Day 15: Bernkastel to Ediger, Germany: Super Day

August 5, 2015

It's just midday, but already I am ready to declare this the best of all possible cycling days. This judgement is probably biased a little by the fact that I am sitting at an outdoor cafe on a car free street, waiting for the lady to bring out my johannesbeeren sahne torte (red currant cream torte). The street is in the picturesque town of Traben, just one of many we have passed through since leaving Bernkastel this morning.

The morning began well, as can be expected with us, because of breakfast. This was our first time this year in a German guesthouse, and the legendary guesthouse breakfast materialized as hoped for. Though we have seen spreads that took up more table space, this one did pretty much have it all: Many kinds of brotchen (buns), many kinds of jam, many cheeses, many sliced meats, whole fruits including plum, apricot, and nectarine, and yogurt with blueberries, etc. There was also, of course, lots of coffee - with a big pot left on our table.

Our first German guesthouse breakfast this year. So great!

We were able to squirrel away some of the breakfast to become lunch, a bonus, but in any event this fuelled us up beautifully to start riding. Our bikes were outside under cover, and as expected they showed no sign of having been tampered with - in fact not touched and probably not even looked at. We love that.

This lunch entirely brought to you by ... breakfast!

Bernkastel is the docking point for a number of river cruise boats. As we pedalled along the dockside path, there were groups (crowds) of people waiting to board. Dodie dinged her bell, and the crowd parted. As we passed through, we said hello to them all, and they applauded and cheered.

The morning was misty, giving the town and the surrounding vine covered hills a further artistic touch. We passed into the oldest section and were treated to scenes of beautiful fachwerk buildings. It is a pedestrian only zone but delivery vehicles are exempted from the car ban. So at this hour there were a few of them around, including one giant truck. The truck made it really difficult to get an unobstructed photo of anything. But, I tried.

Look Sandra, local vines for sale to tourists. Could we sneak these in a box to mail home?

Snuck this shot around the delivery trucks in Bernkastel

Even washing the outside of the boat. This must be Germany.

This man is sweeping up the messy flower petals!

Then began the first phase of today's ride. No wind (until noon), pleasant temperatures in the mid 20's, vine covered hills to our right and the placid river to our left. Along the path, smooth as glass in this section, flowed a constant stream of other cyclists. They were a mix - fully decked out low rider equipped cyclists with tentsrs, rear pannier only guest house users, day riders, and people whose gear had been trucked ahead by a tour company. The ages of cyclists ranged from little kids (maybe as young as 6, but the ideal youth cyclist seemed to be 11 or 12) to seriously old people. In this holiday season, it was not just retirees out there (for indefinite periods, like us) but also working people on 3 week vacations.

Again, our Canadian flags spawned quite a few conversations. We need a snappy comeback for when each new person cleverly (they think) asks us if we cycled from Canada. My current response is "No, we are too slow". In our turn we learned where people were coming from and for how long, etc. Most came from north - either the area around Duisburg or from Netherlands. None that we talked to had actually pedalled from these (quite close) places. Rather they had come by car (4 1/2 hours only to drive here from Friesland in the Netherlands), or had taken the train from Duisburg to Koblenz. Such train people also intended to take the train back. When I asked why not take two days and cycle home, each one looked at me like I was nuts. I think the train is just such an easy and natural solution for people here. So they use it to come to the absolutely prettiest part, and then bypass the just "very nice" bits.

Most turns of the river would reveal a lovely town

There are about a half dozen spots where two hundred year old sundials have been installed high in the hills

These vines are much steeper than they appear in this shot

Another sun dial. The time is off by one hour due to daylight savings time.

There are many evocative scenes like this to photograph

This bridge on the B50 under construction has super high towers. Lots of cyclists gathered to look at it.

Look at these two kids, with the dropped handlebar bikes. They are about 10.

Youngster out for a ride with (probably) grandpa

We did not order this one (but easily could have)!

After Traben, the ride continued in much the same way, though there a couple of short stretches of unpaved path or gravelly road. The temperature rose slightly past 30, and a slight head wind did appear. Still, it was great. We did come to realized that we had mis-estimated the distance to Cochem, and that we were not going to make it. We were glad that we realized this later, or we would not have enjoyed our leisurely breakfast or the stop at Traben in the same way.

By the time the afternoon was ending, we were at Ediger. To make it to Cochem we would need 20 km more. We could have pressed on, of course, but then we would have been beat and no doubt have ended up in a guesthouse. As it was, we pulled in to the camping at Ediger, which is called camping Zum Feuerberg. 18 euros, including two shower tokens.

Dodie was the first one to go to the shower, and she ran in to a dumb system that would be inexcusable in computer programming, but maybe understandable in a mechanical system. The thing is, a token buys so many minutes of shower. If you turn off the water, the clock stops. Putting in a new token when there is still time on the clock does not reset the clock to maximum, or add together the old and new minutes. Plus, a sign asks you to turn off the water when done showering. Put all these facts together, and if you are Dodie, put your token in, go and get all soaped up, have the water turn off real quick, and be stuck. Her solution was to leave the shower stall, stark naked and soapy, and rinse her head under the sink faucet followed by, she says, a lot of splashing of water to complete the rinsing process. Even after Dodie gave me the heads up, I still had to exhaust the minutes left for my shower, leave the stall (the token thing was not in the stall) and put my token in, turn the water back on, wait again for it to get warm, and carry on. This cycle touring/camping thing is not simple!

Like just about every camping we have run into in Germany, this one is stuffed with useful resources. The ones we like best are covered table and electric outlet. They have lovely ones here. They also have ping pong, kickball, a restaurant, a pool, packaged ice cream, and of course a beach on the river to swim in.

The only beef I can think of right now is that I asked Dodie to make two packages of trail meals: Lentils and Rice combined with Chili and Macaroni. We have only one pot, so they got mixed together - very tasty actually. The only thing, that produced four portions. Dodie took one and gave me three. She says she warned me there would be a lot. Now she wants me to finish my allotment. I think there is an implicit threat of no packaged ice cream otherwise. Could that ruin an otherwise perfect day?

Black Cat wine is the famous product of Zell

Small section of bad trail between Barl and toward Alf on the left bank.

Today's ride: 64 km (40 miles)
Total: 756 km (469 miles)

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