Day 17: Koblenz to Oberwesel

August 7, 2015

The much anticipated breakfast in the hotel Reinhard this morning was just ok. The basics were pretty much all there, but hey, we have higher standards than that now. For example, there needs to be eight varieties of jam, all in large pots from which you fill your little bowl. Jam in foil covered plastic tubs? How much suffering can we take!

Fuelled by not quite the right jam, and not quite enough coffee, we limped out onto the bank of the Rhine, and headed south. The way is marked a little confusingly, and there is a bit of rough ground, but again, it's ok.The real fun started soon enough, as this is the "middle Rhine", the part stuffed with the most beautiful riverside towns, with cruise boat traffic, and soon, the Lorelei.

The way south out of Koblenz. It starts with a riverside park estblished for the masses by some queen or other in the 1800's

This out of place business by the rhine seems like a natural to photograph

About an hour out, we ran into Wilfred and Eva, just leaving the camping they stretched to reach last night. We buzzed ahead to the camping exit and greeted them with "Het, where ya been? How long can we wait for you?". We rode togeher for a little while, and we learned a little more about them. They are both dentists, taking about three weeks off. Unlike us, they are not dedicated to some some long one way route, but rather have ridden a bit of a circle. Now their daughter will pick them up and return them to their van. Then the whole family will meet at a lake for a week. Finally they will drive to Austria, where they have a caravan, mostly used for Winter activities. p.s. They live quite close to the Danube and could cycle to Vienna any time they feel like it. Grrrr.

I like this part of the Rhine a lot, not only for all the things to see along it, but because these things are described in cartoon-like strip maps that follow the river. It's fun to identify where you are from the drawings in front of you. At one point, though, Dodie said "Look that castle is Burg Rheinfels". "Yeah", I replied. "You're not looking!" "I can see it in my cartoon!" "Well then why would we want to come here, you could look at the cartoon at home!" "Yeah!"

Well we did identify all the castles, but unlike last time will not be trying to upload photos with the names. It's too easy to make a mistake, and we know that there are some real experts out there!

Boppard is a really attractive town, but in the past we have just snapped some photos from the river and rolled by. This time we needed to do our first mailback (papers that we seem to pick up everywhere, and clothes that we think we can do without) so we turned up into the town. I got to send some emails as I waited in the street, while Dodie secured a flat rate box from the post office. We then got to walk down the pedestrian street, which otherwise we would not have found.

We walked the street for a little while, but got distracted by a bakery in a side street. So we collected some marzipan "plunder" and left town. "Plunder", by the way, is not a pirate term, but rather some sort of synonym here for strudel or kuchen. Ok, it's a danish.

Just as we were leaving, we spied two people waving at us from across a street. It turned out to be the couple that had helped take our selfie at the Deutches Eck. Frankly, we don't have the mental power to remember everyone we meet, but they sure did, and once we took a closer look, so did we. So it was a joyful reunion, though we really did not share any common language. They are headed for Mainz, so we expected to see them again. It's like that on the road - you play leapfrog with people for up to several days, before finally losing track of each other.

The temperature climbed once again, again pushing (but this time not exceeding) 50. Dodie especially began to wilt in this, and both of us drank pretty much all our available water. So we pulled in to St Goar, another town along the way. The first thing in St Goar is a large cuckoo clock retailer. Last year was my big year to be looking for cuckoo clocks. Since this was the first store on our route, there was no way I was buying there. But it was fun looking. In retrospect, and now that I am an "expert", I would say they are actually quite a reasonable shop. This year cuckoo clocks are off the menu (it is already too hard to think at our house for all the cuckooing and bonging). I feel a bit bereft, though, with no clock to search for.

We searched instead for an eis cafe. In Germany, it is insanely easy to find one. They always sell Italian style gelato, and it is always excellent. So we found an eis cafe, and it helped a lot. Also really important was the refill on 7 litres of water, to keep us going. In Germany, water sells bottled for big bucks and restaurants have no concept of supplying tap water. Thank goodness for the washrooms, and some of our little Bike Friday bottles, that fit under the hand taps.

