This is why people might have been wishing me a Gutes fahrt yesterday. Sorry, toilet humour – Gutes Fahrt actually means Good Journey. As we are on the subject we both went to the public washrooms in Koblenz which cost .50 cent about .75 cent Cdn – an expensive wee. However, Ralf mentioned that in the urinal there was a picture of a fly – a target. The gentleman next to Ralf saw the fly and moved to a new urinal, he hadn’t realized it was a picture.

Today, I didn’t hydrate very well. I think we might have to buy bottled water, which I hate doing because I think it is a waste of money when (usually) the municipal water is good to drink.

The weather was a little overcast and cool, which made for a good day of riding. Although every time I stopped I seemed to be covered in little midges, my bright yellow cycling jersey seemed to attract them like bears to a honey pot.

As we were leaving the hotel we cycled around the Town of Andernach. As were many of the Towns we cycled through today it was once a walled city. The Town Castle was erected in the 12^th Century. Last extension 1491 -1495 was the erection of the powder tower and addition to the Keep. Destroyed by the French in 1689, the ruins of the castle are considered to be among the best preserved of any medieval town castles in the middle Rhine.

The other claim to fame Andernach it has a cold geyser. I am guessing that a geyser is the same except this one shoots out cold water. You could take a boat trip to see it, but we were not that interested.

Today was a day of amazing villages, castles and vineyards. There were so many villages and towns with beautiful old buildings, it seemed as if we were stopping every five minutes for Ralf to take photos.

Occasionally the route sent us on a detour, always across cobble stones and more often than not up a short but sharp hill.

We would also spot two old men sitting on a bench looking over the Rhine.

We stopped in Koblenz briefly. The Rhine and the Mosel meet here at a place called the Deutsch Ecke (the German corner).

The Wehrmarkt building was originally built for priests and orphans from 1723 to 1729. Later on the building was used as a prison, and poor house. In 1816 the government moved in and it is now used by the Office of the Bundeswehr Equipment, Information Technology and In-Service support. It has undergone many renovations and rebuilds over the years.

As we cycled along the Rhine there was less and less loaded gravel/coal river barges. However we did spot this loaded container boat with approximately 72 sea containers.

These are the signs that we are now following – good signs.

This small walled town had the levels of the river marked on its “gate”. The highest the river reached was in 1882 and it was almost 2 metres.

Every village or town has a large church, of course being Germany they also have lots of restaurants, bars and bakeries. What more do you need?

If you double click on the pictures you will be able to see them better.

The last section of the route followed along side the B9. River on one side, the road and then vineyards as far as the eye could see.

We saw more touring cyclists today. Some are “credit card” touring with a couple of bags or even carrying a back pack. Even this little girl had her own panniers.

Eventually we arrived in Bacharach. Many years ago Ralf and I had taken an afternoon trip down the Rhine on one of the many tour boats we visited some of the small Towns we cycled through today and I recalled this amazing youth hostel in Bacharach.

I have always wanted to stay in a castle, but couldn’t afford the prices they were charging. Tonight we are staying in a castle which has been a youth hostel since 1926. The castle was built in 1136, it was besieged during the Thirty year war and was destroyed by the French in 1635.   The French destroyed a lot of things during that time.:) It was reconstructed in 1920 and became a youth hostel in 1926

Bacharach Town is a lovely historic Town.

The only thing I forgot about my last trip to this youth hostel is where castles generally are located! They are always located at the top of a hill for protection. After a 78 km ride we had a 1 km hill which we had to push the bikes up the hill. The incline was 16% for one kilometre.

For me it was well worth the push, so that I can say I have stayed in a castle.

Tomorrows ride back down to the Town of Bacharach should have me pulling on my brakes all the way down.

The Stahleck Castle was first mentioned in 1135. A Staufer fortification building with bulwark, fore-castle and water-filled moat. (Just to keep the riff raff out). It was owned by the Cologne Archbishops and residence of the electoral Count. The City of Bacharach walls were built in the 14^th Century, the castle was integrated as a corner bastion. During the 30 years war it was besieged, the damage was repaired in 1666 and then it was blown up in 1689 by the French. It was reconstructed as a youth hostel in 1925.

