2022 at last sees the opportunity to realise my ambition to cycle to Berlin, setting off from my home in South Somerset on 21st September to catch a ferry from Portsmouth to Ouistreham in Normandy and then cycling north east through some of the ancient cities of northern France and north of the Eifel mountains into Belgium and the Netherlands before crossing into Germany and the mighty River Rhine at Cologne. My journey then takes me south of the Harz mountains to Leipzig and Dresden, through what was East Germany and then north to my final destination , Berlin. This year I’m taking my time, spending a couple of days each in Leipzig and Dresden and then 3 days in Berlin, exploring the city and Potsdam with its palaces before returning home by car with my son who is driving out to collect me.

Day 1 – Heading for the coast

The day dawned bright and virtually windless, no change from much of this summer, and I hung around at home until 11 o’clock so that I wouldn’t have to do the hanging around in Portsmouth waiting for the ferry to depart at 9.30pm. I’d already packed my bags: now down to a fine art with a spreadsheet to help me remember what I took last year.  There is a plethora of electrical equipment, including a charger for the Fazua motor on the bike.  The charger connects with a simple figure of eight lead so I bought a cheap one off ebay  with a euro plug on the end of it so I don’t have to take an adapter.  I have a 6 way USB with a euro plug which serves to charge, phone, garmin and lights for the bike.  I’ve got a neat case that came with the Fazua into which I can put most of this, although some needs to be stowed separately. Clothes are all crammed into two dry bags in case of disaster.  The panniers are waterproof but when one went into the canal last year the contents suffered slightly.

I’ve travelled this route many times in either direction and, because I was uncertain if I would be able to charge anything on Brittany ferries I decided to try not to use the motor at all.  Hartmoor Hill out of the Vale goes up to about 10% and I reckoned if I could make it up there I would have no problem for the rest of the day and so it proved.  I didn’t switch the motor on at all and found it fairly easy which is amazing considering I’m dragging about an extra 20kgs of luggage with me.  The cycling was enjoyable and I found myself at the Penruddocke Arms, just the Wilton side of Dinton at lunchtime so I called in for a pint of Inch’s cider and scampi and chips.  The menu was a bit thin and there was no draught ale, I suspect a reflection of the fact that the pub trade is suffering badly.  The food was fine with some very tasty chips but the whole pub is looking a bit sorry for itself.

I went straight through the middle of Salisbury and out on the A36 before branching off onto side roads across country through Alderbury, the Grimsteads and West Dean, heading for Romsey.  In the past I have gone through Mottisfont but this time I headed in via Awbridge.  I slightly lost myself on cycle paths through Romsey but eventually made it to North Baddesley and along the A27 and A33 with some fast moving traffic which was rather uncomfortable.  It was then A roads all the way across the River Itchen at St Denys

and the Hamble at Bursledon =

before seeing the sea, albeit Portsmouth Harbour, at Porchester. I thought I’d take the opportunity to buy some fruit and snacks in Aldi as I knew Brittany ferries terminal was pretty dire for food and by the time I arrived it was dark enough to turn on front and back lights.

So there I was, enjoying my picnic, in plenty of time for the ferry when I had the sudden, awful realisation that my passport was still in the drawer at home.  SO MUCH FOR THE SPREADSHEET!  I had a vain hope that Rob could jump in his car and make it just in time before the gates closed and he, heroically, left the pub where, fortunately, he’d only just started his drink, raced back to get the passport and set off on a journey that would take a minimum of 1 hour 40 minutes and leave about 10 minutes before the ferry was due to sail. When I gave it some thought, it was pretty obvious he wouldn’t make it in time and I rang him back and gave him the option of continuing or bringing it down early the next morning for me to catch the 0815 ferry.  He decided to keep going and pulled in in time to wave the ferry goodbye, but at least I had a passport for the following day.  What a great start to my trip…………..

Day 2 – a day wasted

Day 2 – A day wasted

Having got the passport I made my way to the Brittany Ferries counter to explain what had happened and ask that they change my ticket for the 0815 ferry on Thursday.  Amazingly they did this without a murmur or additional charge so at least I could get across to Caen. I then had to consider how to proceed.  The ferry would get in to Ouistreham, which is the port of Caen at about 1500hrs local time.  Now it was pretty obvious that riding 70 miles across unfamiliar territory was going to take at least six hours which would mean, even if I was able to get past the French Immigration officers quickly, arriving in Rouen after 9pm, long after dark, although being an hour ahead of us the daylight hours are lengthened.  The thought didn’t appeal so I went to Plan B, last used in Italy in 2017 when my back wheel collapsed, and looked up the train times from Caen to Rouen.  The wonders of the internet and the pretty good SNCF website had a 28 euro ticket booked and paid for, including the promise of bike space. Sorted.

