Day Twenty Four: Dusseldorf to Remagen-Kripp: (Year 24: 1991)

October 14, 2017

Flash Back to 1991:

Returning to roots always includes food, and for us bagels are king. We always go to St Viateur Bagel Bakery and marvel at how they so easily produce the "real thing".

We returned to our roots with a family reunion. For the record, these members of the senior generation were Bucky, Walter, Eddie, Sue, Sophie, Hilda, and Beryl.Sadly, all these wonderful people are now gone except for Sophie and Beryl, who we still treasure.

Some of the memories we most want to preserve are those of the beloved family members who are now gone. We have the photograph from the 1991 family reunion to help us with that. As we too grow old now, the Simon and Garfunkel song Bookends grows all the more relevant.

This was our decade for increasing farm production. Turkeys were a big part of it. These ones came for Christmas dinner, but they were too early. Later they would return, neatly bagged.

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Fast Forward to 2017, Germany:

Even though our downtown Dusseldorf hotel was budget priced, they included breakfast, and the buffet they put out had all the needed items to be called a flat out, or "ten jammer" presentation. Actually, if you look at the photo of the jam, you will find ten items, but that includes honey and marshmallow goo, and more than one jar of the same flavour - but who's quibbling!

As happens with every place we stay, the mysterious surroundings of the night before are "oh yeah" by the next morning. So now we are experts on Dusseldorf, and just smoothly cruised by the various bakeries we had spotted earlier, the bike shop with the air bag helmets, and easily on to the train station. In the station we went directly to where we already knew the ticket sales were, and sent Dodie in to scoop up tickets for us and the bikes to Koln.

There ended the "this is old hat" segment, and we could begin the adventure part for the day. First off we met a man also with a bike, and nicely dressed in yellow. I got his photo to show Kathleen Classen, the "Fifty Shades of Green" friend who is now in Italy. In a fair is fair exchange, the man also wanted our photos to show his kids, who happen to live in Ottawa.

Next mini adventure - our platform was up a reasonably high set of stairs, and the escalator said no bikes. I was prepared to just drag the bikes up, and/or chance it on the escalator, which is what bystanders were rooting for. But some kind of a passenger assistance lady materialized and not only directed us but actually guided us to a hard to find elevator. Less adventure, but way smoother.

On the platform I had the chance to look closely at the ICE train, which the fast item, equivalent to the TGV in France. I like the ICE much better, for its front looks very space age. By contrast I always think the TGV looks like a sly crocodile. Maybe it's obvious to everyone else, but I found myself wondering if these trains are powered by diesel, or if they are electric. Of course, they are electric, which is why train tracks here always have a network of wires overhead. Amazingly, the whole powerful train picks up its power from a single flimsy looking contact that runs along the wire overhead. It's a bit mysterious, and you never see a spark.

Our train was the much tamer Rhein Express. It runs every hour from Dusseldorf, on minute 58. Iy is still pretty sleek, and features basic level roll on for the bikes. There is a bank of seats that fold up for when there are bikes, which there always are. The space was adequate, except one guy (the balding head in the foreground of the photo) was sitting in one of the folding seats and refused to move to allow Dodie to fit here bike in, out of the aisle. That is, he refused until the other cyclists tore into him. Then he shifted to the other side, which coincidentally is designated for bikes or disabled people. We stood with our bikes for the journey, which was no more than 30 minutes. No one checked our tickets before Koln and all we had to do to go to Koblenz was to do nothing. But no, we got off at Koln. Hey, we came here to cycle, not ride trains!

You would need to loosen the definition to call this a ten jammer, but it was very good!

The buffet had some items that are not strictly required.

We liked this man's yellow wardrobe items. He was worthy of our friend Kathleen Classen, now cycling in the yellow/green, in Italy with Keith.

This guide lady materialized at the critical moment and led us to smooth sailing.

This flimsy looking pickup is what powers the whole thing.

Lots of room for Dodie's bike, after the guy with the balding head backed off.

The Koln (Cologne) main station is strangely jammed up against the massive and ancient Koln cathedral. Near the station were some panels explaining about how the station came to be where it is, but we were too eager to see the cathedral to stop and read it.

The cathedral really is a sight. It rises grey and weather worn and impossibly tall out of antiquity. The thing was started in the fourth century. It is ove 1700 years old. 1700 years! Of course it was not all built in 313/314, and it does have a long construction history. The last stone was actually placed on the south tower in 1880.

Arriving at the cathedral marked a refreshing return to Catholic stuff, which is so much more theatric than the Protestant efforts. It was great to see the saints, Mary and baby Jesus portrayals, and all that stuff. We were not the only appreciative ones - crowds were outside and inside the building. There was a pretty lax inspection of bags being done for people entering. One interesting bit was that one of the inspectors was dressed in what I take to be priestly garb. Inside, there were others like that. I am not sure why they were playing at that, but by their demeanor you could tell they were more Secret Service guys than priests.

Dodie and went in separately, since we left one to watch the bikes. Dodie later claimed I missed most of the interesting stuff. No matter, we go the free handout pamphlet. One thing that said was that the cathedral really got a boost when in 1164 Archbishop Rainald von Dassel got his hands on the bones of the three Magi. That really put the place on the map, with a pilgrimage that was one of the largest in the Middle Ages. Dodie said they had the bones were still there. Yes, they were hiding them in the "Chapel of the Three Magi". Missed it!

Outside, all around, tourists were much more in evidence than at Dusseldorf. Also there was a contingent of Falun Gong people, handing out pamphlets describing their practices, and mistreatment by the Chinese government. Seeing them here is evidence to me of how Germany has now become so different from in its tragic past. Even so, Dodie reported that someone (don't know his country of origin, so could be German) came up and insulted the Falun Gong people (in English). They did not react, but Dodie reamed him out.

