Saturday July 6th - morning warm and sunny, afternoon very hot, 19°C to 29ºC
On the Rhine levee cycle path
Swamps and birdlife abound
Morning coffee in kids playground
Back close to the Rhine
Cycle path one metre from Rhine
Recent floods close section of path
But it doesn't stop anyone
Getting close to Strasbourg
From Germany and into France
Da Brim - a cross between an umbrella and sombrero
Bridge over the Rhine then lost
Short cut up to top of levee bank
Lunch on dammed section of Rhine
Hot roads below Rhine levee banks
Hundreds of sand and gravel pits
Signs to Iffezheim - the first for 25k
Gravel path on top of levee bank
Shortcut down the levee bank
Family of swans on swamp
Stork's nest atop house Diersheim
Storks making a comeback in Alsace
109k and we need a beer at the Hotel La Provence Diersheim
Dinner - HLTCM with a Riesling
Our longest day yet - 110k - but it's relatively easy withe the wind at our backs. We leave early at 8.30am from Germersheim (near Karlsruhe) and we're heading for Diersheim (near Strasbourg). It's a very mixed day of 50k of cool forrested cycle paths on the French side of the Rhine and 50k of very hot gravelly paths along the levee banks of the German side of the Rhine, then 10k of farming villages to Diersheim. And in switching from one side of the Rhine to another across an old train bridge, we got seriously lost. The highlight of the day was the last 10k riding into the very pretty village of Diersheim after a hot dry ride to see a stork's nest atop an old building in the centre of the village. The Strasbourg area is renowned for their storks and numbers were down to a few storks until a revival program a few years ago boosted their numbers - it was amazing that they retrained the storks to NOT migrate to Africa from whence they were shot, died, eaten or got lost on the way back to France. And here is a stork and its baby ('s?) sitting right in the middle of our village.
The day starts early - at 5.30 am we are awake, get up and packed. We have a long day of at least 110k but we figured it was all flat so very doable. We're down to a beautiful buffet breakfast - the works - fruits, meats, cheese, cooked eggs sausages, bacon and everything else. We're stuffed by 7am after 30 minutes of full time eating. I go upstairs to pack and ring Bonnie so we can be away early. Ian goes to get the bikes from the shed - and there's a hiccup in our plan - I already have a flat tyre. By the time it's changed, we've washed off the mud and grease and left the hotel, it's 8.30am.
The cycle path winds it's way through villages a bit inland from the Rhine. We're zooming along with a tailwind and by 11am, we've covered 30k and time for a coffee in a kid's playground, the only seats we could find in the shade. Then on to the Rhine River and the path that runs beside it only one metre from a full and fast flowing river.
At Leimersheim, the river path diverts onto a levee bank beside the Rhine River. To one side there's swamp and the other side there's farming land. Much of the Rhine Valley is low lying swamp, secured by levee banks, and in the recent heavy rains, much of the path and levee banks were breached and the lowlands flooded. There's signs up everywhere with an "Achtung" don't go down this path. But we had already bumped into a British cyclist who said the tracks were OK now and that the signs were still there from a few weeks ago. And he was right. Every cyclist was ignoring the signs so we did too and just zig zagged around the barriers.
At Lauterburg in Germany, the Rhine becomes the border between France and Germany, and we decide to cross the River on an old bridge that used to be a train bridge. It looked simple. Cross from one side to the other to get onto the German cycle path, as our map indicates that at this point you have the choice of travelling on a bike path down either side of the Rhine. And since our Hotel at Diersheim is on the German side, it seemed like a good idea to swap to the German side. Wrong!
We cross the bridge and the signs all of a sudden disappear. There's a conspiracy going on here. The French don't want you to cross to the German side and the Germans don't want you to cross to the French side. We pass through a village called Iffezheim and there's vague signs to the Rhine that seem to end up at the bottom of a levee. After 1hr of messing around, we eventually spy cyclists on top of a levee, and decide to short cut up. Not easy trying to push a fully loaded bike up a steep 45º slope. Once at the top, we see the Rhine again. But it's desolate and clearly a man made levee downstream from a large dam. And it's gravel and not easy to cycle on. It's 2pm when we stop for lunch at a spot where there's speed boats and kite boarders launching into the river. It's a nice cool breeze and our cheese and ham have been kept cool in a kids lunch bag together with a cold bottle of water filled from the tap before we left the hotel.
More gravelly levee. The we then realise that the Rhone cycle route on the German side has two choices - take the high gravelly levee, or the low busy road. And the Rhine is dotted with hundreds of gravel plants dredging teh river - so plenty of gravel on hand. We alternate between the two. It's hot down below but fast moving and many cars. It's cool up top in the breeze with no cars but a slow gravelly path. We reach a point where there's a ferry across the Rhine, but we're only 20k from out destination and hardly worth the effort of going back to France then having to return over a bridge further down. But there's a bar/cafe. So we share a beer and fizzy water before moving on.
Eventually there's a sign off the levee to Freistett, close to our village of Diersham and we turn off - but first have to negotiate a steep decline off the levee bank and down into the lowlands. It's a nice change. Birdlife and small villages and winding roads. For 9k it's a beautiful cycle through German countryside and into Diersham. As we enter the village, I spy an old house with timber panelling which I think is our hotel. It's not. But I see on top of this house is a humongous stork's nest with a stork sitting in the middle. It was truly an amazing sight. Turning around, Ian has found our hotel - Hotel La Provence, Hanauer Straße, Diersheim near Rheinau, Germany. It's just perfect. There's a beer garden out the back and we don't bother to unpack before sitting down to two large beers.
Upstairs in our room, we shower, unpack and decide we've had a huge breakfast, a huge lunch and neither of us is hungry - just thirsty. Ian eats the rest of the cheese and tomatoes and I pick at some nuts and oats I've been carting around for weeks. Then we go downstairs for a quiet drink in the garden and search via internet for accommodation for the next two nights. Ian orders (in his Aussie slang) a couple of wines - and I chime in with a Grau Burgunder which we have tried and really like. And the lady brings us a large bottle. She speaks a little bit of English, and mistook the "couple" for a "bottle". Oh well, it's been such a lovely day, it's probably a good misunderstanding.
We manage to book a place in Colmar for tomorrow night and also a place near Basel for the next night. Time to relax with our "couple" of wines.