I now had the wonderful prospect of a night in the Brittany Ferries Terminal or a hotel.  Being a cheapskate I opted for the former, not realising that they closed down about midnight.  The security boys duly kicked me out into the cold at about 12.30 am and I spent a miserable 5 hours with all the clothing I could muster to keep me tolerably warm.  Thank God it didn’t rain.  Boy was I glad when the lights came on at about 0530 and I was able to get back inside.  I packed everything up and made my way to the gate at 0700, as the sun was beginning to show its face, and I was on board and dozing on a calm sea by 0800. 

The crossing takes about 5 hours 45 ,and I was able to get something to eat, have a very rudimentary clean up and get some light sleep before we docked pretty much on time.  There was one fellow cyclist on board and we made our way to the bow and were first off, although a few cars passed us on the way to the immigration booth.  I’m afraid I queue barged and a very nice French Customs lady beckoned us to the front of the queue and we were through in good time.

 The train was due to leave Caen at 1702 so I now had plenty of time to catch it.  There is a wonderful bike path all the way from Ouistreham to Caen, alongside the canal, passing Pegasus Bridge, the capture of which by a daring British airborne force who had left Tarrant Rushton in Dorset in gliders on D day 1944 helped secure the Allied invasion.

The present bridge is a larger and wider replacement, built to look similar and the original sits alongside the canal in a museum. I bowled along but misjudged my route in Caen and had to backtrack a couple of times.  However I was at the Gare de Caen by 1620 and the train pulled into the station at about 1645, giving us plenty of time to board.  There were no less than 8 bikes on the train that left Caen, two more than there was provision for.  I was able to get one of the hooks by which you hang your bike by the front wheel, but there were a couple of people who had to stand by their machines for part of the journey. 

The countryside of Normandy is very similar to the English West Country  and, as at home, all the crops are in store and the fields being readied for next years crops. We crossed the Seine on a couple of occasions as it meanders its way in huge bows to the English Channel before arriving at the Art Nouveau terminus of Rouen Rive Droite, still in broad daylight, at about 6.40pm. 

I plumbed the route to my cheap hotel into the phone and easily found my way the mile and a half through the town, the cathedral under heavy scaffolding. It’s a bed for the night but it’s pretty seedy and not expensive.

Day 3 Rouen to Amiens

Brit Hotel Rouen lies away from the town centre but not far enough to put you off exploring. The outside is very unprepossessing and it doesn’t improve much in reception. 



I was signed in by a lady who gave me all the information I needed and allowed me to put the bike in the Conference Room.  My room on the first floor was perfectly adequate but looked shabby and unloved.  There was no plug in the basin which made washing clothes difficult but I managed and they dried overnight. Only one electric point in the room meant I had to do a couple of shifts, first with the bike battery and then the USBs.  The former hardly needed anything so it was easy to manage. Madame on reception suggested I stroll into town and eat at a brasserie called Madame,

which I did and very good it was too.  I started with Kromesky, three good sized croquettes with imaginative salad and then went onto an excellent chicken supreme with plenty of veg.  I could have gone for a formule at 34 euros giving me a pudding, but I left it at that and with a large Pelforth beer the bill came to 33 euros.  The restaurant is beside an old covered market a la Covent Garden and there were groups drinking at the bars around the square.  I wandered back and wrote up the blog for the first two days before crashing into a very comfortable double bed which gave me a good night‘s rest.     

Having been unimpressed with the hotel so far, breakfast came as a big surprise with just about anything you wanted including, ham, salami and eggs and some very good Normandy cheese for 8 euros.  I ate well as I didn’t intend to stop for lunch and then packed up my panniers and left them in the Conference Room saying I would return about 11 to collect them and depart. 

