Mainz to Bonn

It was a packed day - up early, early breakfast and left our bags outside the door. Then out of the boat for a walk to the Roman Ampitheater, and the Citadel next to it. Then to a baroque church, sat there for a while, and then the main Gothic cathedral. Back to hotel to pick up bags, and then Eric and Kenny got an Uber to the airport.

Peter and I are now on our own, at the hotel (The Niu), not too far from the train station.

What did we do... I had changed my mind about the clothes I brought with - decided I didn't like some of them - so I found some thrift stores. One of them was very boutiquey, but the second one was very reasonable, and I actually found 3 tops that fit me quite well. People are a little less heavy here than in the US, so things are more close fitting. I ditched 2 of the tops I brought with.

The big activity in the afternoon was the Gutenberg musuem, very interesting but also very overwhelming with all the old medieval books. They had 4 original Gutenberg bibles, very dimly lit in a very dark and warm room (actually a large safe). According to what I found online, one of them would sell for 20 to 30 million USD. Then we went to a McDonalds to see if I could just buy burger patties there, like I can in the US. Turns out you can't, you pay for the full hamburger. So I got a couple for Peter, and got a sausage for myself at one of the (many, many!) food stands in town, where there's apparently a perpetual weekend carnival in the summer.

The hotel here is very new, quite comfortable but very much a big chain. I'll try to get some more local/small scale hotels in the future.

Evening - we checked to see if there were pianos in the train station (no), found a donner place, this one actually advertised a meat-only menu option, and went to an Aldi to get some food for tomorrow.

A 50 k ride today, to a very small hotel (actually a Spanish restaurant with 2 rooms to rent) in Bacharach.

We immediately saw a bunch of red bikes from the MS Olympia, they have a new set of clients and are continuing on the same path we are. As a matter of fact, we saw them on the river, and also stopped right next to the famous ruined Rhine bridge. We went in and said hello to Josef.

In Ruedesheim Peter saw the cable cars (little ones, fitting only 2 people) going up into the vineyards, going up to the big Germania statue, that commemorates Germany's victory in the way with France (1870's). We ended up taking the cable cars up. Huge wait to get in, and quite crowded up there with tourists from all over the world, but the ride itself was very nice, over the vineyards, very airy and fresh. Great views from up top.

Along the way in Geisenheim there were a bunch of spots where there was high water. You could still bike through it, but my shoes definitely got soaked, so it was probably at least 6 inches or so high in some places.

50 k felt like a long ride today. But I'm glad we got to a spot like this - Bacharach. It's a very quiet little town, lots of closed shops, but a fair number of tourist places (restaurants and hotels). There's a youth hostel in the castle up top, big regret at not booking that because it would have been really cool (though a very tough push up of the bikes to the top!). I will keep my eyes open in the future for the castle youth hostels, unfortunately the one in Koblentz is not available for when we'll be there.

We had a nice walk around town, looking for a place to eat dinner. Found a place where we had Schnitzel, I scrapped the breading off and just had the meat. There was also a guy playing piano and saxaphone there. Peter went up to him afterwards and talked a bit, Peter ended up playing piano while the other guy played saxaphone. He was Bulgarian, and very friendly to Peter. Though in the small time period that we talked, it turned out he has some very unusual ideas on the bible. I didn't even quite get it all, but everything was a conspiracy.

After dinner we climbed up and went on the city walls circuit. I guess they must have been actual protective city walls back in the day, but now they're often just at ground level, you're just walking around the foundations of the walls. There are still some towers though.

Also the trail led us to the youth hostel, which had a school class in it (the one we'd seen on the way up). Then back, and to the hotel/restaurant. It's a good thing I speak Spanish, the lady here at the restaurant/hotel doesn't appear to speak any English or German.

In the evening I go through and delete duplicate pictures, and sometimes now I also crop them, just for fun. I should always write up my journal as well, but that's more high effort, whereas going through photos is easier.

The plan for Monday is a ride to Sankt Goar, to a small hotel right next to the ferry. I found it on Trivago, then called them directly. Better to deal directly with people, so they don't need to pay the commission. In terms of distance it's not that great - only 14 k to Sankt Goar, and then the next day 36 k to Koblentz - but hopefully we'll find lots to do along the way. Also we'll probably stay in Koblentz 2 nights. And then maybe head down the Mosel.

A few random notes - there's an unusually high number of anorexic women here. We've seen three, very very skinny women who were obviously anorexic. Wonder if there really are more anorexics here, or maybe we're just in cities, walking about, and are seeing more people?

Also Peter and I are reading the Brothers Karamazov. He's able to read a lot more than I am, because I'm doing all the planning, route-finding, and booking of hotels. He's really into it, and wants to talk about it.

