"It's always something with you, isn't Joe?", Meg Ryan, in Joe Versus the Volcano.
Up until today, there was always something that made our ride more challenging. Too hot. Wind in our face. Too much uphill. Route finding difficulties. Traffic. Rain. It was always something. Never enough to ruin the day (except maybe our "Perfect Stupid" day) but always something to up the challenge a bit. But, not today. It was perfect. Wind at our back. Temperatures in the low 70's. Slight downhill. Route right along the river with great scenery. No rain. No traffic. Perfect.
We started our day with our included breakfast at the hostel. We met Jaymes, our second American of the trip, an IT guy of 37 who decided to quit the job he hated (he said he actually cried on his way to work some days) and began to pursue photography (hello Joel!). He travels around Europe shooting, living off savings and doing weddings for income. We only had about half an hour with him, but enjoyed getting to hear his story.
What a way to start a ride. Back down the hill from the hostel into Bacharach, under the train tracks and onto the cycle track heading downstream.
We are still in the "Romantic Rhine" gorge. Castles and vineyards. The river flows fairly swift here. This means you can actually tell the trail is going down hill. With the wind at our backs, we enjoyed a few hours of 13-14 mph easy riding.
A word about the Rhine gorge. It's got nothing on the Columbia gorge for physical beauty. The Columbia has higher hills encasing it. The Columbia is a bigger river. The Columbia is far less developed. What the Rhine gorge has is Castles, 38 of them, timber framed houses, quaint towns (very touristy) and lots of legends. The Rhine makes a couple of twists then goes around a rock promontory called the "Loreley". This river has been a center of shipping for over 1000 years. Many ships had trouble negotiating these turns in the fast moving water and cracked up on the rocks. Legends grew about fair maidens enticing ship captains with their sweet songs to approach too close to the rocks and ultimately disaster. Without the legends and history (and tourist promotion) the Loreley is an ordinary brush covered rock outcrop about 300 feet high. Not impressive at all, geologically speaking. But surround it with castles, timber framed villages, legends, huge ships churning by with danger on all sides and a good promotional program and it becomes something more.
We stopped in Boppard at a bakery for lunch rolls and a desert, then found a nice riverside picnic bench to enjoy our meal.
We stopped on the outskirts of Koblenz at a Biergarten for chips, a bratwurst, a beer and some water near the Koblenzer brewery, then rode into town to where the Mosel River joins the Rhine.
The city of Koblenz has done a magnificent job with their waterfront park. It is about two miles long, right on the Rhine, until it joins the Mosel. The "V" formed at the confluence is all park. There is HUGE statue overlooking the confluence. It was destroyed during WWII bombing, but they welded it back together. I am going to have to take a critical look at our statues and monuments in the U.S. Here, they all seem militaristic, extolling the virility of the German nation as conquerors. Probably just my bias. I'll have to observe and think more about it.
Our camping grounds were on the other side of the Mosel, just a 10 minute ride to an upstream bridge then back downstream to the Mosel's mouth. We found a patch of ground that still had green grass, pitched the tent and then rode back into Koblenz to see the center of town. This town was totally bombed to ruins in WWII, so everything we see is rebuilt. We spent a little time cruising the crowded streets on our bikes (Saturday evening), then returned to the tent and met our neighbors, a couple from Wales, newly retired, out for four weeks of cycling. She was a French teacher. He did real estate. Finally, crawled into the tent at dark.
All hatches are battened down. Forecast says two days of unremitting rain ahead, starting some time after midnight. Operation "Try to stay dry". Does this mean we are about to pay for our perfect day of cycling? Can't we just have two in a row?
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