The New Michael Portillo

Travelling by train....

I certainly feel like I qualify to take over the reigns from Michael Portillo if the BBC needs someone to take over the Rail Journey Programmes.  Hopefully, I don’t need to wear colourful jackets and trousers, but instead display knobbly knees and cycle jacket.

Our route today involves several changes....The Hague to Eindhoven, to Venlo, to Düsseldorf, to Offenberg and finally to Strasbourg.  We have realised since we booked the tickets that we could have booked from Offenberg, to Freiburg to Bad Bellingen without the need to stay at Strasbourg overnight.

The train did fill up but it never got rammed with people as we had expected on a Monday morning.

This is our 20th Day of Cycle travel.    We have completed the journey significantly faster than I thought we would and we only got soaked once.  We have done 18 days of cycling on the trot and by tomorrow we will have done 1300km.  The weather has been generally kind although the last few days have been a bit showery but typical of what we would expect in Autumn in Northern Europe.

What can I say of the trip as a whole.....

Well, first and foremost, Janice has done fantastically well with the cycling, with the living out of panniers, with a different bed each night, with eating on the hoof and mostly with putting up with me and watching my backside on my bike (perhaps it’s an improvement on my front).  So, I owe a big thank you to her (I mustn’t forget it’s her birthday a week today)!

We have enjoyed the adventure together and probably had our highlights in the southern parts of the Rhine and Lake Constance.  Landau and Meersburg are totally stunning, Konstanz is a lovely large city. 

 Bad Säckingen was the surprise small town favourite with its wooden bridge over the Rhine.

Strasbourg was our favourite large city and it was even more memorable because of the visit to the EU Parliament in session.  The Petite France section of the city is beautiful too.

The Rhine Gorge section is possibly the best natural landscape of the route and Rüdesheim was very pretty as were some of the other small towns nearby.  After that stop we cycled to Koblenz and thought that it was the perfect place to tour the whole area of the gorge and the Rhine and Mosel Rivers....

.....and Deutches Eck is a dramatic and grand structure.

We were a little disappointed with Köln other than the Cathedral, maybe it was a bit big and too much of a bustling city for us.  I must remind you that we only really get a small snapshot of the places we visit and we will have missed so much.  We only had one hotel stay that was dodgy...the one at Erstein, room 21....don’t take it!

There were places that we would either like to go back to or wish we had extra time.  Those included Wörms, Utrecht and The Hague but really Lake Constance is hard to beat.

We have arrived at Strasbourg.  The train journey has taken 12 hours to get this far.  We had to run at Eindhoven to get the Venlo train.  The longest section was from Dusseldorf to Offenberg, about 7 hours on a train.  It was a wide and comfortable train and we had our bikes booked on it....

I think we have done a mini tour of southern Germany.  We’ve been through Köln, Koblenz, Mainz, Mannheim, Stuttgart, Heidelberg, Karlsruhe and Offenberg.  I think we could have done a quicker train but had to come on this one for the cycle availability.  We could do with cycle capacity like this in the UK but maybe we still need more people capacity too!

We got to our hotel opposite Strasbourg Railway Station.  It is a small but nice place but it has nowhere for bikes and the people hanging around the railway station area doesn’t make me feel it is very safe.  We spent about 45 minutes moving the bikes from place to place to find a safe parking place, we were even prepared to pay..  We have eventually left them outside the main entrance to the station which is fairly busy and well lit.  We have fingers crossed that they will be still there in the morning.

‘Mit Slagroom’

The Hague.            cape.fool.tornado

Distance.       5km

Total.            1275km

I know that 5km doesn’t count as a cycling day.  We were definitely dodging the showers......and we were successful.  We got up and headed for the Utrecht train station.  All went smoothly and we arrived in The Hague mid morning.  We headed straight for the Hotel which was in the centre and were pleased that they agreed we could store the bikes and put the panniers into the luggage store.