Rouen is an historic wonder. Just about every corner you turn opens new vistas of old timbered buildings or churches around cobbled streets

What I took for the cathedral on my way down from the station last night was the St Ouen Abbey,

undergoing extensive renovation and covered in scaffolding and plastic. I walked around it but it was not open so I headed down the hill to the Cathedral, again partly covered in scaffold inside and out.  It has a massive organ loft

which I feel sure makes the ground tremble but there was no one on the keys whilst I was there.  It’s slightly disappointing inside with little stained glass, but the outside has some magnificent stone tracery and sculptures and was well worth the visit.

Rouen is probably most famous for being the city in which Joan of Arc was imprisoned and then burned alive at the stake for heresy in 1431 during the 100 year’s war.  Although nearly all the clergy and judges who participated in the trial were French it was the English who imprisoned her and were keen to prove her guilt to maintain their claim to much of France.  The grisly execution took place in the Old Marketplace, now the site of a modern church, designed by Louis Arretche and consecrated in 1979,

which dominates the square.  It is most interesting with sweeping curves but overshadows the simple obelisk that marks the spot of the execution before her ashes were consigned to the River Seine. I didn’t have time to go inside but I’m sure it would have been a great experience with some excellent stained glass.  I greatly enjoyed my wander through the city and was back at the hotel, as promised, to leave at 11am.

There is a substantial climb up from the Seine out of the city and I managed it without using the motor.  Once on top of the hill there was little serious climbing for the rest of the day but once I was up there it started spitting with rain and stayed like that for the rest of the journey.  I donned my rain jacket but about half way to Amiens I was cold enough to stop in an interesting covered market

and put on a wind jacket as well.  The journey was tedious, lots of very straight roads with little variation of scenery, fields of maize, mostly harvested, and bare cereal stubbles and growing oilseed rape interspersed with deciduous woods. Someone had built this amusing maize harvester out of straw bales to advertise a local event.

I passed through Forges-les-Eaux where the great and good came to take the waters as early as the 17^th century, which has now become an upmarket resort with a vulgar casino building built in 1902 to replace one destroyed by fire and the area around Marlers is covered with wind turbines which weren’t doing much in the still weather. 

I can never quite understand why some work whilst others are stationary but that always seems to be the case.

At one point I came sweeping down a hill and passed the Hippodrome of Mauquenchy where they stage trtting races throughout November.

The last 15 miles of the journey were steadily downhill but on  a busy road which didn’t help but I finally reached Amiens and followed my navigators to the Youth Hostel where I am staying.  The problem is that I couldn’t find it.  I went round and round in circles and even asked in bad French but still it eluded me until I went round one more corner and there it was.  It is clearly a university hall with perfectly adequate room and ensuite shower room but, as seems to be the case with Youth Hostels no towels are supplied.  I had one in my bag so was able to dry myself but I usually make use of hotel towels to squeeze dry my washed cycling gear.  I may have to pack it wet tomorrow and hope I can do a better job at my next stop in a proper hotel.  However there is a radiator in the room that is giving out a bit of heat so I may be lucky.

Day 4 – The battlefields

 The Auberge Jeunesse (Youth Hostel) at Amiens is far enough away from the city centre to put you off exploring but it is cheap and clean and typical of its kind.  The rooms are a good size with a small but powerful shower and a single bed which, if you’re used to sleeping in a double, does not make for maximum comfort: however the mattress was firmly soft and the sheets and duvet clean but the pillow left a lot to be desired.  Because it is a student room there were no less than 6 power points, so charging was absolutely no problem.  I cleaned myself and my clothes and left them to dry by the open window which worked a treat in conjunction with a weakly heated radiator.

I went for a stroll around the locality and found one Italian pizza joint which didn’t look great so, knowing that I could get dinner at the Hostel I returned and asked the deal.  The restaurant was behind the hostel, and I had found it when looking for the hostel earlier. The deal was a choice of salad type starter (tuna salad for me) and then beef or fish, neither of which looked very appetising, but I chose the beef with rice and green beans (it was pretty awful, but I ate it anyway).  The best thing was the choice of dessert, and I had a very nice, iced chocolate brownie.  There were no drinks on offer apart from water.  It filled a hole and for 13 euros I suppose I shouldn’t complain.

I was tired enough to sleep pretty well and woke up to my alarm at 7am.  Back to the restaurant for breakfast – yoghurt, cereals, bread rolls, cheese slices and ham with coffee and tea of all sorts included in the room price.  I ate well, not intending to stop for lunch and departed at about 0830. I thought I would explore the city and went wrong several times trying to find the cathedral. 

