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I'm not sure if it was simply a coincidence or our subliminal minds at work, but on the morning of our arrival into the lovely town of Bacharach, Dan and I did indeed spend some time singing "Close to You" - fitting eh??
As you can imagine, now that we're on our 9th day of cycling we have covered a multitude of subjects to fill in the hours - from Dan's songs and animal voices in Belgium (although quite funny at the time, these were quite quickly banned by the fun police - i.e. moi), to the names of our hypothetical children, to worldly facts that we may or may not know, games with words, sing-a-longs etc etc etc. I'm sure no topic is going to go uncovered by the end of this holiday!
The Rhine still doesn't fail to disappoint, and this week we've had probably the most stereotypically picturesque few days of our journey so far.
Sunday's ride was haaaaarrrrd, no doubt about that! In order to beat the forecasted 36 degree heat, we set off from Koenigswinter as early as feasibly possible (about 8.30 by the time we'd packed, had breakfast / stolen lunch supplies and set up the bikes - which takes about 20 minutes alone). Nevertheless it had no doubt gone over 30 degrees by midday. We normally take about 5 hours all up to get through a 60km day, by the time you include lunch stops, photo opportunities, 'comfort breaks' and inevitable 'getting off the beaten track' (i.e getting lost) moments. So with the heat like that, it took every bit of mental reserve to keep going and finish off the last 20km. The heat was radiating off the pavement and unfortunately a lot of the journey was through fairly average suburban towns, so each time we came along the river again I'd get the urge to just jump in fully clothed! Fortunately every time you were feeling a bit despondent, we'd turn a corner and the Rhine would present a little shaded boulevard or mini-beach, which would give enough motivation to keep going. I also dumped half a water bottle over my head at 50km which helped cool down immensely! Of course we finally made it to koblenz and praise the lord we were able to check straight into our room and have a shower as by this stage we looked like quite a sight!
Neither of us had the energy to explore koblenz unfortunately, but we did have a nice stroll along the river as we tried to find our dinner. I tell you what, beer has never tasted as good as it does after a long, hot bike ride! Every day I say I won't drink for the next few days as it really goes straight to my head and legs, but the temptation for a local, crispy-cold beer or wine at the end of a hard-won day is just too great!
Anyway, after this day of hell it's as if the cycling gods have rewarded our good efforts with seemingly never ending downward sloping cycle paths as our journey continued! I don't actually understand how this is physically possible given we're heading towards the river source, but I'm certainly not going to complain about it! Everyone may know the more common speed of sound, but we have come up with a new one - 'speed of barge', which is exactly what we do as we ride alongside the commercial barges running containers up and down the river.
From koblenz south is the section of the Rhine that is ear-marked as a unesco world heritage site, and it is certainly very beautiful - Dan admitted today that he's become very non-plussed about castles now as there is literally one around every corner! Part of me feels bad that we're not doing more of the traditional tourist activities, but as Dan says, we get to do and see stuff that the average tourist is never going to, plus we've got all that to look forward to in Russia, China etc.
Last night we stayed in a 'Bett und Bike' type pensione just outside of St Goar, which is a very small, picturesque village. We finally got a taste of the Riesling that the region is famous for (delish!) and Dan managed to (kind of) fulfill his pasta craving by ordering a calzone with bolognese sauce on top! (yes sounds horrific, but for a tired cyclist it went down a treat!) Today it was a very short day to skip along a couple of towns southward to the aforementioned Bacharach, which is really very pretty too. We're staying slightly inland in a village surrounded by vineyards, so hopefully there'll be more wine sampling tonight! We managed to check our bags in at the hotel (built in 1555!) so that we could 'free-cycle' back into town, and we've just enjoyed lunch on the grass alongside the beautiful river, consisting of (yet again) cold meats, rye bread, fruit and juice - yum! Dan is now happily playing football manager (proudly wearing his everton shirt after last night's match) whilst I write this - as we've said more than once in the last week, this is the life!
Xoxo Sally and Dan
- comments
Jo Nathan You guys are so lucky, I'm so envious! You're doing such an awesome trip of a lifetime...so many memories to be made and remembered. Wish I could saddle up a bike and come too! Keep the updates coming!!