Friday July 5th - morning warm and cloudy, afternoon hot and slightly cloudy , 19°C to 26ºC
Ready to leave Osthofen
Through vineyards of Rhine Hills
Thank God for cycle paths
Chester's brother, I have to stop
Cycle paths through farms
Cabbages as far as the eye can see
Wine houses in every village
Quick bunny, hop out of the way
Rolling farmland of the Rhine
Storms in the Rhine Hills
I could cycle this land forever
Such pretty lanes
Smog in the background
Lunch in centre of Bad Durkheim
Following Turnip Trail to HaBloch
A long day today - 96k - mostly because we had to do an extra 10k to get under the motorway. Today we're off the Rhine and up in the vineyards doing the DWein - a major D cycle route in Germany that travels through the riesling wine district in the hills above the rhine, and then the KRU - another cycling route that goes through the market farming areas of the Rhine lower flatlands.
I'm liking German breakfasts more and more - a good meaty cheesy start to the day instead of the French bread and jam. Mind you French bread and jam is very nice, but makes you bloated, then starving by mid morning. It was 97 Euro ($140AUD) last night for Bed and Breakfast, plus dinner last night of steak, salad, chips, wine and beer. That's about our average, then add on a bit for lunch from the supermarket and our costs have been around $200AUD for the two of us - sometimes more and sometimes less.
We're not following the Rhine today, we're headed for the hills and the Riesling vineyards. From Osthofen we head south west through the villages of Abenheim, Morstadt, Monsheim and Grundstadt where we join the DWein route, clearly marked on our map and sign posted all the way along the foothills of the Riesling wine growing area. A short coffe stop near Monsheim then on our way. Passing through very pretty villages, the route is very hilly, and slow when you're pushing up hill with a full load. All the villages have at least 20 wine houses where each brand processes their own wine.
By midday, we're in Bad Durkheim, and spy the tourist office, I'm looking for a map of the upper Rhine around Strasbourg - it's he BVA series number 24 but they don't have it. However, the young girl is very helpful, and gives us a brochure on a bike route through the lower farming country of the Rhine, called the Kraut and Ruben Radweg - the Cabbage and Turnip Cycle Route. And it's easy. Al we have to do is follow the turnip sign. She marks on a map the position of a local bookstore where we might buy the map, but after a trek around town, the bookstore doesn't have it. It's 2pm and time for lunch.
Sitting in the market square with the eyes of the gentry watching you eat a mountain of food is interesting. We're always so hungry by then, and eat so much it's hard to get moving in the afternoon. Lunch legs as Donna calls it - no blood in the legs - it's all around the belly.
The Turnip route is dead easy to follow and flat. And today we passed through hundreds of farms, each with hundreds of workers picking their produce - potatoes, cabbage, turnips, onions, cauliflower, strawberries, lettuce. All afternoon we follow the turnip until the last few kilometres when we have to turn off to Germershein, and the discover there's quite a few villages in the area with similar looking names - Gommersheim, Geimshein, etc, and a few times we were caught out following the wrong sign.
It's quite hot, at 26ºC, and dry, and we stop for a cold drink. But funny, the price didn't seem to add up. I don't say anything, not they I'd know how to argue in German anyway. Then after finishing the drinks at the table outside, and Ian is looking for a bin, the young shop assistant saw hime and popped out the door indicating to bring the empty bottles inside. We thought she was going to put them in the bin for us, but no, she gives us .40 Euro refund for the empty bottle - a neat recycling system. So that's why a the drinks cost more than I thought - there's a deposit on each bottle.
By the map, we're close to Germersheim on the Rhine, but there's a huge autobahn between us and our hotel. It means cycling and extra 10k in a circuit around a forest to get under the autobahn, which I was really glad to see after already cycling almost 90k. Once through to the other side, out Hotel Germersheimer Hof is easy to find. We're on the 3rd floor again. We're convinced all rooms booked through booking.com are on the 3rd floor. Ian parks the bikes in the shed while I start the long haul up the stairs. But when her returns, we just have to have a beer before lugging the rest of our bags up the stairs. There's one thing for sure, the Germans make nice beer.
I wash, Ian shops and we have a home made salad in our room with a pitcher of wine from teh bar downstairs. We're a bit shy on buying another 1 litre bottle - tomorrow is a long day to a village near Strasbourg and a tiny Hotel La Provence, Hanauer Straße, Diersheim near Rheinau, Germany.
The Onion cutters
The Cabbage pickers
The Cauliflower trimmers
The lettuce pickers
At last a way under the motorway
Dinner - HLTCM with a Riesling