It is the largest cathedral in France, but I didn’t go inside as it wasn’t open when I arrived.  I had read that Jules Verne the author lived in Amiens for several years and was a member of the town council, championing the building of a permanent circus and arts centre which stands to this day. 

His house is also open to the public, but I passed by.  Amiens is also known for its hortillonages, a mosaic of floating gardens and waterways, privately owned by over 1000 people who tend flowers and vegetables for their own enjoyment.  Punts, powered by electric motors

take people on guided tours but I was able to have a brief look from a cycle path that weaves its way through the centre. 

As it was Saturday there was a thriving produce market

and also a craft market by the cathedral.  Allied aircraft destroyed much of the city in 1944 and it has been largely rebuilt., although the cathedral survived largely intact.

 I didn’t get on my way until 11 am, the road up from the Somme valley quite steep until I hit the main road to Albert.  The climb continued generally upwards for the first 30 miles, none of it especially steep but roller coasting up and down on a fairly busy road.  I was now entering First World War battlefields. My starting point, Amiens had been largely held by the Allied troops during the Great War.  The Germans briefly captured it in 1914 but were driven back a few months later and the city became a rest and recreation area for the Allied troops.  The railhead was critical to the Allied war effort but once there the troops had to make their way by foot or truck to the front lines which in September 1916 were about 25 miles northeast of Amiens.  The bloody Battle of the Somme took place between July and November 1916, by which time both sides were living in a mud bath and barely able to fight.  The first day of the battle claimed 19240 British lives with over 57000 casualties, the worst ever for the British army.  Also involved were troops from Australia, Canada, South Africa and New Zealand.  Over the whole offensive a staggering million + men on both sides had perished.

The road I was travelling was pretty much arrow straight for the 22 miles to Albert but rolling through rather more interesting countryside than yesterday. There were wooded ridges and some deep valleys.  The beet harvest, whether sugar or fodder I don’t know, was in full swing with gigantic elevators set up beside the road to fill the lorries. Presumably all the trees must be less than 100 years old as anything growing was destroyed during the war.  With apologies to Siegfried Sassoon for taking him out of context but the thought of the army moving on foot to the front line reminded me of his poem The General and the lines “he’s a cheery old card said Harry to Jack as they trudged up to Arras with rifle and pack, but he did for them both with his plan of attack.

In Albert is the museum of 1916. I locked up the bike and for 7.50 euros walked underground for about half a mile through a concrete tunnel filled with artifacts and detritus that has been dug up, as well as tableaux of what it was like to live on the Front. 

It was interesting and sobering to think of the gigantic loss of life and those who returned from the battle maimed either physically or mentally.  As I continued my journey, I came across the cemeteries which sit beside the road,

rows of white crosses and headstones, all beautifully maintained and other large memorials of the Imperial armies. 

Interestingly I saw no German cemeteries.

I bypassed Cambrai, at one point having to push my bike through mud.  I was directed to turn left into a cabbage field with no apparent track. I found an alternative route, but it was slow going and the chain was making some rather nasty noises.  Hopefully no lasting damage.

I came across a wedding party, ladies dressed in their finery and young children excited to be a part of it.  It started to rain, and I put on my jacket and sheltered for a short while under a tree.  The sound of shotguns filled the air:  I think it must have been a clay pigeon arena because it went on for so long, but a covey of partridges got up and flew across in front of me and a pheasant burst from the fodder beet crop.

Sixty miles in I joined the Canal de Sensee, a large body of water which joins the rivers Scarpe and Scheldt.  There were substantial barges moving through a lock

and I saw several others loading tree trunks.  I stayed on the tow path for seven miles of variable surfaces making me think again about the wisdom of using canal paths. Now only six miles from my destination I joined a road with heavy fast moving traffic but I was on a separate cycle path so able to avoid it all before turning off into an industrial estate to find my hotel.  B&B Hotels are a French chain equivalent to Travelodge.  Cheap and cheerful with a room large enough for my muddy bike, and a comfortable bed.

Day 5 – Canals and more canals

B&B Hotels are a French chain founded in Brest about 30 years ago and now with a worldwide presence of over 600 hotels and growing daily.  They are majority owned by Goldman Sachs and cater for much the same market as Travelodge in the UK.  The hotel at Rouvignies was formerly an Ibis budget hotel

and looks a bit tired.  My room was big enough for my bike and a double bed and had an ensuite bath with a shower over it.  Try as hard as I might I could not get the shower to work so eventually gave up and wallowed in a bath which eased the aches and pains of the day.  The bath was also very handy to wash off my mud-caked panniers and, as the basin had no plug, I washed my clothes in the bath and hung them over the excellent radiator to dry.  As In Rouen there was only one power point, but I managed to get everything charged.