This morning we walked around town a bit before checking out of the hotel. Went to the tourist information office, which (especially in small towns like Bacharach) are usually very friendly, but the lady working there wasn't friendly at all, kind of impatient and basically said "I'd need to look it up" at my questions. She also thought I was dutch - tried to hand me a dutch version of a guidebook. Another guy (at the Rheinfels ruins) also thought today that I was dutch.

Then walked around a little more in town, got some great photos, went to another of the towers along the city walls. There's some outstanding views from them. And then checked out. We chatted a little with the owner - a lady from the dominican republic, and her daughter, or sister? She had lived in Mainz for 25 years, and wanted to get out - too many people. Then since it was such a short ride, we hang out at the beach park, and I read a little more of the Brothers Karamazov. Peter's enouraging me to read it to have a topic of conversation!

Then biking up to Oberhelm. The bike path is okay in terms of being level and well marked but not great in that it's right next to a busy road. It's well separated, but just not that fun to be very close to a road. In Oberhelm all of a sudden a huge shopping area south of town, with all the big grocery stores - Lidl, Aldi, Rewe, and the discount store Teddi. We bought some groceries for lunch (apricots and rolls for Peter, some sausage for both of us, some cream for me), and while we were standing in line, the cream slipped out of my hand and splashed over the floor, and on my shoes! There were no employees around to help out, so I went to one of the cashiers, she gave me paper towels for my hands, and then wiped the floor some. Embarassing.

Later on we walked around the town of Oberhelm a bit. They also, like Bacharach, have an amazing and even more extensive set of town walls that you can walk around, so we locked up our bikes and did so.

Then we got to St Goar, and went straight up to Rheinfels. We left the bikes below, it was a steep walk up. Great old castle ruins, the castle itself was destroyed by the French in the early 1800's - Napolean era. For some reason there were way more Americans around than there normally are. I had a little conversation with the guy selling tickets, I asked why so many of the towns here have walls all around them, he said they were something like "toll towns". Basically the aristocrats that lived in them (the castles above them) held the river boats hostage and forced them to pay tolls. They were all on one side of the river (left side) because going upstream, they had to be pulled by oxen and mules, and were slow and vulnerable. Going downstream the boats were fast enough to evade the toll collectors. Then some of the merchant organizations (or something like that) paid for a mercenary army to attack these nobles, to prevent them from extracting so much from them. I got the impression it didn't work the first time, but did work eventually. Anyway, he was the second person today who thought I was Dutch.

One thing I've been noticing here is that the cashiers, people selling tickets at the attractions, etc, are often people that seem a little higher caliber, more capable, than people doing the same jobs in the US would be.

I've bought butter to spread on my cold cuts, cheese, etc. I was inspired by reading about an Appalachian Trail hiker in the US whose trail name was Butter - apparently he wanted to spread the word, that butter actually doesn't go bad that quickly, and can be good for backpacking. Anyway, it's been a mixed bag. It's gotten quite warm, and while I have it in a plastic bag, it's gotten a little messy, especially with the wrapper. Maybe the next time I do this, I'll take it out of the wrapper.

Got to the hotel for tonight - 56 Euros for the night, very cheap, includes breakfast (we'll see how it is). The owner or manager is Russian (or Ukrainian?). The room is decent enough but not updated. We had to put our bikes down in a little cellar/dungeon underneath the house, it was pretty awkward down some steps and it was definitely not a place you could take them out just for a short jaunt.

Then resting, and dinner out in down. I had a little mini steak with fries that Peter ate. There were 2 really drunk guys at a table nearby, one brit and one american. The next place we're at (Koblentz, 2 days at an AirBnB with cooking facilities), I'm really looking forward to making some food for myself.

A decent breakfast buffet at the hotel in St Goar. The hotel itself was old and not updated, but a nice change from the standard cookie cutter hotels, like the one we were in, in Mainz. And everything still worked out fine. Though that "dungeon" for the bikes - wow, was it tough to get the bikes in and out. I'll bet some people have gotten injured hauling bikes up and down the stairs.

The ride up to Koblenz was easy and smooth, well paved, however, about 80% of it was RIGHT next to the highway, which is a huge drag. Even though there's a solid barrier between the bikes and the road, I don't like to constantly be next to cars. There were a few segments where the valley spread out a little, and we weren't right next to the road, but not so many. We stopped at a little roadside cafe (beautiful shade, right next to the water) and I talked to a guy who had a folding bike, and a huge load, who was actually biking pretty fast - he passed us. He was pretty chatty, I asked him if there were other bike trails that were less crowded, and he said this wasn't that crowded in his opinion, and that it would get lots worse in a couple weeks. Which is when we'll be gone, fortunately.