One of the key reasons we wanted to come was so that Janice could see the ‘Girl with the Pearl Earing’ painting by Vermeer.  It is in the Mauritshuis Museum.

The museum was a gorgeous building and contained all the Dutch Masters, including Reubens, Van Dyck, Rembrandt, Holbein and Steen.  

We had a very good look around and had lunch in the cafe.  We had an Apfel Tart, ‘mit Slagroom’, which means with whipped cream.

We only saw a small part of The Hague but we were impressed by the range of grand traditional and modern buildings.  We walked through the Dutch Parliament buildings, The Binnenhof.

The city is also the home to the UN Court of Human Rights and the International Court of Justice.  I think that the Court Cases take far too long and the Courts should be moved to a place like Burnley in Lancashire, it would solve the local economy depression and, more importantly, it would be able to decide cases and dish out sentences speedily.  A few chosen thumpings could sort out most of the worlds problems!

Our cycling trip has come to an end, rather a damp end but it has been a great experience.  I will do a little review of the trip tomorrow.  We had a lovely meal out (it makes a change from having a salad in a plastic bowl) and prepared for our multiple train journeys to get to Strasbourg.  We will stay overnight at Strasbourg and still thinking about our options to returning to the motorhome at Bad Bellingen on Tuesday.  We will have to ‘clog’ it down south again.....

We have had the pleasure of watching Strictly Come Dancing Results on BBC One.  It seems the Dutch can get a bit of British TV,  no wonder they speak English so well. It hasn’t been available in Germany or France or Switzerland, so we never turned on any of the TV’s in the rooms we’ve stayed in.  I’m currently watching Antiques Roadshow.....now we are getting rather old, ‘Antiques Roadshow’ might be a good name for our next epic bike ride!!

I’m a wrong ‘un!

Utrecht, Holland.            never.helps.basher

Distance.            64km

Total.                1270km

Today was our last full day of cycling.  We got up nice and early to tackle a fantastic breakfast and get on our way to beat the rain that was forecast later in the day.

Janice found a new form of travel for our next trip, I’m not sure the plant will be any good on the journey.   We also saw a large book that caught our eye....

The answer to the question is..........standing behind the book!  I hope Janice is still talking to me.....probably not after the next photo.....

Just to get her own back, here’s the next photo of the route.

I can’t argue with that and I agree with the sign with my age on it!

We wanted to get to Utrecht early and managed to do the 60km by 11.30am and a well earned coffee.  We were shocked that the ‘coffee shop’ didn’t offer any leaf based confectionery!  The city of Utrecht has been called the best canal city of Europe....I don’t know whether Venice and Birmingham agrees with that comment.  It is however rather better than Birmingham and perhaps slightly less than Venice in the ratings.  Sadly the Dom and the famous Dom Tower were covered in scaffolding and not even worth a photo.   The shops and the narrow streets around the canals were nice and bustling on a Saturday afternoon as we dodged the showers. 

We stayed in an apartment just on the fringe of the city.  We had visited the train station to try to plan our return train journey to Basel on Monday......not as easy as you think!  We have arranged a trip to Strasbourg with 5 changes....it’s complicated because of the need for bike tickets as well as person tickets.  It will fill our day for sure.

Auf Wiedersehen Pet

Oosterbeek, Holland.      nicer.whirlwind.posted. 

Distance.         105km

Total.              1206km

Thankfully our clothes and bags were dry for this morning.  I’ll give the hotel radiators an excellent review.  Today we had sunny spells and blustery winds to contend with.  There was no breakfast ordered at the hotel but we had an early start and a chocolate pastry at a local Bakerei.  We cycled onto Xanten, which is the only town in Germany to start with an X.  It was a grand place....I had second breakfast..... I need to keep energy levels up!

There was a life sized replica Roman Fort.  I’m sure it would have been worth a visit if we didn’t have quite so far to go.

