Castles everywhere!

More broken sleep this night, but the setting and weather were so good, who cares?

As Nick was packing up, I walked to the check-in desk and paid for our night, and got my passport back.

Then I walked around to the food kiosk and picked up the two chocolate croissants we’d ordered on the “breakfast clipboard” from the previous night.

Nick and I crossed over the river together and began following the shore.  Many birds, lots of other cyclists and people out walking.

With such a light breakfast, we were pretty hungry in the afternoon. We picked a little cafe at random and ordered sausage and fries.

Around us, a heap of other cyclists were preparing for a group ride. We were tempted to join them, but they were going in the opposite direction.

As we rolled back onto the route, we passed the classiest fire station I’ve ever seen.

For a while we drifted away from the river, into some low hills. The landscape reminded me of the nicest parts of river delta area, east of San Francisco back home. Vivid greens, dark fertile soil, and air that was just a touch humid without being overwhelming. Evidence of small-scale and industrial farming, and residential gardens, scrolled by on both sides of the path.

Nick went ahead of me. Every now and then I would drift to a stop and poke my face and camera lens into the weeds, checking out the insect life.

“Any one of these cute townships could feel like home,” I thought, “just from the look of them, laid out across the slope of a hill ahead.”

Of course at the same time, another part of me was busily examining this feeling, and considering the ways that pop culture – like Disney films – and the stories told by my extended family combined to generate this feeling, even though I had never been here before and couldn’t even speak the local language.

The architecture was a combination of immediately familiar, based on my time visiting Berkeley as a kid and staying in my great grandmother’s Victorian house, with mythical, as I recognized the half-timbered style from illustrations in fairytale books and computer games, with the anonymously modern and undistinguished style I’ve seen everywhere from Los Angeles to London.

Soon we rejoined the river, and began to see the aquatic wildlife and grander monuments again.

I passed an ice cream shop right next to the trail, so of course I had to stop.

The treat fit perfectly in my cup holder. What a life!

Nick was still ranging ahead of me, and we kept in touch over text, occasionally sending photos back and forth of whatever caught our eye. This was castle territory: The Rhine is absolutely crawling with castles, keeps, fortresses, et cetera.

Somewhere in the last couple of centuries the practice of cannibalizing stone from an old castle to build a new one ground to a halt as internal combustion made it far easier to refine and transport new building materials like concrete and steel – while simultaneously making these structures useless as defense – and nowadays they’re maintained for their aesthetics more than anything else. Which is fantastic, frankly. I would cycle down this river even without castles to look at, but they really kick it up a notch.

If I had oodles of money to dispense, I could probably book a few nights up in one of these…

Eventually I closed the gap with Nick, who was catching a truly amazing vibe down by the shore of the river at a small cafe, sipping a microscopic espresso. It looked so perfect that I was reluctant to disturb him: I got the feeling he was making a specific memory that would bounce around in his mind for years.

We chatted about modes of transport, and political movements.

We also discussed the riding schedule. Our stretch goal was a campsite called “Campingpark Sonneneck”, about ten miles outside of Koblenz. We were making good time, and if we could get all the way it would give us more time to look around Koblenz before we turned west up the Moselle.

We rode near each other, then with me directly behind Nick to draft him, for the remaining miles. We talked about starting up an audiobook together, but were enjoying our music too much.

We saw plenty of the different modes of transportation from our discussion. Trains, cats, barges, boats…

More amazing vegetation in the late afternoon sun, more photo opportunities…

Right down by the river we saw a lot of small plots of land with gardens and shack-like houses on them. We couldn’t decide on the purpose of these. Some appeared to be exclusively for gardening. Some were barely habitable, and didn’t appear to be insulated or electrified. Some looked lived-in. Were these properties used for vacationing? Was this considered some kind of low-income or government-assisted housing? We couldn’t figure it out.

Meanwhile, above and around these plots, the fancy towns and castles kept coming at us.

If people wanted to build structures of this size, and in this location, in modern times, they would use different materials and a different design, and the result would probably need a whole lot less maintenance. But, am I glad these grand old buildings were retrofitted? Yes I am!

One could read an entire epic history about any of these places, if one had the time…

We pushed the pedals and chugged along, but it was fully dark when we arrived at the campsite. The attendant said the place was full, but if we wanted, we could set up in the space next to the cute little mini golf course. It wasn’t much room, and there might be some noise, but we counted ourselves lucky.

We rolled our bikes over to the site and I sent Nick out immediately to run to the pizza joint in the middle of the campground and ask if they could still make us food. Turns out they could, so we ordered two personal pizzas and glasses of orange juice.  We chowed down with gusto.  I wasn’t sure if we were being rude by picking up the slices directly rather than cutting them with a knife and fork, but I was too hungry to care.

Then it was time for some bodily functioning, and charging of gadgets. We didn’t stay up very late, owing to tiredness. Nine hours of cycling today!