July 11, 2023
Speyer -> Karlsruhe
Last day with Parents :(
I woke up in a hotel room in Speyer. It never cooled off overnight, and the hotel did not have air conditioning. I enjoyed a night with an open window and a fan. We made our way down for breakfast at 7:00am sharp, being the first ones there.
After quickly throwing our stuff on our bikes, we headed out at 8:00am sharp. The forcast high was 97F, but it was still cool when we left. I spent a few minutes planning our route on Komoot: The plan was to take a ferry across the Rhine to the West side of the river, then ride down to Karlsrhue from there.
We started riding from Speyer along the levee top of the Rhine. There were agricultural fields and forests lining the bike path. We saw many storks along the path. Unfortunatly, when we arrived at the ferry crossing, we discovered that the ferry only ran Friday-Sunday. I jumped on komoot and figured out a plan-b. We would instead cross downstream at a bridge and then continue to Karlsrhue.
We followed the west bank of the Rhine down to Germersheim where we crossed the rhine by bridge. On the other side of the Rhine, we were greeted by a road sign that welcomed us to Baden-Wuerttenburg. I insisted we stop and take a group photo.
We continuted along the river levee, passing through forests and old oxbow ponds of what used to be the old Rhine river channel. Much of this distance was on packed gravel roads. By now the day was heating up, and I found a good spot behind a jetty on the Rhine to jump in for a swim. I jumped in wearning my bike kit in hopes I would get some evaporative cooling going forward.
About 15km from Karlsrhue, my mom realized that her E-bike battery was running low. Luckily, we found a biergarten along the bike path that let us charge her battery as long as we ordered something. We hung out at the biergarten for 30 minutes while the battery charged and enjoyed Raddlers with a flamkuchen.
The last few miles to Karlsruhe were on a straight, shaded bike path throught the forest. The bike path dead ended at the old Stadtmauer outside the main palace. We continued along another bike path around the old city wall until we made it to the main train station. Here we found an ice cream shop and fruit stand to grab some food and kill some time before we could check in.
We checked into our hotel room around 2:00pm, and it was very hot. Thankfully our hotel room had air conditioning. We enjoyed the air conditioning by taking a nap. We woke up around 6:00pm, because we were about to eat dinner with my Dad's cousin, Axel, his wife, Andrea, and his dog Rudy. The relatives met us in the restaraunt at the ground floor of our hotel and we enjoyed a nice meal together outside in the biergarten. My dad and I both got the rinderhaxe (slow cooked beef). As well as several beers.
After chatting with Axel, it became apparent that he had read my blog in detail. We discussed parts of my Norway trip, as well as the parts in Germany. He found it humouros that my dad and I ate dinners at two different restaraunts in Bacharach. He also gave my parents and I a hard time about our love of Mett. For those that don't know, Germany has higher food saftey standards than the US. In Germany, it is actually safe to eat ground pork raw, similar to a tartare. To us, this was a delicacy. We ate it every morning, and we thought it to be some sort of luxury gormet food, such as tartare. However, according to Axel, Mett in Germany is considered a working man's food. He likened it to something a construction worker would eat.
Axel then gifted me an awesome present: an Apfelwein themed bike jersey. Apfelwein is a type of dry fermented hard cider that uses a juice blend of apple juice and speirling juice. It is my personal favorite alcoholic drink in Germany. While German beer might be world-renowned, nothing can beat the refreshing and tart taste of Apfelwein. It is a specialty in the Frankfurt region, as well as the Hesse Bundesland. The jersey features a "Bembel" (ceramic pitcher) on the back, as well as diamond designs which are typically found on Apfelwein serving glasses. It then began to thunderstorm, so us and all the other patrons dining in the biergarten hurried inside. We continued our post-dinner beer drinking inside.
My parents and Axel then swapped stories about my grandfather, who I never met, as he died before I was born. They described him as an eccentric and disciplined man who loved nature and who knew a little bit about everything; kind of like if Wikipedia was a person. Axel shared the story of how Rolf took him swimming in Folsom lake in March, and swam around in the snow-melt water like it was no big deal. On hikes, Rolf would spend time looking at plants and wildlife, and if he found something he couldnt identify, would look it up when he got home. He could go on talking for hours about things he was interested in. They told me he would have been proud of my bike tour.
After saying goodbye, we headed back up to our hotel room and passed out.
Today's ride: 40 miles (64 km)
Total: 822 miles (1,323 km)
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