I'm still contemplating where we'll go when we hit Koblentz. The original plan was the Rhine, as far as we could towards the end, then I was thinking switch to the Mosel, but now I just really want to take a look at the bike trail, and see how much of it is NOT right next to the road, vs right next to the road.

A fair number of solitary bikers. Like that guy on the folding bike, and the lady that was behind us for a good while. I guess they can't find someone to bike with? Seems lonely.

We stopped for a while in the town of Boppard, just for a break. Peter played his clarinet for a while, we had a snack, and we went to some Roman ruins in town (which were VERY poorly signed, just a completely incomprehensible/unusable map). People in general are not all that friendly - definitely not as friendly As in France - but when Peter was playing his clarinet, many of them looked over at him, nodded and smiled.

Lots and lots of older people walking around. And here's what I've noticed - when they're on their walks, it seems that MOST of them are carrying these walking sticks. Why, I don't understand - they're just walking on paved paths. I can kind of understand it when hiking down steep hills, for stability, but for these paved paths I really don't.

Once in Koblentz, we were biking along the river path, very pleasant and green and treed. Unfortunately Peter and I had a little minor collision - just doing a last minute change of direction. My bike's fine, no damage, his bike's handlebar was loosened. But I somehow really banged my left hand, and now my wrist hurts quite a bit. We were able to get Peter's handlebar fixed up - I asked a group of what looked like older teen boys on a longer bike trip if they had any tools, they did have some, and lent Peter the tools to tighten his handlebar.

We got to the AirBnB with no problem except that there was a big detour. I asked a fellow biker who looked local how to get to our place, taking in consideration the detour (was using Google maps to nagivate, but it had no idea about the construction). She was very friendly and got us going.

Then to the AirBnB, it's nice and fairly new, with a decent kitchen. Even before taking a shower I walked over to the Lidl grocery store and bought food - ground beef, eggs, cheese, butter, cream, bread and fruit for Peter. I cooked up some of the ground beef immediately, it was great.

Rested, then out. We biked around the Deutches Eck, around the old town, went into a mall (by the way - either not air-conditioned, or very inadequately air-conditioned). I found a Teddi store (kind of like dollar store) and bought a container for the butter I'm bringing with us. My previous plan, having it in the package in a plastic bag, was really not workable when it got soft from the heat.

Both Peter and I have a mild sore throat, Peter also has a bit of a stuffy nose. Nothing serious, thank goodness.

Breakfast of eggs - I bought a carton of 18 eggs, so we need to eat them up. The kitchen is fine for things like that. Then we went out to Ehrenbreitenstein Castle, took the cable car up there. Wandered around the exhibits (interesting archeology exhibits, unfortunately there was very little in English, so Peter mainly read on his kindle. Great old huge castle, some large school groups came through as well (these school groups are everywhere!). They had lunch at the nearby youth hostel while we were there having a snack. The youth hostel snack bar was a hot mess - very slow service, the lady behind the food counter running away from the front desk multiple times to get various things from the back, and from other places. I think it shows the inefficiency of some of these non-profit outfits. The place nearby that Peter got an ice cream at (1.50 for an ice cream cone, decent deal) was much more efficient. Then a little rest at home, and trying in vain to get the laundry done in this little student housing apartment (there was a laundry setup in the basement, but you had to download an app, and login, and it was a huge hassle, I decided to just do a few things by hand).

Out again to hang out a bit and read on the riverside, Peter played his clarinet for a while. We went to a pizza restaurant, just Peter got a pizza, and brought half of it home.

Called Eric and Jean. We're headed to Bad Breisig tomorrow, about 36k downriver. The foreast is for rain in the afternoon - hope we're lucky with the timing.

Another hot day, up to 86 degrees in the afternoon and pretty humid. Peter seemed to be feeling his cold a little more, in the afternoon, but we made it to the hotel without a problem. We actaully got to Bad Breisig around 1.30, and hung out at the riverside park for a while.

Fun sights along the way - somebody had left a pile of old bread right on the path, for the birds. There were a lot of birds there, but there were also 4 muskrats, going after the bread! And a swan came after Peter, and started hissing at him, very strange.

One thing to note here - it's hot. None of the stores have any kind of air conditioning or anything, except sometimes grocery stores. Only one of the bed and breakfasts/hotels has had a fan. I guess it doesn't get hot very often, but when it does, it's both hot and humid.

