Arrived home and watched the news: fire near Düren with evacuations, just a few km from where we cycled; Rhine no longer passable for ships at Kaub, which we cycled past on our first day. Also: we cycled through 35°C, not at all pleasant. We had to change our plans almost everyday on this tour … Read more
I found it hatd to plan our route for the day on the phone, but then I suppose there is no easy route up into the Taunus. We ended up ascending 750m, most of which at over 30°C. We could feel, however, that it was cooler highet up and in the forest. The beginning was … Read more
We came down out of the Westerwald today, needed the rest for our legs. As a lot of the route was along a railway line or on a disused track, we did not see any café, so a farm shop was our saviour. I had not realised that there were slate mines in this area, … Read more
In our quest to stay as cool as we can we sweated an awful lot today. To cut across as northerly as possible in the given time we ended up in the middle of the Westerwald and climbed over 1000m in the 52km we rode – the Westerwald is very hilly. We did not see … Read more
Today we followed the Sieg up from near the mouth, a river with some water. Quite good paths and some pretty views. We cycled through Siegburg and looked at the local monastry from afar- it was not worth cycling up the hill, as it was Monday and not open to the public. Our first break … Read more
Our surprise of the day was Zülpich, a place with a Roman history and an old castle. And a wonderful lake for swimming, which we took advantage of for an hour – very refreshing. Unfortunately I only took the picture, when we were a bit further away already. Phil also took the opportunity to pump … Read more
Inspired by watching the Tour de Femmes ascent of the Mont Ventoux on TV last night we cycled up to the triple border point, Belgium- the Netherlands – Germany, first thing in the morning. We also reached the highest point of the Netherlands by bike. Although we needed to climb about 200m it was quite … Read more
The border today was interesting. Mostly it wasn’t marked, but the European signs did occur every now and again. The border also runs in streams, very picturesque. There were border stones and bunkers. Very subtle: the surfacing of the bike path changed. And my favourite: through towns, in one case actually along the middle of … Read more
We followed the Dutch-German border Southward as closely as we could today, interesting experience. We started in quite a beautiful dune-like area, where the path was sometimes along a steep fall – quite technical cycling. The border stones all looked similar after a while. Then a Roman road constitited the border line. We crossed the … Read more
We decided not to follow the Rhine any further, as we could not find accommodation for the night, the low water level is a worrying constant stark reminder of man-made climate change, and the German news reported on a forest fire in the Netherlands along our planned route back South. So we crossed the Rhine … Read more