We paid for dinner at the Youth Hostel which included salad, main and dessert for E9.00 about $12.00. We hadn’t seen many other people at the hostel and thought it might be a quiet evening. That’s when they came out of the stonework – I would normally say woodwork, but this castle is stone. Hundreds of children that were on a school trip. O.k. there was only 29 in one group from one school and another two smaller classes from two other schools, about 50 kids in total.

We spoke to a teacher and asked him if it was an end of school trip. He told us that this was part of the school program for history and outdoor activities.

He told us that in Germany at Grade 4 (age 9 or 10), the kids are divided into separate schools. The highest level of school is for the kids that are going on to University, the other schools the kids will go onto more general education and trade schools. I thought that was too young, to divide kids. The decision as to which level of school the child goes to is a combined effort – the child, the parents and the teachers. However, he said that it was not set in stone, between grades 4 -6 some kids will move up to the higher level of school and other kids will move down to the more general education. In Germany there are only schools and Universities, no colleges. At 18/19 you choose the career you are going to take at University. No wishy washy, everybody gets a gold star, everybody gets a trophy. If you can’t cut it at 9 years old you better pick-up your socks, work harder if you want to go to university.

Here are a few miscellaneous pictures that were worth including from todays ride.

I think I might add a few bikes in the front of the house in Brockville ! What do you think Lia and Diane?

I forgot to mention Ralf spotted two windmills yesterday, today Ralf spotted one and I spotted one. Running Total is Ralf 12 Jacky 6

This is the elevation for today – note the last few hundred metres!

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.

June 16, 2018

The campsite had filled in quite a lot overnight. This 1960’s VW had arrived and is in excellent condition, I want one. 

A lazy start to the day, breakfast and coffee in the camp kitchen. At about 9:30 we took the train into Cologne. It cost us E13 for the two of us return, however, we could have hopped on and off the UBahn or underground all day for the same price.

As we crossed the bridge to get to the train we noticed workers scrubbing the graffiti from the glass walls. The graffiti was new and they were scrubbing it off with very strong chemicals.

We headed straight to the Globetrotter Store. A huge outdoor store that included a pool so that you could test your canoe or dive equipment! We bought the Europe road maps for Ralf’s Garmin and they are working!!! Unfortunately, they do not show the cycle paths, but we managed on all of our other trips with road maps. If we need to make a direct route we can follow the Garmin. I think we might be making our own routes.

We also bought the Donau maps for our trip across the Danube to Passau. The store was amazing and we could have spent a fortune in there, but we are limited to how much we can carry and really we have everything we need. Except maybe a glass of wine!

After getting the maps and the garmin maps we found a phone shop. Yes, the Canadian phone is locked. We bought a cheap E17.99 phone that we can text and call (an idiot phone). Ralf sent a message to Renate and she called us so we know it works. We really only need a phone to call warmshowers hosts or in an emergency.

After we got the necessities done we became tourists. The Cathedral is huge and of course is undergoing some renovations. The Dom was built in 1248-1473, further work was added from 1840 -1880 and then renovations after the war in the 1950s to the present day. The Cathedral has 11 bells and two spires with a total height o 157 m (515 ft. There was no charge to go in, however you could pay for a guided tour.

We spent some time drinking ice coffee and watching people. There are several pedestrian only areas where you can sit and while away the day shopping, eating and drinking.

There were a lot of buskers around ranging from African dancers to a young German playing small steel drums, they had a really nice sound.

It is amazing the things you learn as you walk the streets.

and the strange things you see when you look up.

About three o’clock we returned to the campsite.