The Hotel was offering breakfast in the morning but no food at night.  When I asked for advice, I was pointed at the adjoining Novotel or why not try O Grand Buffet about a seven-minute walk away, so I did.  The concept is to take an industrial warehouse and fill it full of tables and provide buffet food from around the world, as well as having a team of cooks preparing raw food in Woks that you have picked from the display, at a fixed price. The first problem was getting there.  You could see the back of it from the hotel but to get to it I had to walk to the busy main road and then against the traffic on a narrow verge.  That achieved I was greeted by a highly efficient Chinese maitre d who immediately seated me at a table for 2, followed rapidly by a waitress asking for my drink order so I had a large glass of draught 1664 within a couple of minutes.  The place is vast: there must have been at least 500 seats, and most were full by the time I arrived.  As soon as punters left the table was cleared and ready for the next group. Drink prices are high, 5.80 euros for a 50cl beer and decent Cote de Rhone for about 25 euros but as much food as you can eat for 21.90 euros was a bargain for a hungry man. They have cold meats and salads, shellfish including langoustines and oysters and sushi – help yourself and come back for more.  Then on to Chinese food of all sorts, chicken and beef dishes with green beans and potatoes, or go and pick raw meat and fish to be cooked to order.  Then, if you could manage them, a large array of desserts!  I must admit I ate more than was good for me, but I learned a new word – gaspillage which means waste and the entreaty not to take more than you can eat and throw it away.  So, two beers and a full stomach for 33 euros seemed a good deal.  I retired to compose the blog.

Unfortunately, the bed, which seemed comfortable enough when I sat on it, proved otherwise and I had a disturbed night, probably not helped by the over-eating.  I got up at about 8 and went along the corridor for breakfast.  The usual croissants and pain au chocolat with cereals and yoghurt as well as some not very appetising looking eggs, bacon and sausages.  All the hotels so far have had the same dispenser of coffee of all sorts, hot chocolate and hot water for various types of tea and there was apple and orange juice on tap.  At 58.14 euros B&B it was good value.

Being 15 minutes outside the town of Valenciennes meant there was nothing to see in the area so I set off just before 10 and cycled around the town, following the tram tracks,

heading for Conde-sur-l’Escaut where I could join the canal de Mons.  I crossed the Escaut river

and made my way along a cycle path next to a large Etang that was being enjoyed by plenty of walkers on a fine Sunday morning.

I then had to scramble down a bank and over a ditch to get onto the canal path which soon deteriorated into a sticky muddy mess.  For the next couple of miles, until I crossed the Belgian border I struggled to stay upright where the ground had been churned up by machinery clearing adjoining woodland.  At one point I got off and pushed for about 200 metres.  As soon as I crossed into Belgium, I had a beautiful smooth tarmac track for several miles.  The surfaces of the various canals I have cycled along today have varied enormously, with concrete being the most common, some good, some bad. 

The Canal du Mons became the Canal Conde Pommeroeul which joined the Canal Nimy-Blaton-Peronnes

and then, at Mons became the Canal du Centre which provided the find of the day when I came across the massive boat lift at Strepy Thieu. 

This allows barges of up to 1350 tonnes to be lifted 73 metres vertically by two counter balanced caissons, in 7 minutes and was the largest of its type until the Chinese built a bigger one for the Three Gorges dam on the Yangtze.  It was started in 1982 and took 20 years to complete but has raised the amount of traffic by ten times.   Previously only vessels of up to 300 tonnes could navigate the 2 locks and four 16 metre lifts it replaces.  Sadly, it wasn’t operating whilst I was there, but it is an impressive sight and, of course, meant that I had to climb up 73 metres on my bike – the motor came in useful. A few kilometres further on I saw the Porte de Gard du Blanc Pain which is a barrier that can be dropped into the canal to prevent all the water escaping if there is a catastrophe at Strepy Thieu.

