Nearly two weeks into our adventure the most frequent phrase to come out of Matt’s mouth is:
“Wheresmu”…? i.e.:
– Where’s my towel?
– Where’s my phone?
– Where’s my banana? Etc etc etc
Living out of bags and in a tent has its challenges and keeping track of our many items is one of them. We’re in the laughing about it phase at the moment. Might wear thin in a couple of weeks…
In other news – nearly two weeks in and we’re mostly doing pretty well we think. It turns out that all of the preparation, the goodbyes, the setting off and the ‘it’s a lot-ness’ has been replaced by a new pace of life and just cracking on with it. I’m enjoying not over-thinking, just doing. Moving forward, rather than staying still. Even if moving forward involves facing into a headwind (more on that later).
I’m writing this from alongside the bank of the Rhine (where else – it’s been our nearly constant neighbour for over a week now), at a campsite on the edge of Bacharach, a small town with lots of history and wine. Our sort of place.
We’re having a rest day, very excitingly, which so far has involved a lovely lie-in, a lot of washing, and just… chilling. Waking up this morning we both realised that our legs were a little tired and having a day off (as we had always planned to do, but somehow hadn’t got around to yet) would re-energise us.
The last week has been good but hard at times. We arrived in Germany, our second foreign country, in a very low key way. No signs to announce the international border from the bike path along the river, just a slight change in the quality of the path itself and on arrival at our first town a small change in architecture and of course language. My A-level German was now required (or what I can remember of it!)
Otherwise it was more cycling into wind, on top of a bank alongside the river mainly. Punctuated by a mix of farmland, nature reserve and petro-chemical industrial zones, with views of coal, cars and John Deere tractors being transport up the Rhine via barge.
Our first night in Germany was spent at possibly the poshest campsite we’ve ever experienced which meant we could cook inside which was a welcome break from the cold.
The next night we were sleeping right alongside the Rhine which we celebrated by buying a bottle of rosé wine from a greengrocers (our sort of greengrocers?) Delicious and actually surprisingly enjoyable from our titanium coffee cups!
Onwards and our second major city of the trip beckoned – Cologne (Köln to the locals). We wanted to see it properly so booked into a very cheap hotel within spitting distance of the Kölner Dom – a completely awe-inspiring and gigantic cathedral in the middle of the city, much of the rest of which was destroyed in the Second World War.
We explored the Dom properly, and got chatting to people from Indonesia and Laos inside – fitting given our plan to head to South East Asia later in the year. All of the awe-inspiring-ness needed toasting so we also partook in the local tradition of Kölsch drinking (as recommended by Jody; our King of all things to do with continental European beer sampling.)
Kölsch drinking is simple. You arrive at a Brauhaus, plonk yourself down. Waiter arrives with two 20cl glasses of delicious beer (Matt describes it as a ‘hoppy lager’). You drink said teeny beer, and the waiter turns up with another. This continues until you’ve had enough – indicating to the waiter not to keep hydrating you by putting a beer mat on top of your latest teeny glass. Very enjoyable and refreshing (it means you’ve always got a cold beer) – well done Köln, we approve.
Later in the evening we went out for our first dinner ‘out’ – to another Brauhaus serving hearty German fare, plus more Kölsch by default. An early night beckoned though… more cycling scheduled for the next day after all!
The next day managed to assemble all of the weather we’ve had so far into a 12 hour period – with very heavy rain (thank goodness for the very well timed bakery and the lovely Frau who served us hot coffees!), very cold wind and latterly, just after putting our tent up, a short lived but ferocious storm involving golf ball sized hail stones (only a minor exaggeration, amazingly) and gale force winds. The tent did OK given the circumstances, I meanwhile cursed the weather gods as I was reminded why before the trip the tent-life bit was the aspect I was least looking forward to. Dinner in the tent due to the persistent rain was a bit miserable but once in our lovely down sleeping bags all was right in the world again and a good night’s sleep followed.
Everything went away soggy the next day but no matter as the SUN CAME OUT, properly. And we had I think the best day yet (even inclusive of headwind – have I mentioned that?) including admiring the beauty of hills (actual hills) on either side of the river, vineyards and wending our way into Koblenz (another Fine City, twinned with Norwich). The afternoon saw us progress further south through the Mittel-Rhein including through Boppard, past Loreley and to Bacharach – for a lovely evening of wine, another delicious German stodge supper out finished off with rain for our walk (jog) back to the campsite.
So we’re doing OK – maybe even well?
We’re looking forward to the next week which we hope will include popping over the border into France, a visit to Strasbourg, a return to the Alsace (one of our favourite places to sample wine in the whole world – we have some experience on this topic) and maybe even making it to Switzerland!
Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to read and even comment on the blog so far. We’re amazed by everyone’s positive comments and encouragement – what a lovely bunch of friends, family and colleagues we have 🙂
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