We chatted to another cyclist who is heading north and he told us the route further south is much nicer and easier to follow. He then gave us his maps that he used and does not need them any longer. He had already bought maps for his route north. He is heading home to the Faroe Islands via Denmark. He is trying to follow the Eurovelo routes and planning his route via a large map and his cell phone with maps.me. He asked about one area which didn’t show any roads or trails and had hash marks across a wide area. It was around Paderborn. Ralf said it looked like a restricted area. I remembered my Dad being stationed in that area so I told him there used to be a British Army base there, which is probably why there may still be some restrictions to going through that area. We wished him luck on his journey.

We now have maps, a phone and the Garmin – we should be good heading south, forever the optimist.

Currently we are listening to some god awful music and kids running around in the rain!!

We are in our tent hoping that it doesn’t leak as it is raining. We have got an almost new fly and the inner is new thanks to Big Agnes. Our new sleeping blankets are working well, lots of down filling. Again we were sent new ones from Thermarest as the filling kept falling to the sides on the old ones.

It is supposed to stop raining and be a nice day tomorrow.

June 15, 2018

 Another day on the Rhine route \”Magical Mystery Tour\”.

After an excellent breakfast at the hotel we cycled through the Town of Kaiserswerth to take some photos. We spotted this stone work on the side of a building.  Kaiserswerth was a very nice historic Town with lots of small boutique shops, good restaurants and bars.

We started of well and then it all went to hell in a hand basket when we “almost” got through Dusseldorf.

Dusseldorf was a really interesting City and clean. There were some older buildings and some funky new ones. The cycle path was easy to follow and took you through the downtown, if you wanted to go into the centre of the Old City. We didn’t so we carried on following the route.

Along the waterfront were lots of bars where you could sit and meet friends etc. It was a really nice area.

After the waterfront area and the bars we carried along the old harbor area. When the city decided to revitalize this area it invited famous architects to design the buildings.

Then it all went pear-shaped.  This how we eventually got out of the City.

We made another couple of errors, and our route which should have been about 67 kms ended up being 79.9.

This is not an error it is part of the actual route. The little red bike sign directed us along this path.  An overgrown path with loaded panniers was not fun.

We are spending two nights in Cologne. We have to get Ralf’s garmin fixed and/or the phone set up. These deviations are getting ridiculous.  Today we both said that we enjoyed the cycle routes in France more than the ones in Germany.

Although it was frustrating again today, there were some nice parts of the day. We spotted these beautiful horses taking people for a ride from the local brewery. They had a keg of beer on the back and were really enjoying themselves.

We were also shown the way by a couple of cyclists who were heading south down the Rhine as well – credit card touring. They both had small back-packs on, which carried a change of clothes and not much else.

We knew there was going to be a bit of a deviation around Leverkussen and that is when the two cyclists helped us around the deviation and told us the way to get around the Bayer Chemical plant. One of them spoke good English and told us that if we stayed on this side of the river we would have to get around Bayer, if we crossed the river we would have to get around the Ford Plant. We knew we had to be on this side of the river for the campsite. The Bayer plant is enormous. In a straight line it was 3 kms before we passed all the gates and various entrances/exists. Approximately 37,000 people work at Bayer in Germany. We didn’t think it was a good idea to take photos of the plant.

Eventually, we spotted the twin towers of the Cologne Cathedral.  I knew we had about 6 kms to go to the campsite.

The weather was good today. Slightly overcast with a little bit of sun and for the most part a tail wind.

We are staying in the Koln City Camping Park about 6 kms from the downtown. It cost E8 per person and E4 for electricity and we pay 0.50 cents for a shower for 3 minutes. I can’t take a shower in 3 minutes, it takes me 4 minutes so I have to waste water.

It’s a nice clean campsite and the lady on reception is very helpful.

Another cyclist showed up, he is from Holland.  He was complaining about the poor signage.  He said that he hadn\’t seen one sign today directing him.  Fortunately, for him he has a gps with maps downloaded.

No windmills today.

Looking forward to a good nights sleep, although the campsite is filling up with a lot of tents and camper-vans.

June 14, 2018

Not a good start to the day. First I had an awful nights sleep, then we discovered the phone is still not working. We went to Aldi and they gave us another Sim Card, if this doesn’t connect then it is obviously the phone.