We did 75km before lunch, over the Dutch border at Millingen.  We said Auf Wiedersehen to Germany and then caught the last ferry ride of our trip to the east side.  We remembered the Auf Wiedersehen Pet series from the 80’s.....’Thats Livin’ Alright’. 

It’s not often you see a Woolly Mammoth on a cycle track nowadays!  Janice got rather caught short, so it’s a good job she came to this town.

We cycled quickly through Arnhem which was very busy.  We knew we were in Holland because the cycle lanes were so busy and we were rather shocked that mopeds were allowed to ride in the cycle lanes and the riders didn’t wear helmets...that’s EU standardisation for you!  We were more interested in getting to the Airborne Museum to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the air drop into Arnhem by Allied Parachutists to secure the bridges before the Allied Armies moved forward in 1944.  We are a week late for the official commemorations but it was still moving to remember the personal stories.

The hotel is in Oosterbeek, near the Museum and it turned out to be a lovely posh place.  We still turn up at reception looking disheveled after a days cycling.  Surprisingly they didn’t tell us to go around the back so proper guests don’t see us!  Although, come to think of it, they did tell us to put the bikes in the shed around the back.

We have done another 105km day,....on our 17th consecutive day of cycling.  We have heard poor forecasts for the next two days so we are rethinking again.  We will go to Utrecht tomorrow as planned but we are considering catching a train to The Hague on Sunday as it is not only raining but winds are predicted of 45mph directly against us......that’s not fun!  We aren’t so fanatical to flog ourselves for the sake of it.  Monday will be our long train journey back to Basel, if we can organise the bikes on the trains too.

I predict a riot!

Rheinberg.          mulled.cakes.them

Distance.           86 km

Total.               1101km

It had to happen.....one day we were going to get soaked and today was it.  The forecast was for rain all day.  We had decided we were going to push through the industrial areas of Düsseldorf and Duisburg, so maybe this was the best day to be grey and wet.

We had a good breakfast including....

....a nice cheesecake to follow the fruit juice, muesli, scrambled egg and bacon, bread, cheese, sliced meats and jam on bread.  The moment we opened the hotel door to start cycling was the moment it started to rain.

We quickly arrived at the small historic walled town of Zons.  We didn’t properly look at it because of the weather but it would be worth a second look.

We crossed the Rhein by ferry to the east side and headed for Düsseldorf.  It did dry up for a while and whilst we didn’t have a high expectation we thought the riverside of Düsseldorf was good.

We kept going on for coffee in Kaiserwörth, which reminded me of the Kaiser Chiefs, who had the song, ‘I predict a riot’.  It seemed a nice old town set between two industrial cities.

Duisburg was a little bit grim and it started to rain heavily as we arrived.  It is at the point where the Ruhr joins the Rhein and is a big steel production city.  We saw some rather large coal fuelled power stations too.

I took the photo of the Rathaus at Duisburg to prove we have been through.  We did get a bit lost after we crossed the Rhein again. It wasn’t our fault really, the cycle path had been blocked off,at least we didn’t cycle on the motorway again to get around it!

We were very soggy by the time we got into Rheinberg.  The town is very nice.....it looks like it has been spruced up recently.  The roads had been fully re-blocked and the main square was pretty with one of those water features that spray up from the floor.  It has some nice old buildings and we are already getting a little feel of Dutchness from the architecture.

The hotel was swish!  We dripped into reception and left a water trail through the foyer.  We got into the hotel room and quickly turned up the radiators and got our wet stuff washed and drying.  We must have been very quick because we still had time to get me an ice cream.  We commented to one of the hotel staff that it was a lovely town but she quickly retorted that it was a ‘City’ with an indignant look.  It must be the smallest City in the country.

Our plans for finishing the ride are firming up now. We think we will have three more cycling days...staying at Arnhem, Utrecht and finishing at The Hague.  We have decided it might be more scenic to finish at The Hague instead of the Hook of Holland and we think Rotterdam may be a bit functional and wouldn’t feel we were missing too much.  So tonight will be our last in Germany.  It’s flying past.  

