Tania Campbell 
I stayed at a youth hostel last night for the first time in years. Since I had a single room, I actually found it a very pleasant experience – especially since the Mannheim hostel is on the banks of the Rhine. Alex and I had noticed it the day before already: some of the worst … Read more
Funny, how every day starts with breakfast, but it is a very important meal for cyclists – this time in a cavernous hall, that seemed far too large for the hotel. Lex‘ and my main aims for today were to have a look at Speyer and understand some of its history, meet up with one … Read more
I forgot to report two things form yesterday:– While cycling on one of the Rhine dams in France we saw two motorcyclists racing along the bottom of the dam on a dirt track, which were followed by a police car on the top o the dam (tarmacked surface) in such a way, we literally had … Read more
After more amazing croissants for breakfast at the wonderful Maison Arheidt, Elke, Alex and I set off to the North, through Strasbourg. Alex mentioned how fortunate we were to have our wonderful guide, Elke, cycle with us the first bit. Phil had taken a taxi and early train to Frankfurt. We had to say our … Read more
After a very relaxed morning and breakfast, Elke, Alex, Phil and I cycled into Strasbourg to have a look around. The original idea was to take one of the tourist boats to explore from the water, but the queues were so long, and the people were sitting so closely together, that we decided against it … Read more
Despite the hotel being along the main road into the Black Forest, I slept very well, a theme that seems to continue throughout this trip, luckily. Apparently it did not rain, ah well. Breakfast from the grumpy landlady was not quite so convincing, but ok. I spent all morning cycling downhill or on the flat, … Read more
The tent was dry this morning, so could get away reasonable early, after I had written my article for the paper. Wonder whether and how it will be published, I will report. To Dornstetten it was all downhill, but then there were several hills to climb and come down again before I reached Freudenstadt. Very … Read more
Hot! 850 m climbing in temperatures of up to 40°C (as measured by my bike computer) in the shade, and I was in the sun quite a bit. No wonder I could not go further… The day started slowly, I got up later than usual, partly because it was so hot during the night that … Read more
Martin, another Kreisrat of Esslingen, that I had met in Leipzig, picked me up by bike and cycled about 35 km with me – thanks for that! We first went to Esslingen, an amazing medieval town with lots of half-timbered houses, which also has part of the administration of the Landratsamt. Unfortunately we were too … Read more
After a nice breakfast with interesting background information on all kinds of local politics by the landlady of the Alte Kass, I set off leisurely to explore Landkreis Esslingen, one of the twinned Landkreise of Munich. I followed the ‚Streuobstroute‚ (Streuobstwiesen are a kind of organic, wild orchard, I could not find an English translation … Read more