After saying our farewells to Renate we returned to the Rhine and followed the Rhine south.

I optimistically thought the signage would be good, but it didn’t turn out that way. There are three or four routes – the Pilgrims Way, which eventually heads west into France, the River route which could be the Rhine or the Ruhr or the Mosel, Eurovelo 15, 4 and 3! All of the Eurovelo routes head south along the Rhine for a while then head away in different directions.  We are supposed to follow Eurovelo Route 15.

We tried to follow the signs for Eurovelo 15, but sometimes they disappeared all together and we were following the Pilgrim’s Route and then the River route. I figured that so long as we were heading south(ish) and had the Rhine to the right or left we were o.k.

The Rhine has always been a \”working\” river.  There was a lot of loaded boats going up and down.

This small Town had  the remains of a wall surrounding the Town.

There were areas where we were away from the river. Then we were directed back to it and discovered we would have to cross the river on a small ferry to get to the other side and follow the route in to Duisberg.

An older cyclist showed us the way around the busy industrial area.   As we crossed the bridge going towards the Centre of Town we spotted this lovely old tower.

Then we hit Duisberg. What a depressing City and DIRTY.

Our memories of Germany have always been of a clean, country. We never saw any litter or garbage on the streets. Duisberg was a pig sty! Sorry to all our family but it was so depressing.

The worst of it was there were hardly any signs directing us through the City and when we did spot one it was often covered in graffiti and you couldn’t decide which way to go.

The north of Germany is very industrialized and therefore not very pretty.  Alongside a large industrial plant and on the floodplain of the river we spotted these sheep.  They looked very funny crowded together up the small hill. No idea why they were there.

This morning I had changed my garmin so that I could see which direction we were heading and if we were heading south I was happy. If we got turned around and headed north or west then I knew we were going in the wrong direction.

Eventually we found ourselves on the other side of the City and spotted an Aldi in the small Town of Mundelheim. By this time it was after 2:00 p.m. We had left Wesel at 10:00 a.m. – and only travelled 55 kms  our average speed today was 15 km per hour!

I went in and bought Greek salads, bananas and 2 x chocolate milk (cost E5.50 about $8.50) and when I got outside and this young woman was trying to pick-up my sexy hubby. I can’t leave him alone for a minute! Actually she was very interested in what we were carrying and where we were going. She has done some smaller trips carrying a back-pack and was interested to know whether it is easier having panniers. Ralf told her that so long as the wait was distributed evenly it was much easier than carrying anything on your back for long distances.

We eventually found our way back to the Rhine and of course to top the day off, it started to rain. We still had another 14 kms to go the centre of Dusseldorf and no idea where we would stay for the night. We were about to cycle past this small Town of Kaiserswerth and as we looked down the street, it looked very pretty. I suggested to Ralf that we blow the budget and find a hotel for the night. Neither of us enjoy setting up a tent in the rain and having to cook in the rain.

We managed to get the last room in the Kaiserswerth hotel – cost E67 (Cdn $101.) including breakfast, worth every penny.

The weather was cool to start today and once again a head wind. The sun came out and I took my windbreaker off, but I didn’t put any sun-cream on, my arms are a little red tonight. At 4:30 it was raining and the rain is supposed to stop overnight. Hopefully it will be nice day tomorrow and the scenery will improve.  Although we will be going through another big City (Dusseldorf).

Windmills: Ralf one Jacky one, both in small garden plots (allotments) Running Total Ralf 9 Jacky 5

June 13, 2018

The weather today was very cool. I actually had to wear my long sleeved merino wool shirt and my puffy jacket while we wandered around the downtown of Wesel.

Renate’s apartment is very close to the downtown, we were able to walk everywhere.  We saw a lot of \”donkeys\” and asked in the Tourist Information office why they were located around the downtown.  She told us that the Burgermeister of Wesel is an esel – Wesel rhymes with Esel which means that the Mayor is a donkey.

Our rest days are not always restful. We always have things to do on our rest days. Today\’s list was long: get a sim card for the phone, get maps, hopefully get garmin fixed with the European maps downloaded, washing, upload blog and get food supplies and hopefully have time to enjoy the Town.

