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.
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