DAY EIGHT: RHINE VALLEY

Day Seven (Cologne to Koblenz) Daily Distance: 108.40 kms

Day Eight (Koblenz to Mainz) Daily Distance: 104.99 kms

Total Distance: 750.15 kms

Ok I’ve calmed down somewhat. Perhaps it was our visit to a stunning 13^thC Roman Catholic Cathedral yesterday, a fine Sunday morning, that cleared my mind. Of course, this is the most famous sight in Cologne, so we had to ride past it first thing in the morning. Please note that it has the second-tallest spires and largest façade of any church in the world, and was built to be the place of worship of the Holy Roman Emperor ... but unfortunately he chose Prague instead. (I hope you’ve all heard of Charles IV who was crowned in Bonn, but built the castle, bridge, University, old town etc in Prague because he loved it more..?) Maybe he was sick of waiting, since it took them over 600 years to complete!!



Pity I couldn’t escape tram lines in the photo, sorry!

Yesterday was filled with stunning scenery since we followed the magnificent Rhine all day. To top it off, there were certainly no navigational troubles considering all we had to do was keep the water on our left. Our only complaint was that there were a few too many pedestrians and cyclists to navigate through and around, especially given that it was a Sunday.

View of a typical Rhine Valley town!

We had our morning coffee overlooking Bonn, the former capital of Federal Republic of Germany (also known as West Germany) and the river running through it. There were two distinct highlights here:

i)                    Meeting Katrina from Kosovo, who absolutely didn’t understand what I was trying to say when I congratulated her country for being the newest in Europe and second newest in the world (before you ask the question: South Sudan, in 2011); and

ii)                   Alan trying his best to speak to Katrina from Kosovo in German and managing, in just two sentences, to speak both Italian and Dutch, but not a word of German.

Speaking of languages, I was under the impression that both Dan and Jim speak ‘OK’ German. What I have come to learn over the past few days is that: a) these two fine gentleman are proficient in overstating their skills; b) not one local has even for half a sentence believed that either of them can speak German; and c) my 4-year-old cousin speaks better German then both of them combined (and I don’t even have a 4-year-old cousin).

We had our lunch in a riverside cafe in Remagen, and later on I of course spotted a fruit stand so we had grapes and peaches for afternoon tea. Alan didn’t get his ice cream, therefore, but didn’t kick up too much of a stink about it – publicly, anyway.

We had intended on making it to Boppard but it turned out to be a bit further than we’d first thought, and by five o’clock with 108 kms racked up already, we were ready to settle down – Koblenz was it. This gave us a chance to check out the Deutsches Eck, or German corner, which is a lovely peninsula at the confluence of the Rhine and the Moselle. It was appropriate that we saw this on the same day as Bonn because during the Cold War the German Corner was turned into a monument to German unity, even including pieces of the old Berlin Wall.

The Moselle (FR) / Mosel (GER)

Today we continued up the Rhine from Koblenz to Mainz. En route we passed many towns that were greatly familiar to me because of my prior job as Tour Manager for groups that regularly stayed in this valley: Boppard, Bad Salzig, St Goar, and Bingen. It was at Bingen that we had lunch, but not before we managed to split into two pairs who knew not each other’s locations. Alan and I, being the responsible and mature fellows, were worried about the whereabouts and welfare of our fellow cyclists, while as it turned out, Jim and Dan were too busy reminiscing about the old days when they schooled together to remember that there were two more of us. While Alan and I instigated plans A through E to track them down, they were having a leisurely lunch 20km down the road!

It was Jim and Irene’s wedding anniversary today, and he was very excited to learn that she had sent an anniversary card with me to deliver to him today. He cherished it so much that at every stop or meal of the day, he carefully pulled the card out of his bag and placed it on the table so that it, or she, could share every moment of the day with us.

Tonight I was met with a very exciting surprise tonight when I discovered that your generosity in sponsorship has helped boost my fundraising total for Parkinsons’ UK to £2,798.28, just £612.00 short of my target. If you haven't had a chance yet, you can help to fill that £612.00 hole by visiting www.virginmoneygiving.com/parri. Thanks very much to everyone who has supported this great cause. I wear with pride my cycling jersey that you can see in the photo below, which reads: “PEDAL FOR PARKINSON’S).

(A developing sotry: My achilles is killing me. No, this is not some symbolic metaphor; I mean the actual body part. Not sure why it was a bit sore for the last day or two, but it was nothing that would impede my riding. It was the same story yesterday, until the last 5 minutes when I was in considerable pain, which carried through the day today. It’s been iced and hopefully will be OK tomorrow. The lads suggested that I catch a boat along to Rhine to have a day’s rest, but they should have known I could never cheat like that.)