Oh de Köln

Dormagen.           inviting.mildest.windy

Distance.         50km

Total.              1015km.  Topped the Grand!

Well we had a great night in our house with 8 rooms all to ourselves.  It was actually a bit strange but I don’t think we could get any better deal for the money for the space we had.  Of course we spent most of the time in our room!

This is the place.  We were ready to go around 8 am and a member of staff turned up just before we departed.  We had to go in search of breakfast and although I have been sworn to secrecy by Janice, I will divulge that we had breakfast at a McDonalds.....the coffee was really good value and tasted nice for 1 Euro.  Don’t tell anyone we’ve been to a McDonalds....please.

Our plan was to get into Cologne, known locally as Köln in respect to its twinned city of Colne, in Lancashire. The cities have a lot in common....I’m struggling to think what they have in common but I’m sure there is something?

We made good ground, so much so that we were too early for the Chocolate Museum...it didn’t open till 10am.

I think everyone’s first thought on visiting Köln is seeing the Cathedral.

Photographs never do it justice.  It does look like it could do with a good sandblast on the outside but it is exceedingly grand and tall.  It was the tallest building in Europe until the Eiffel Tower was built.  We saw pictures of the devastation caused by the city bombing in WW2.  The city was rubble and the Cathedral was the only recognisable building but it was still badly damaged.  

The rest of the city didn’t grab us very much although there must be more to see that we didn’t.  The weather was grey but dry, so maybe we didn’t get the best of it.  We didn’t even get a free spray of Eau de Cologne, we didn’t find any shops selling it.

The first picture is a famous statue....it seemed to be a Snow White and the Dwarfs statue to us but probably is all about something else.  

Look at those grey sky’s.  We really got away with the weather again.  We enjoyed our cycling out of the city....we both agree that the cycling is the best part of the trip, the sightseeing is a bonus.  We even enjoyed the industrial landscapes.  We have passed Bayer, Ford and Ineos factories and many more.  We tried and failed to cycle across to the city of Leverkusen.  The bridge we tried to cross was subjected to major roadworks....it carried the motorway across the Rhein but because of the roadworks the cycle path had been sacrificed.  I mistakenly tried to cut across the roadworks to find the cycle path but ended up attempting to cycle the wrong way along the hard shoulder of the motorway (getting honked by passing cars).  We turned around and made a speedy exit!

I caused another incident later.  I have a bad habit of cycling on the left side of the cycle path when it’s quiet.  The rules in Europe are that cyclists should stay on the right side, just like the driving.  I was on the left side approaching an uphill bend when another chap travelling downhill at speed in the opposite direction nearly fell off because of me.  He shouted something at me in German, roughly translated it must have been , “Excuse me old chap, can you move over to let me pass”. I used my tactic of pretending to be French so the English don’t get blamed for being more stupid than we already are, I shrugged, and said, “Pardon, Monsieur”.  

We arrived in our town of destination rather early.  We were forced to have an extra coffee and cake and browse the bargain shops of the town centre.  I started to browse the cheap reading glasses......

What do you think of these.  I think they are rather Jurgen Klopp......but not me!

The hotel is fine and as an added bonus, we were offered a free bottle of beer on arrival.  All is going well and we stayed dry again.  Surely not tomorrow as rain is forecast all day.  We plan to cover some ground tomorrow to get past the industrial areas of Düsseldorf and Duisburg.

Minuetto Allegretto

Wesseling.        bachman.turner.overdrive

Distance.        85km

Total.             965km

What an interesting day.  I don’t know where to begin.  We left our hotel in Koblenz suitably fuelled and stolen lunch stashed in our panniers ready for the journey.  The weather this week looks rather mixed but this morning was dry and pleasant and again we managed to stay dry.  Today is day 14 of continuous cycling and we are still going strong.

