Meeting The Rhine

Whoops! My alarm rang at 5:00am. I’m having time zone problems! Luckily I managed to get another three hours.

Nick and I hauled the bikes downstairs and packed them, and this time we managed not to accidentally switch our smaller bags. I also did a quick inspection and found that my rack was missing a screw. This is why we bring spares…

Our first destination was one from yesterday: We cycled back to the Römerberg, the big square with all the amazing buildings. Our mission was to get a picture standing in the same spot that Nick’s grandfather, Ben, stood a quarter century ago.

Here’s the original photo from 1997:

We didn’t have the right lens, but we did our best:

The crowds were getting thicker by the minute, so I zipped into the scene and Nick got a shot of me:

With that photo done, we barged into a random restaurant for brunch. We pointed at stuff behind the counter and they loaded the items onto a dish, then charged us all at once. Service via the point-and-grunt method! My mother would be proud.

The coffee was terrible, but we devoured the food, chatting about New York versus German cities, about bikes versus cars, about different modes of dress.

“Germany skews much more older than America,” Nick observed. “Or perhaps those are the only people we see out in the middle of a Friday?”

We strolled around a bit, getting our last looks at the magnificent square.

Back on the bikes, we set out for another photo op, reproducing a shot from 1997 at the David and Goliath sculpture. This went a bit better. Here’s the original:

Here’s Nick in the same spot:

And here’s me:

There were some other photos we could try to reproduce but they were just on random street corners, so we declared victory and began to move west and south, picking streets almost randomly. Frankfurt was a busy place, and we encountered all kinds of goings-on, for example a trade union protest.

It was time to head for the Main river, which would lead us to the Rhine, which we would spend the next couple days following.

But first, a run around a skate park!

We crossed the Opelbrücke bridge using a bike lane, putting us on the south side of the river. The weather was great. The wind was against us but was very mild.

For a while we enjoyed a charming dirt path, then crossed another bridge and met up with the Rhine to our left.

Then it was time for ice cream. Because: It was there!

I was highly amused by the signs visible from the shop.

For several hours we stayed on the Eurovelo route. Nick expressed interest in the mapping program I was using, so we installed it on his phone. It allowed us to use (and cache) the OpenCycle map, upon which all the Eurovelo routes are marked. Now we would both know what was ahead.

It was great to be pedaling through the countryside again, after so much city riding, and especially after those awkward trains.

Around dinner time we picked another restaurant at random. I got a big chunk of fish with fries and Nick ordered some pasta. More fine conversation.

The Eurovelo route was charming. It was clearly pieced together from other things: Connected bike paths, old walking trails, decommissioned rail lines, suburban streets … even chunks of parking lot.

As we drew near our chosen campground, we realized there was enough daylight that we could slow down and relax even more.

There was a snag: The campground did not accept any sort of charge card. It was cash only. I would need to find a cash machine in the morning. In the meantime, I agreed to leave my passport with the clerk overnight as a kind of collateral.

With the tents deployed and most of our gear stowed, we decided to explore the city of Mainz on the other side of the river.

Getting to the main bridge required going over a tiny bridge!

We didn’t know it at the time, but the city of Mainz was the birthplace of Johannes Gutenberg about 600 years ago. There was an amazing museum featuring early examples of mass-printed type, but it was already closed for the day.

We still had fun poking around.

I found an ATM, and then hung out for a while at a hip-looking and expensive cafe. I was surprised to see how many German people smoke, including young people. That would explain the cigarette machine I saw at the campsite.  I haven’t seen one of those in 30 years (since they were banned.)

Back across the river I paused to grab a photo of the city, because the light was calling to me.

I crawled into my tent and tried to inflate the mattress, but the pump was nearly dead and would barely move air.  I sent Nick a snippy text about it. Then I scooped together a bunch of gadgets and crawled back out, and found a power outlet in the bathroom building. Since I had time to kill I trimmed my beard, then sat reading. An hour later everything was decently charged. Now I could have a nice mattress!

There was a pub next to the campground and a bunch of revelers were laughing and shouting in German until late in the night.  I put in my Airpods and was able to mostly ignore it.

Very often I question the sheer amount of stuff I haul around in bike bags while touring. But on days like this it feels okay.