July 7, 2023
Bacharach -> Höchst
Hanging at the Schlossfest with relatives
I woke up around 7:30 on the sofa in my parent's hotel room. The hotel didn't start serving breakfast until 8:00. After showering and getting dressed, we headed downstairs for breakfast. The hotel was serving a delicious spread of Broetchen, cold cuts, fruit, yogurt, eggs, bacon, and cereal. My parents and I ate until we were full. By the time we packed and hit the road, it was close to 9:00am. We started biking upstream through the Rhine Gorge. We passed picturesque town after town, and took a ferry across the river near the mouth of the gorge. As we passed the town of Bingen, the steep gorge walls gave way to a flatter, more meandering terrain. The river slowed down, and became more windy. At Oestrich Winkel, we took a ferry across the river.
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By now it was warming up, and the cool breeze across the river felt good while we crossed on the ferry. We continued along the Eastern Shore of the Rhine, until we stopped at a gas station in Walluf. Here we got some sodas and candy bars, as well as used their bathroom. As it turned out, the gas station attendant was an American from Kentucky who had been living in Germany since he was a teenager. He spoke perfect German, but my mom caught him when he switched to english and spoke with no accent. He was happy to share his life story with us.
From here our next goal was to make it to the Mainz Hauptbahnhof (Main Train Station). My mom's Ebike was running low on battery, so her and my dad would continue from Mainz to Hoechst by Train. I would meet them in Hoechst with my bike.
I had komoot on my phone, which was mounted on my handlebars, so I decided to accompany them to the Hauptbahnhof and navigate for them. As we wound our way through the busy streets and bike lanes of Mainz, we eventually made it to the train station. We made it with plenty of time to spare, so we stopped at a fruit stand and bought a variety of fresh fruit: German cherries, blue berries, and raspberries. All of it was delicious, and we ate it all within a few minutes.
Once we were done eating our snack, my parents had to store their bikes at the "Farradparkhaus" (bike parking garage) located at the Mainz Train Station. It took us a few minutes to figure out the ticketing/registration system, but we figured it out, it was pretty simple. Once my parents had their bikes safely stowed, I said goodbye, and planned to meet them at my relative's house in Hoechst (about a 25km bike ride).
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Making my way out of Mainz was almost a surreal experience. Germany has very strict land use regulations, so cities go from dense apartment buildings to rural farmland almost instantaneously. There is no "suburbia" in Germany, at least not to the same extent as we have in the States. Within a 15 minute bike ride from the main train station in the city center, I was in an agricultural area with wheat fields and orchards on either side of me. I could of course still see the highrises of the city in the distance. Say what you want about this urban design choice, but it does make for good bike touring.
At this point I realized I really needed to use a bathroom. I found a grocery store on my route and headed inside. I also got a bottle of mineral water and a broetchen.
The rest of the journey to Hoechst was beautiful riding through gravel and cobblestone country roads. Once I neared the town of Hoechst, I could hear the "Schlossfest" (castle festival) going on in town. There was a street fair, as well as a live music performance. I pulled up the the front gate of my relative, Connie's house and texted her that I had arrived. Her and Michael both greeted me, and then offered to let me use their shower. I was sweaty and smelly at this point, so I glady took them up on their offer. My parents were only a few minutes behind me, and were able to walk from the Hoechst train station. Not much later, Connie's daughter, Melany, and her Son, Yuri met us at the house. We had what I would call a "dinner pregame". Gruenne sauce, broetchen, mett, cold cuts, and fresh fruit. This was followed up with a raspberry whipped cream dessert.
Once we finished our pre-game dinner, it was time to eat our real dinner at the Schlossfest. All of us walked from Connie's house to the street fair. This fair was quite a sight to see. There was an open air concert, with a band playing pretty decent covers of American pop music. We decided to set up our blankets and chairs in the grass a good distance from the stage so it wouldn't be too loud. After we claimed our spot in the grass, we made our way around to the food tents. I got a couple glasses of Apfelwein (a Frankfurt regional specialty hard cider), a bratwurst, a kabob, an ice cream cone, and a bag of kettle corn to share with everyone. We laid in the grass and listened to the live music for a couple hours, chatting the whole time. Around 9:30pm it started getting dark so we headed back to Connie's house to continue the evening.
We hung out in the back garden and continued eating, drinking, and hanging out. Michael, Connie, and Melany all seemed like very easy going artist-type people. They were all friendly and easy to get along with. Melany had some stories that were particularly interesting to me of her past travels to the Philippines. I finally made my way upstairs and went to bed around 11pm.
Today's ride: 60 miles (97 km)
Total: 682 miles (1,098 km)
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