We had a semi-successful day. We got Aldi-talk for the phone, we were able to get “paper” maps of the Rhine route at least as far as Mainz, washing was done, I was able to upload the blogs and we were also able to get food for the next few days.  We also had a nice wander around the downtown of Wesel.

Beautiful old church

We  spotted this Star of David which recognized that there was a synagogue and Jewish school on the site. Which was located behind the church

This area was bombed extensively during WW2, and this whole area was destroyed.  The City Hall was rebuilt with the same frontage as the original, and inside the Tourist Information there is a glass floor where you can see the original foundation walls.  The original building was built in 1455. It took six years to reconstruct the front of the building which was started in 2007.  The stonework is worth 3.5 million euro. I have no ideas where they found the crafts men to recreate this frontage.

We arrived back at Renate\’s apartment and that is when things started to fall apart. 

There are strict rules on getting a sim card and data package in Europe. We filled in all of the forms to get the process moving and we got the email to say the card had been activated. However, we cannot “unlock” the sim card to continue using the phone. We are not sure if this means that our Canadian phone will not work in Europe or there is some other problem.

Renate tried to assist us, but without much luck. Tomorrow we go back to Aldi and hopefully we will have a phone for the rest of Germany and data through the rest of the countries.

Garmin continues not too download the maps that we purchased in Canada. It makes life so much easier when we have maps to follow on the garmin it helps us search for campsites, or places to eat. Paper maps will have to suffice. We can use maps.me on the ipad, but hopefully we will have the phone set up and we can use maps.me on the phone. I have a phone holder on my bike and we will be able to see that much easier than having to get the ipad out of the bag every time we need to check the route.

Although we should be able to follow the signs for Eurovelo 15 down the Rhine quite easily – I say confidently, forever the optimist.

We spent the evening chatting with family and were in bed by 10:30. An early start tomorrow as we are hoping to get to Dusseldorf.

June 12, 2018

Last night while we were eating our McDonalds we planned our route for today. This morning we cycled back to McDonalds for breakfast.

It was a cool day today. We started the day wearing our windbreakers. The wind once again was in our face, but not as strong as yesterday.

We started our day following the numbers and then crossed the border into Germany. It was nice route again, very rural with lots of farmland. Once again there was no sign indicating we had crossed the border. We knew we were in Germany when we saw the sign below. Germans love to build words. This means: Road usage fee.  Renate translated it as paying to use the road for the horses.

This area was a large training ground for horse racing.

We noticed the area used to be an army base. However, they had converted the bunkers into holiday homes. An interesting use of building.

We arrived in a small town, Kevelar, and found an information sign, where we were able to find the road to continue our route to Wesel. A lady on a bicycle came up to us and asked where we were going and told us to avoid the main road and to follow the “field” roads. She took us to the safe route which went through the fields on a paved road. We were concerned that it would take us all around the houses, but it followed the main roads.

Germany does not have the sign system they use red signs with bicycles on them.

When we got to the small Town of Winnedebonk, we were able to find road signs again to Wesel. We followed these signs, the road was busy however, there was a cycle path all along the side of the road.

Eventually we could see the bridge to cross the Rhine.

Noooo, there was a sign saying no bicycles. Fortunately we saw a cyclist coming across the bridge. He directed us to go under the bridge and the cycle route was on the other side.

We found the directions to Ralf’s cousin and headed to her apartment which is very close to the centre of Town. Before going to her house we went into the town to have some lunch.

We arrived at Renate’s apartment and chatted until 10:30 p.m. Ralf struggled a little bit with his German but they managed to get by quite well. Renate speaks really quickly and I could not understand her very well.

I was a little concerned that she gave us her bedroom, we were expecting to sleep in the living room on our mattresses. However, she said that she had to go to work at 5:00 a.m. and didn’t want to disturb us.

We are meeting more of the family tomorrow.

Windmills two for Ralf one for me – running total Ralf 8 to Jacky 4