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.
Local version of the moisture renention I see over crops back home.
“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.
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.
Many a feast has been chomped behind those windows!
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 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.
“Only narrowness can birth wideness. All else goes to the sea.” -F.G. Paff
I’m not sure what it means or whether I agree with it, but there you go.
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.
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!
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.
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…
Time to explore, with an appropriately themed t-shirt.
Time to explore, with an appropriately themed t-shirt.
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.
Standing in the spot where dad did, about a quarter century ago.
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.
Little houses in a little house shop, in a house that looks like the little houses!
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:
The David And Goliath fountain. Sitting where Dad sat about a quarter centurty ago.
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.
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 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.
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.
Interesting! The USSR hammer and sickle. Symbols of communism turned into symbols of racism, thanks to Russia.
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.
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.
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.
I didn’t even know this church was here. Apparently it’s been here a very long time. It was originally part of a chunk of the city defense walls around Brussels.
I didn’t even know this church was here. Apparently it’s been here a very long time. It was originally part of a chunk of the city defense walls around Brussels.
This looks like a reference to some legend about explorers being led by a local guide. It’s probably apocryphal. (I mean, the explorers probably just stabbed the guide.)
This looks like a reference to some legend about explorers being led by a local guide. It’s probably apocryphal. (I mean, the explorers probably just stabbed the guide.)
Not sure who this is supposed to be, but their position over the door is welcoming…
