Wednesday July 3rd - morning raining and cool, afternoon dry but overcast , 16°C to 20ºC
Good bye Henreicht Haus
Tallest bridge over Moselle
Path between rock and train line
Bring out the Aldi jacket - it's cold
Junction of Moselle and Rhine
Cyclists collect under bridges
Do you think anyone can see us?
Don't think so
Warming cup of tea
Off down the Rhine
Big Castles, Big barges on Rhine
Anyone for greens?
Unpacking for lunch
Castles on the rhine
Rhine cycle path beside motorway
Castles and villages
Breathtaking view from cycle path
How good is this view
Tea for two on the Rine
Check map to see if on right river
Beautiful cycle path into Bingen
Salad, boot leather ham, cheese, tomato, mayo and 1 litre of Riesling
It's raining and cold but not freezing - about 16ºC when we cycle 18k down the Mosel to Koblenz, a beautiful city on the corner of the Moselle and Rhine Rivers, then up the Rhine to Bingen for another 70k. This stretch of the Rhine is World Heritage listed for its 29 Castles along the 70k stretch.
The morning starts with a really nice buffet breakfast. I have to admit I like German breakfasts with meat and cheese better than French breakfasts of bread and jam. Outside it's grey skies and drizzling. We say good by to the Heinreicht Haupt Weinhaus and head on out on the cycle path towards Koblenz. The rain is getting heavier and it's colder now than when we left, but the high cloud makes the visibility better. Passing through a town we spy a small supermarket and stop to add sone greens to our daily lunch rations of meet and cheese - the biggest lettuce I have ever seen.
Down a cycle path jammed between the railway line and the cliff face to the highest bridge in Germany over the Moselle. Quite spectacular - even in the misty rain - make that heavy rain. And we have to stop under a bridge to put on our Aldi jackets under our rain jackets - at Ian's suggestion - it must be cold.
We arrive in Koblenz, a beautiful city we visited in October 1975 by train and it was cold and wet then. The junction of the Moselle and rhine Rivers is still a magical place where people stop, even in the rain, to take photos. We stop and get someone to take ours - the tourists are much more obliging than the Germans.
I'm looking for the tourist office to get another map of the lower Rhine. We follow the "I" signs to a new, high tech, modern tourist office. There's no one in it except for 10 staff. I'm wet and muddy and go in to ask for a map and I get to meet another 6 Frauerline Texaco's - gruff, big, arrogant German women who greet you with "Vot dhu dhu vont". It seems repetitive in my blog to say I want another map but I really did. Could they help? Only if you want 5 star accommodation - it seems the tourist office was not set up for muddy peasants like us. Bu they did suggest a bookstore.
Yes, the girls (not Frauerline Texacos) in the bookstores were much more helpful and I leave with one map. And then we're on our way. It's now 11.30am and we're dying for a coffee. It's still raining and we're looking for some shelter. There's bridge overpass and underneath there's already a collection of cyclists - some sheltering from the rain, some drinking thermos tea. We're a bit more up market than a thermos - we boil our billy - much to everyone's intrigue. It's a warming cup of coffee, and I savour the moment while Ian takes photos of ducks. Yes, you can take lots of photos of ducks in various positions.
Then it's off down the Rhine on the cycle path that's the worst we've been on yet - pot-holed bitumen, rough cobblestones, muddy paths, narrow lanes and motorways just a metre away. But then the castles start to appear. This section of the Rhine from Koblenz to Bingen has 29 Heritage Listed Castles by UNESCO within a 70k stretch. So every turn of the path, there's another castle - big, small, in ruins, patched up, turned into a hotel, high above on the hills, on an island in the Rhine, they make for a magical day despite the rain.
But it's starting to clear and when we finally stop for lunch at around 2pm, the rain has stopped. But we are sodden. Out comes last night's left over pork and schnitzel, yesterday's cheese and today's lettuce and we're set for lunch. The weather warms to 20ºC and the sky lightens, but the sun refuses to appear. No matter, it's not miserably cold. More castles, more villages, more cruise barges and ferries and a cola barge we've been chasing all day.
We start to see signs to Bingen - and for once I have overestimated our mileage. From websites using GPS and Google Maps, the distance today should have been 96 to 98k, but the signs now tell me I'm overestimating by 8 to 10k. That's nice, but I don't know why. Maybe my cylclometre stopped somewhere when I didn't notice, but all of a sudden we have an hour to spare so we stop for a cup of tea by the side of the road overlooking 2 castles on the opposite side and I check the map to see what castles we are looking at. I could rattle off a dozen names of castles we've seen but their names are meaningless compares to their sheer beauty.
Finally we're on a smooth very flat cycle path away from the motorway into Bingen. 15k to go. The Hotel Romerhof is marked on Ian's Open Street Map/GPS Samsung so it's easy to find. Washing done, showered and time to think about dinner. We've had a few stops today and we're not that hungry - we'd just like a drink with our left overs - so I blog while Ian goes shopping for a beer and wine. One hour later he appears with a cold beer and a Rhine Reisling all for 6 Euro - and so nice. I've already sliced up (best I could hack) the boot leather ham and cheese and it's all yum with our English salad dressing.
But we have some homework to do with one more nights accommodation to book and we need to sit up the corridor to get internet connection. It's best to look for something either just before or just after a big city, so we have avoided Worms and Karlsruhe and picked something through Trip Advisor for villages nearby and booked them through booking.com - easy with instant notification of a booking. Face Time isn't working with Donna and Milton who are on their way to the Pyrenees so time for bed.