The Canal du Centre disgorged into the Brussels- Charleroi canal

Shortly after I took this picture it rained hard enough for me to take shelter under a tree for five minutes and I waved goodbye to my watery companions about 7 miles from the end of my journey, which I completed through the industrial estates that surround Charleroi  (Brussels South) airport, arriving at my Ibis hotel at about 5.15pm.  The receptionist speaks good English, and the check-in was completed efficiently, and I was soon in my room with my bike.

Day 6 – Racing the weather

Buffet restaurants are like buses.: I told you about O Grand Buffet in Rouvignies.  Now I arrive at Charleroi airport and find a similar establishment 5 minutes walk down the road.  This one is called Cuisine du Monde – same principal but a slightly different method.  The great advantage to me was that they do a deal for seniors on Sunday, so my “help yourself to as much as you want” only cost me 19.50 € including as much soft drink as I wanted.  I opted for a couple of bottles of beer that cost me an extra 6 € but helped myself to fizzy water and orange juice.  This establishment has several grills on which you can cook the raw meat or fish that is available.  Otherwise very similar with Chinese dishes and chicken and meat dishes already prepared as well as shellfish and sushi.  Plenty of puddings, a chocolate fountain and different ice creams as well as cheese to finish. I pigged out (no gaspillage) and went back to write the blog.

The Ibis Charleroi a Fleurus is typical of its sort. 70.85 € bought me a decent sized room that housed the bike, a large and very comfortable bed, and a buffet breakfast with everything including eggs, sausage, and bacon and freshly squeezed orange juice. An electric radiator helped dry the clothes and there was even a hose outside the front door with which I washed the bike. There was a bar that I didn’t use and the receptionists both on arrival and departure were on the ball. My sole complaint was that there was no light over the desk so writing the blog was a bit of a trial.

The weather forecast for the day was not good, suggesting that it would worsen by 4 o’clock so I got my skates on and left at 0830.  There wasn’t much to see on the way so I thought I could probably complete the trip in about 6 hours.  The road in front of the hotel was busy but there was a good cycle path along the pavement, so I didn’t tangle with traffic for the first couple of miles until I turned off down a quiet country lane.  A mile on and the navigators bid me take a cycle path which proved to be a voie verte that took me about 20 miles along an old railway line. 

The surface was generally good, and I made very good time.  At no point during the day was I forced to share main roads with cars: there was always a cycle lane, either in the road or on the pavement.

As promised the weather was dank and wasn’t conducive to photography so there’s not much to illustrate the middle of the day.  I’d managed 42 miles in 3 hours, despite or perhaps helped by a strong wind which was swirling around but generally helping me. It started to rain, and I donned my rain jacket over my windproof and soldiered on, perhaps soldiered being an operative word in that my route took me across the open plains to the south of Ramillies where, in 1706, John Churchill, by then Duke of Marlborough, thrashed the forces of Louis XIV under General Villeroy, as one engagement of the War of the Spanish Succession.

The roads were mostly straight and tending downhill all the way to The Dutch border which is reached shortly after crossing over the Albert Canal and in the suburbs of Maastricht.

I went right through the middle of the city which is well served with bike lanes and crossed the River Meuse. 

Car drivers are courteous and stop for you to cross in front of them and it is remarkable that few people wear cycle helmets.  Most people, young and old seem to ride sit up and beg bikes, some now with electric motors.  I stopped in the centre to take some soggy pictures

and my phone didn’t much like being taken out in the conditions, taking a long time to react to my change in position when I became slightly disoriented.

Eventually I made it through the city and climbed the hill to Berg, only to descend rapidly to Houthem where I picked up the road to my hotel to the north of Valkenberg.  I arrived wet and windswept and was booked in by a most efficient young lady and told to put my steed in a safe garage in which there were already several bikes.  It would have been a great day, but for the weather but it was generally enjoyable.

Day 7 – One hell of a hole

       

Hotel 2000 in Valkenburg is a very Dutch hotel. It has three distinct areas.  The original building still retains some old bedrooms that have not been upgraded together with others that have.  At the back is a completely new structure built of steel and concrete with a lot of glass looking down onto an atrium.  This houses the luxury rooms which are priced accordingly.  My room was in the first category.  I did wonder why it was so cheap when I booked it on Booking.com and I soon found out. I had to step over the loo to get into the shower and the single bed, though quite comfortable felt precarious.  After my recent experiences I was amazed to find three power points, though one of them didn’t work.  Anyway, it sufficed.

