Dusseldorf - Niederkruchten: across the Rhine and beyond - A Flanders Fling

May 24, 2017

Dusseldorf - Niederkruchten: across the Rhine and beyond

Let's get going - but breakfast first. Since when do hotels offer breakfast for 15 Euros per person!? Let's look somewhere else.

Back where we started? I didn't choose Hotel München for its name, but it was a good hotel at a fair price.

We went out and looked for a bakery where you can sit and have coffee, too. Not hard to find in most German towns and cities. We had a nice breakfast for one third the price of the hotel's "breakfast buffet". Panniers packed and bicycles retrieved from the garage, we headed for the Rhine and clocked our first kilometers in the streets of Düsseldorf.

Harbor architecture Düsseldorf was heavily bombed during WWII. I read that only two buildings were left standing by the end of the war.

We took a short tour of the Rhine embankment promenade, officially opened in 1995, which links the traditional, reconstructed Altstadt (Old Town) to the modern MedienHafen. The promenade was constructed on the cover of a tunnel for car traffic, stretching over 1.5 km underground. I had read, "Foot and bicycle paths, 600 plane trees and a lot of space for strolling and leisure characterize the new Rhine frontage," and wanted to have a look. Particularly interesting are the buildings by Frank O. Gehry . The Gehry buildings are considered Düsseldorf's new landmark.

It was kind of a grey day and there weren't a whole lot of people out strolling. We checked things out in a rather superficial way with a few stops for photos, but mainly wanted to get on the road.

We have crossed the Rhine and are proceeding out of town on its excellent bike path.

I had our route prepared for our Garmins, and following it we were out of the city with no complications. Yes, there were a few construction sites, bad bike paths and some traffic, but at least we knew we weren't going to get lost and have to backtrack. Eventually, we left the city behind us. Then came suburbs, and some boring stretches next to busy roads - but we were on our way!

Had quite a long stretch of this once we were out of the city

A few mishaps today - once when Janos didn't get out of his pedals fast enough and toppled over - ouch. A scare and a bruise but no serious damage. Later on he sat on his cell phone and it broke in two - yikes. Warning - your cell phone is not safe in the rear pocket of your cycling jersey!

As we got closer to our destination, we rode past little lakes and through pretty woods. Niederkrüchten is located on the edge of a large nature preserve and the character of the area is much different than the first part of our day.

Things got much nicer towards the end of the ride.

Looking forward to tomorrow and seeing more of this part of Germany before we cross the border into the Netherlands.

Today's ride: 58 km (36 miles)
Total: 238 km (148 miles)

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