At Koln there was an extensive photo display of just how much the town and cathedral were destroyed in WW II

The classical, never successful, shot of a towering cathedral.

The square in front of the cathedral, with the Falun Gong people

The guy in red seems to be holding a detector of some type in that blue bag.

Dodie's Mom's favourite perfume was Eau de Cologne. This of course is the place for it.

Now we discovered that "someone" had neglected to put North Rhine- Westphalia into the base map collection of our GPS app. So we were flying fairly blind as we made our way to the Rhine and headed south. There was of course the customary bicycle signage around, bit it was surprisingly not very airtight, often leaving you guessing.

Still, it is hard to miss the Rhine, and easy to turn south on it. We continued down toward Bonn, noticing both beautiful riverside bike path and parts of the route that were still passing heavy industry, mostly refineries. The Rhine, as always, entertained with long freight boats and with the super long Viking Cruises luxury boats.

Foresty path along the Rhine. But most was paved and with lots of bike and other users.

Unexpected Camino signage. That trip last Spring sure was fun!

As always, lots of boat traffic to watch on the Rhine.

By the time we reached Bonn we were getting pretty tired. And Bonn (old town anyway) was hopping. It was so active that we actually could not find a vacant seat at any of the zillions of outdoor cafes. But there were of course bakeries galore, and also some outdoor market activity. We bought our first pastry with mohn (poppyseeds), a German favourite of ours. I could only photo half, because Dodie had already grabbed half. It actually was not the very best of German mohn pastry, but it really hit the spot in restoring strength. We wandered around downtown for a bit, spotting the Munster, and odds and ends like some South Africans giving a kind of dance demonstration. Then, thoroughly turned around and without GPS we made for the Rhine and the south. We were not really all that successful, and first passed though a region of modern sterile office or government buildings, not to mention higher traffic streets. Then with guidance from another cyclist, we got to shift to more or less wandering about a huge park. It had some good stuff - like a large half pipe stunt bicycle thing, where we saw a nice demonstration of the sport, and a tent city with lots of security, who told us it was part of a UN Climate Change conference.

In Bonn - crowded and fun on a Saturday, unless you are thirsty and beat.

Some market activity is in various sections around downtown Bonn.

Our first German pastry with mohn - already half gone!

What we would take as an example of typical Bonn fancy housing.

We are sort of lost in the boonies - and get to see lots of modern offices.

On into a mystery park with lots of paths and activities going on.

Eventually we did get on track, and proceeded up the Rhine, dodging many oncoming cyclists and cutting around walkers and baby carriage pushers. It was fun, but not actually conducive to getting in a rhythm and making some kms.

We were hoping to find a place to stay around Remagen, but on drawing opposite it, down on the river bank, we did not see any guest houses. We decided to ask, and happened to pick on two little old ladies (oh, oh, what if they were our age?). One did not speak any English and the other just a little. Still, they understood what we needed and undertook to walk us up into the town to show us a place to stay. I started off with them, but Dodie had been snared by a man (with kids in Canada - everyone has kids in Canada) who was asking all the UQs. After a bit I turned around and snapped out a command that sometimes works with Dodie: "Dodie, come!". But the man really had his teeth into the topic, and, Dodie says, was also hanging on to her bike.

"Dodie, come!", I repeated, and then the two old ladies chimed in, singing "Dooday, come!". Finally Dodie shook loose of the old guy, and the ladies exclaimed "Dooday, kommt!".

The ladies walked us way up into the town and dropped us in front of a hotel. It featured a Bett and Bike sign, and looked good. We rolled our bikes in and were immediately accosted in German by a gruff man who wanted the bikes back outside, right away! We skittered out, and I went back in to see about a room. The price was given as $135. Gotta be kidding.

So we sat ourselves at the place's outdoor tables and fired up our computer, with its very lame mobile data. We slowly, slowly managed to raise booking.com and saw for one thing that they were listing this place at 105. No matter, that is still high and we did not like the man, at all. But we did just manage to book a place called the Rhein Inn. At first I thought it was on the other side of the river, and had to remind Dodie that the bridge (The Bridge at Remagen) had been blown up in 1945. Dodie (correctly, it turned out) surmised there would be a ferry. She also surmised that the hotel was not even on the other side anyway. So we flounced off, and cycled another 5 km into the gathering dark, and arrived at the most wonderful place.

They do have rooms here at 55 euros, but the one we found on Booking (no cancellation possible) was 89. But wow, it is huge, and has a balcony looking out onto the Rhine. I told Dodie she needed to stay awake to get our money's worth form this great spot. But after dinner, she conked out. It had been a very big day for first day back in the saddle.

Oh yes dinner - we chose old standby schnitzel, though they did have other choices. But I went "gypsy" with the zigeuner (gypsy) version, meaning it has a sauce of tomato and green pepper. Dodie got fresh mushrooms and cheese. The underlying schnitzel was pan fried, of course, and nicely crispy. And there was fresh salad. We were too full for apple strudel - can you imagine that?

Finally back along the Rhine. Here are some of the famous castles and ruins.

Near Bad Honnef, an art institute was having a Henry Moore festival. We take this to be a Henry Moore. The shape looked very different depending on the angle of view.

The two "old ladies" were very spry and led us far up into Remagen.

The Bridge at Remagen. For better photos and the full story, see our 2012 Grampies on the Go- Again.

Today's ride: 70 km (43 miles)
Total: 530 km (329 miles)

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