When I went down for something to eat, I found that there were no English or French menus, so I, and the French couple at the adjacent table, resorted to Google translate.  Having done so I found that the patron, who was also acting as waiter, spoke perfectly good English, so I needn’t have bothered.  The menu was basic, but I ended up having Kipkerrie (coronation chicken) as a starter, and it was very tasty.  Unfortunately, the Pasta caprese that followed came with a very thin sauce that barely coated the pasta and was, frankly, disappointing. I washed it all down with a couple of beers – Grolsch on tap. I went back to the bar which was full of locals watching football, including England drawing with Germany. I can’t imagine ever learning to speak Dutch – it is totally incomprehensible to me.

This morning dawned wet and the forecast for later promised more.  However, by the time I’d enjoyed a large buffet breakfast including some quite decent scrambled eggs and bacon, the rain had stopped, and I set off at about 9 o’clock, knowing that I only had about 45 miles to travel and hoping that I might avoid getting wet.  It was cold so I wore my wind jacket, and it stayed that way all day despite the sun showing its face several times. I set off up a hill, and halfway up it had to stop for a train at the level crossing.

Most of my early journey was through built up areas.  The Dutch attention to cyclists is extraordinary.  There isn’t a road without cycle lanes either marked on the road or on the pavement. 

Coming from England it is refreshing that motorists seem to respect rather than resent cyclists and I became a bit blasé, just keeping going over junctions expecting the traffic to stop for me (which it did). At one point I joined a cycle path, possibly an old railway line, which took me out into some open country where I crossed the border into Germany.

There is no demarcation.  I’d noticed the day before when crossing from Belgium to Holland that I did not see any NL numberplates until I was within two miles of the border and after the border scarcely any Belgian ones.  It was the same between Holland and Germany – all very parochial.

I passed through several small towns and then crossed the river Rur in Jülich and came across this amusing bronze of fox and geese.

 

I was now getting close to the most interesting part of the journey.  In 1978 the local electricity company RWE bought the ancient Hambach forest and obtained approval to fell the trees on about 20000 acres so that they could mine lignite coal, also known as brown coal.  This is the lowest grade of coal, used mainly to generate electricity, and is very dirty in terms of pollution.  In the following 44 years they have mined an area of about 11000 acres.  Given that for each tonne of coal produced there is about 6.3 tonnes of waste soil, and they are producing 43 million tonnes of coal a year you can imagine that the tailings are enormous. To start with, they transported the waste back to some old underground coal mines until they were full and then they started piling them up above the ground. This produced the Sophienhöhe which is the largest artificial hill in the world, at its highest point about 300 metres above the surrounding countryside which is almost completely flat. 

The Bagger 293 bucket excavator sitting on top of the Sophienhöhe is the largest terrestrial vehicle in the world and weighs in at a massive 14200 tonnes and can shift about 220000 tonnes of soil a day. The slopes have now been planted with trees and it has become a nature reserve but not as diverse as the forest it replaced. 

Protests against what was happening started in about 2012 but it was not until 2020 that a Federal Law was passed to protect the remaining ancient forest.  The pictures I took from a viewing point hardly illustrate the sheer scale of the operation, so I have pinched an aerial view from the RWE website.

There didn’t seem to be much happening when I was there, so I am not sure about the current state of the mine. 

The East Germans knew a thing or two about building walls but there is an enormous barrier shutting off the mine and you can only view it from certain places around the perimeter.

I continued my journey as the weather worsened and caused me to take shelter at a bus stop.  As the rain cleared, I took another long range shot of the Bagger sitting on top of the hill in the distance

before I carried on to my destination, the Hotel Meyer in Bergheim.  Fortunately, Frau Meyer was just coming out of the building as I arrived and gave me a key and showed me where to leave the bike.

Day 8 – O de Cologne



Hotel Meyer is bang in the middle of Bergheim alongside the newish shopping centre.  Frau Meyer met me at the door and gave me a key and showed me where to put the bike.  I didn’t bother to charge the battery as it was 75% full and I only had a short distance to travel today.  The room was excellent, large, with two big, comfortable single beds, a modern bathroom and a powerful shower.  I washed my kit and put it to dry on the large radiator.  As my outer clothing was wet I had to do the drying by turns but it was all done by morning.