Also near the eis cafe, we found our "selfie" couple again. They had looked at the scorching temperatures and thrown in the towel. They took a hotel room in town and now were waiting for a short round trip boat excursion to the Lorelie.

The Lorelie in nothing but a narrowing in the river, with a hill (much like any other) above. But there is the legend of the Lorelei. Here is a random excerpt from Wikipedia, to put you in the picture:

"In 1824, Heinrich Heine seized on and adapted Brentano's theme in one of his most famous poems, Die Lorelei. It describes the eponymous female as a sort of siren who, sitting on the cliff above the Rhine and combing her golden hair, unwittingly distracted shipmen with her beauty and song, causing them to crash on the rocks. In 1837 Heine's lyrics were set to music by Friedrich Silcher in the art song Lorelei[2] that became well known in German-speaking lands. A setting by Franz Liszt was also favored and over a score of other musicians have set the poem to music."

Fachwerk houses are becoming more common as we progress south.

This house was built in the 17th century.

13th century St Severus church in Boppard. They feature organ and violin duets in Saturdays. Inside was playing a recorded version, which still sounded good. On the street, a raggedy couple was playing violin and guitar - Celtic tunes - sounded really foreign here.

One of those boats we may go on one day.

Typical oncoming bike traffic. There was a steady stream of these all day.

These oncoming riders have a Hase (Pino model) Note the political message on the back. We ran into other peqce activists on the trail as well.

My cuckoo clock centre. It killed me to have no reason to go in.

Now that you can say "Becher", let's order one in St Goar! (Actually we went for the milkshakes).

The Lorelei is super famous, and all the hotels and businesses nearby have it in their names. There is one gift shop that is closest to the rock, and as far as we have seen, there are always tour busses stopped there. This year there were some too, but with a big difference - no Asian people that we could see. This is very disturbing. We need to go check Google News to see if the world economy has collapsed while we have been gone. There always have to be Asian people at the Lorelie, taking pictures of the completely unphotogenic hill!

David alston wrote this time that he was looking for the courage not to take a picture there. I am not sure what happened with that. Well, I did take the picture, but am also offering some other Lorelie related shots that could be a little different:

A painting depicting the Lorelei, found on a wall near Spay

Some tour buses at the Lorelei, but where are our Asian friends? (We need them to help identify what to photograph)

We continued not too much further, also thinking of packing it in because of the heat. At the camping just below Schonburg, near Oberwesel, we stopped in to see what services (especially shade) might be on offer. Though rudimentary in terms of sanitary facilities and games rooms, they were able to offer a little shade, and a little restaurant. (actually, a food truck). I am sitting beside that now, having finished a very acceptable "spiesbraten" - not sure what that is, quite.

I also walked into town and found the LIDL (grocery) and spent 15 euros to renew my SIM card data. I had bought the SIM last year, and 15 euros brought effectively unlimited internet for a year. This time they had five different products on sale, with names like LIDL Mobile All Net Flat and LIDL Mobile Smart S. Normally there is no way to tell what these things are really all about, even at home with the use of English in a phone shop. Here in German with a grocery store cashier? I fully expect to have to get Marius (German computer expert back home) to figure it out and get it fixed up from Canada. No panic yet, though, as I have not yet had my shot with getting things set up on their all German web site.

Dodie decided to walk to the LIDL too, to find food for tomorrow and save time. I do not expect to see her back any time soon. When I walked up there, it was not easy to find the place, and when I tried a shortcut to get back, I found myself trapped by fenced off properties and had to totally backtrack. Fortunately with the river in front and the mountain behind, there is not that much room here to get totally lost in!

Ok, Dodie is back. She says it was easy. Show off!

These peace activists were heading to Koblenz to protest the renewal of a US nuclear facility there.

Our spot by the Rhine, just below Shonburg at Schonburg-Blick Camping

Part of the map that makes riding the Rhine (and some other rivers) so much fun

Today's ride: 44 km (27 miles)
Total: 876 km (544 miles)

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