August 5, 2014
Dusseldorf to Cologne
It was great to start actually riding. The hotel provided the usual German breakfast, usually in Germany the boiled eggs are absolutely perfect, today they were good but not perfect. Packed up and away we went, it felt fantastic, The route through Dusseldorf is all off road, along the river and past lovely buildings. Then there was an industrial area but on the river side a golf course, this was followed by intensive market gardening in the rich river silt of this large flood plain. We were loving it all and Ken said 'this really is German cycling at its very best'. He spoke too soon. The signage disappeared and we came to a place where there was meant to be a ferry to the other side. It had stopped running. A kindly bystander said we would have to go back to the bridge we had seen about 6km back. Off we went, not looking forward to all the extra distance but after a while we spotted some touring cyclists coming along, they looked as if the knew what they were doing as they appeared to be German. Ken said 'Lets follow them'. There was one problem, they were considerably faster than us and we had to catch them. We put in a massive effort but eventually we lost them. They turned up somewhat later when we were stopped in a biggish town whose name we will never know. Clearly they were as confused as us. It was time to change strategies, it called for a cup of coffee and a major route finding conference. Our first thought was to fire up the GPS but it couldn't acquire satellites. How about the iPad, a similar outcome. May be we would be in this unnamed German town for the rest of our lives. The iPhone proved no different. We decided to just ride in what seemed the general direction of the river but we had opposite views of this, I won. Then the satellite decided to cooperate and we felt more secure, we found a ferry across the Rhine (I love ferries) and we were off again. Somehow we lost the route again but we got there and have found a very good hotel beside the Cathedral at the very reasonable price of $70 with breakfast included.
We have visited the inspiring cathedral which was commenced in 1288 then left unfinished in 1550 and not finished until the 18 hundreds. It was the tallest man made structure in the world until the building of the Eiffel Tower. Like the rest of Cologne it was extensively bombed in the Second World War but now is fully restored to its previous glory. Joining the hundreds of other tourists we wandered the Aldstadt and almost had to fight to get an ice cream at the Eise Cafe. Soon we will be out again searching for dinner.
Today's ride: 72 km (45 miles)
Total: 75 km (47 miles)
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