As we passed a small town we overheard three cyclists talking in English.  We butted in straight away and quickly realised that one of the cyclists was the man from Todmorden that we had met at Worms in the Tourist Info.  We had a lovely chat and eventually introduced everyone.  Wayne was from Todmorden and from Dorset were Patrick and Margaret.  These are the only English people we have come across and we all commented that there weren’t many Brits around.  Wayne cycled along with us for a while till we got to Remagen.  It was nice to hear an accent that is so familiar.

Remagen is famous for the WW2 capture of the bridge by US forces in 1945.  It was the only complete bridge that the Allies secured across the Rhine, all the others had been destroyed by retreating German forces.  The Germans tried to scupper the bridge here but the US forces managed to capture it but it collapsed 10 days later because of the weakness’s caused by the Germans and the stress put on it by the military crossing it.  There is a famous film starring George Segal and Robert Vaughn all about it.

The towers at either side of the river are all that remains of the bridge.  

We stopped in the town, said goodbye to Wayne and got stuck into more cake and coffee.

We had a few more interesting stops.  The first was a restored railway station at Rolandseck.  It was built as a grand building to connect the trains to ferries down the Rhine Gorge.

The first photo is the Station Restaurant, rather grand don’t you think!  If you have very good eyes you might read the small print under the painting.  It includes the names of people who have been to the Station.....Queen Victoria, George Bernard Shaw, Kaiser Wilhelm, Marcel Marceau and others.

On the opposite side of the Rhein is Drachenfels.  We visited here 5 years ago and recall walking uphill to two castles.  The one at the top is a ruined castle but the one half way up is a complete castle that appears to be older than it really is.  The location is connected to the Nibelung Saga where hero Siegfried slays a cave living dragon on this hill.

Another point of interest is....

This was supposedly Hitlers favourite hotel, he stayed over 70 times.  It is particularly famous as the place he met Neville Chamberlain in 1938.  Chamberlain returned to give his ‘Peace in our Time’ speech.....mmm, history can be very cruel.  I have learned what really happened.....there were loads of horse chestnut trees next to the hotel (conkers were falling on us as we cycled) and Hitler and Chamberlain were having a diplomatic conker match BUT it transpired that Hitler had been pickling his conkers in vinegar and drying them out to harden them up.  He thrashed Chamberlains ‘fresh’ conker and as a result he hatched his plan for world conkering!!

Next stop was Bonn.  Apart from being the capital of West Germany before reunification it is the birthplace of Beethoven.  We had our late lunch here and had a walk around the older parts of the city.

Rathaus, Beethoven and his house....in that order.  He lived in Bonn for 22 years, then he went to Vienna.  We hummed a few of his tunes as we walked around.  I tried ‘Minuetto Allegretto’.  Janice was quite impressed till she realised that it was a hit by the Wombles.  I’m great with my classical music knowledge..not!  I must admit I can be stirred by the 1812 Overture as I like the cannons firing....

Our accommodation is a little different tonight.  We are about 20km north of Bonn in a room at a Psychiatric Clinic.  About time I hear you say.  It is part of an old Schloß......

...although, we are in a building next to it.  We were shown our large room which is nice.  Then the staff member went home leaving us alone in what appears to be a six bedroom building with large dining room, kitchen and sitting room fully stocked with beers and wine for use on an honesty basis.  We are the only people here.  I think they must be secretly observing us as part of a case study in temptation.  I am tempted already to drink the beers and cycle away to dispose of the empty bottles so it doesn’t look like we’ve had any....but if they have secret cameras I will be letting down humanity as I will have surcumbed to evil.  Oh dear, it’s a sober night then because Janice wouldn’t countenance any wrong doing....of course not!  It is a pretty good deal to stay here...especially at the price.

Just wondered if anyone noticed the spoof ‘what3words’ location I gave at the top of the blog.  I couldn’t resist!  The correct one is.    hamper.beard.congas