Another thing I'm noticing here - there's a lot of solitary older people, walking little dogs around. Seems like quite a bit more than in the US. Maybe a part of it is that people live more out in the open here, in the US you can easily spend lots more time inside. There's a lot less "walking around on the street" in the US compared to here.

And I hate to say this, but Germans are quite a bit less friendly than the French were, based on our bike trip last year to France. They were just much easier to talk to, they greeted you much more readily. Maybe it's because this area is more touristy? It really is, there are SO many more tourists than along the Loire.

We're spending the night in Pension Rheinspaziert. Cute little place, the room is nice. They opened the door remotely (told me the key code to open it via the speaker at the door), and we'll only see them tomorrow morning, at breakfast.

There were a couple rainstorms this afternoon. It contributed to some cooling down, but now it's even more humid, and only somewhat cooler. Dinner was at a kebab place, very decent, I had my standard kebab beef plate, and also some Aryan which is really growing on me, I like it. The kebab place was a family affair, the husband worked the kitchen, wife was in the dining area with the kids.

Beautiful day, and quite a bit cooler than yesterday, thank goodness. A nice breakfast (11 Euros, it's almost always separate now and not included in the price of the stay). I had a nice chat with the owner of the Pension, she was quite friendly. She's planning a trip to the US with the whole family and took down St George as a possible place to visit.

Also - Peter's birthday, he is now 17!

Aside from the bike ride today the main event was a visit to Drachenfels via a little cog-wheel train. Honestly the train ride was far too short - I don't even think it was 5 minutes. Probably should have walked it. And the ruin on top was TINY, it was basically just one old tower that you couldn't go into. Definitely not worth it.

However, the actual Drachenfels palace was definitely worth it, a beautiful old mock Gothic late Victorian palace, and completed furnished and decorated. Lots of beautiful rooms to admire, and also the North Tower. We had lunch at the terrace, with a beautiful view of the Rhine, Bonn, and out in the distance, Cologne.

I had a good chat with a lady at Drachenfels, 3 boys. The mom was speaking German, the boys were speaking English. She's from Germany, they live in the US, husband works at AMD in the Bay area. We got on the topic of the German personality. She said that in the US, she's known to her friends as a pessimist, however with friends and family in Germany she's the optimist, always happy. She said that everyone in Germany seems to be unhappy, with a frown. Maybe a bit extreme, but I think there's definitely some truth to it. In general, people are less open and friendly than they were in France.

The rest of the trip into Bonn was a dream - on the right bank, it was a lovely park for a really long stretch approaching the city. Just nothing but big lawns, cafes, playgrounds. So many places you'd like to go to again, but that won't happen anytime soon.

We're in a new hotel, very close to the water. It took forever to check in - we were waiting at least 30 minutes in line. And they had everybody fill out a form - none of the other booking.com reservations have required that. The room is nice though, and even has air conditioning. Later in the afternoon we walked around the old town pedestrian area, which is very close by and also very extensive. There's a great bookstore there - Thalia - which is HUGE but Peter didn't want to hang out there long, and I gave in since it's his birthday.

We stopped at an ice cream shop and got Peter a huge strawberry ice cream dish for his birthday. About one third of the ice cream options were marked vegan! I've noticed that here, there's a LOT more pushing of vegan foods. At McDonalds there's a McPlant section of the menu. And in the grilling advertisemens for grocery stores, they have huge sections for the vegan grilling options.

There is an INSANE amount of diversity here. I don't even recognize many of the languages that people speak. People are from absolutely everywhere. There doesn't appear to be a tremendous amount of mixing of different groups. For instance, you'll a group of 5 or so young men, like Peter's age, speaking Arabic. I guess that means they're not integrated, pretty much at all. Because at that age, if you're integrated, you'll be speaking the language of your new country, German.

My cold has transitioned to a bit of a cough. It's still amazing to me that it hasn't actually prevented me from doing the heavy exercise of biking and walking uphill a lot, that I've been doing. Previously, a cold often really slowed me down, and I'd stay in bed. I attribute it to the carnivore diet.

I wondered while in Bad Breisig - so many of the older, very historic (like probably 1600's or 1700's) homes - they really looked deserted. I'll bet that the vast majority of them actually are deserted. Should have asked at the pension while I was there.

Something I noticed - many, many more women are wearing dresses and skirts here. A huge percentage, maybe 50? Anyway, it's not completely uncommon, like it is in the US.

Another observation - the level of obesity here is rising, compared to previous times that I visited Europe. I'd say that it's maybe like the US was, but around 20 or 30 years ago. There's definitely far more overweight people here than there was when I lived in Austria for the summers, back in the mid 1980's. You really almost never saw an overweight child, and now you see them all the time. Not as much as in the US though, of course.