Geoff Jones

Inveterate dabbler in business, travel, gadgets & life

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Spay to Cologne (Köln)

Today was the first day I encountered rain. It was very heavy in the night but when I set off it had turned to drizzle. Fascinating to start off next to a foundry that made huge boat propellers bought back memories of my time at Renishaw ironworks fettling shop. Its interesting the amount of heavy industry you see everywhere alongside the Rhine.

I then cycled past many attractive villages before going through the German Koblenz,which was quite disappointing as the riverside area is going through a major development programme, so I quickly moved on over The Mosel.

I came across one of the few reminders of WW2 at Ludendorff with the remains of the famous railway bridge that allowed allied troops & tanks to cross for 10 days before its collapse.

Then to complete the days 76.6 miles at 10.1mph I arrived in Cologne. Here the waterfront has been redeveloped in much as the same way as the latest developments I saw on my Thames Walk on The South Bank.

Here’s the day Everytrail and photos:-

Spay to Cologne (Koln) at EveryTrail

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Oppenheim to Spay

Today’s 68.8miles at 10.4mph was the classical Rhine trip as advertised to thousands by coach and river cruise companies. Cycling through the German Rhine gorge with the vine’s extending up the sides of the river, beautiful schloss etc perched on hill sides.

I felt pretty wrecked especially by the time I arrived in Mainz – as someone told me last year if you hear the word vines you know it means hills! and a couple of sections had taken me up those hills. Plus the heat really gets to you when biking.

However, things picked up in the afternoon once I was on the tourist trail. I chatted to the Crusader coach driver who was cleaning his coach, whilst his group doing the Royal Bavaria tour, were swanning down the river to Boppard. I even managed a river crossing myself between Rudesheim to Bingen, so my cruise was €2.50 🙂

By the time I arrived in Spay I was wrecked, so stopped at the first hotel, even though there was no internet to be had except from the passing barges and cruise ships.

Here’s the Everytrail of the day:-

Oppenheim to Spay at EveryTrail

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Maximiliansau to Oppenheim

The Vater Hotel managed to screw up the internet connection on my Eee, by making the default gateway on the Eee their own server 🙁  so after staying there I was unable to access the internet! coupled with T-mobile not allowing me to use their Euro Internet Booster package on my iPhone which is on their fixed contract (I know its crazy the booster works fine on Pay as you go). This with the lack of open WiFi throughout Germany, meant I couldn’t sort out the Eee until I had a working internet connection on another machine. Once home I found the solution on this post on the eHow website!

Today once I got going was a long one at 91.9miles but quite fast at 11.2mph on good tarmacced paths. I found it interesting biking alongside the Mercedes plants, BASF and other large chemical works. The Technical museum in Speyer looked pretty amazing as well! At Mannheim they were building an enormous new coal fired power station so I guess the Rhine will be full of coal barges for some time yet (I spent a bit of time thinking about the sense of transporting coal rather than electricity and which incurred the biggest energy losses per mile). The signage was much improved, although it was hard getting through Ludwigshafan due to the various detours.

My nights stop at The Hotel  Oppenheim was truly excellent. The owner plied me with free beer on my arrival! and the omelet with chips was only 6euro 🙂 plus there is an ice cream parlour just down the road!

Here’s the day on Everytrail:-
Maximilansau to Oppenheim at EveryTrail

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Ottenheim-Schwanau to Maximillansau

A day in the blazing heat riding along the exposed top of the dam that holds The Rhine into a navigable river, its all very reminiscent of fenland rivers, alongside the main river are poulders which  are flooded when the water flow is to high for the river.

The German’s struggle with the signing so that in the main centres like Kehl (Strasbourg) you get a proliferation of contradicting signs! I also love the sign covered in German & French text that forbids entry but fails to give you any information as to where the route has been diverted too! These guys need lessons in the use of simple signage like the Swiss and French GR5.

I drank about 10 litres of water/beer/apple juice yesterday but still felt dehydrated with an headache. Hopefully, today will be overcast 🙂

Oh yes why do German hotels only have wired internet 🙁 and all WiFi is locked down?  and why can’t T-Mobile sort out my internet – instead of sending me messages that an error occurred and try again 🙁 To me its pretty obvious the glorious days of open internet have gone for ever..

Here’s my route yesterday:-

Ottenheim-Schwanau to Karlsruhe at EveryTrail

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