I looked on Google maps and decided to eat about 3 minutes walk down the road at Brauhaus zur Krone which is, as the name implies a brewery as well as a restaurant and I enjoyed a couple of 33cl lagers whilst eating deep fried Camembert and Whisky Pfefferschnitzel both of which were excellent.  The waiter spoke good English and the while meal cost 38euros including a generous tip.

After a good nights’s sleep I went downstairs unsure of whether I would get breakfast.  I knew it wasn’t included in the room rate, but Frau Meyer welcomed me, asked me to help myself to tea or coffee and a couple of minutes later a tea stand full of bread and cold meats appeared. 

No cooked breakfast available but I ate well and settled the bill which was about 75 euros including breakfast.

It was, once again, cold and I set off in grey weather just before 9, making for a bike path out of town.  Unfortunately there was a builder’s lorry parked across the access so I missed the turn and did a couple of extra laps before I found it.  Once on it I had a nice ride on good tarmac for about 4 miles before I joined the main road to Cologne.  It wasn’t busy but there was a good cycle path alongside it anyway.  There was a longish gentle climb followed by a similar descent before I went through a couple of Dorfs, still on cycle lanes.  As I neared the city the traffic increased but the cycle lanes continued, sometimes marked lanes but mostly on the pavement. A couple of miles from the city centre I was waved over by a couple of bike mounted police and told that, despite others doing so,  I was riding on the wrong side of the road as there was a cycle lane on the other side as well.  I was told either to get off and push or cross over two lanes and a tram track.  I found a suitable crossing point and complied. I got a bit lost on my way to the Kommerzhotel where I am staying the night but eventually found it the far side of the main railway station. 

I knew that I couldn’t book in until the afternoon but hoped that they would allow me to drop my gear, get changed and go and explore which is what happened.  However, the receptionist wouldn’t allow me to leave my bike, which was actually a blessing in disguise as I was able to explore further with the bike than I would have been able to do without, despite worries about leaving it unattended.  I have a bike lock that I can wear around my waist and there are plenty of bike stands all around the city so I was able to chain it up and hope for the best.

First of all I went to the Dom, Cologne Cathedral, one of the most majestic in the world, which is the other side of the station from the hotel.  It’s hard to get pictures of such a massive building but I did my best and then went inside to enjoy the Gothic splendour. 

It was busy but I was able to see everything without a problem, including a magnificent 15c carved altar screen that had, apparently been removed from another church and brought to the Dom in the 19^th century.  No organ music although there seemed to be pipes all over the place including some high in the roof of the chancel.

On through the milling throngs of guided tourists of all nationalities to the Wallraf-Richartz Museum which is the main art gallery with three floors starting with medieval, including some wonderfully colourful unattributed work from local painters, through the Renaissance to the Impressionists.  None of the later work was especially good, there, I suspect, to say they had a Van Gogh, Rubens or Renoir rather than displaying excellence.  Put it this was I ‘ve seen better, although there were a couple of works by Bosch that were notable. However there was a room devoted to the works of the Master of the Karlsruhe Passion showing some of the panels from the Arrest of Jesus.  The faces are beautifully expressive and full of life and that alone made the visit worthwhile.

I hopped back on the bike and cruised down through the Höhe and Alter market places full of tables and chairs in front of cafés waiting for late season tourists – not many takers on a cold grey day.

Down to the Rhine, not as lacking in water as I expected.  Maybe the recent rains have improved the flow but there were plenty of large barges and especially cruise boats in evidence.

  I cycled a couple of miles downstream and went to look at the sculpture park.  There were various signs saying don’t ride bikes in the park and don’t walk on the grass but I thought I’d be ok pushing it, but no, apparently that too was verboten.  I left and went around the corner where I found another entrance with a bike stand so I locked the bike and went in anyway.  It was ok without being wonderful: apart from Anish Kapoor I didn’t know any of the artists.

Back up the Rhine to the centre where I wondered what to do with the bike when I came across a bike station where I was able to leave the bike for 24 hours for the princely sum of 1 euro:

job done and I continued my walk around the city, enjoying people watching and sights I’d missed earlier. I booked into the hotel and took my bags up to the room and went out once again looking for a suitable place to eat later.

It’s been good not having much riding to do and I hope will help for the next three days which involve a bit of climbing.

Day 9 – Heading for the hills

The closest and most attractive eating prospect in Cologne was a Korean restaurant, Gogi Matcha.  I pitched up at about 7pm to find that it was pretty much full, but they found a space for me and soon produced three appetiser dishes, kimchi, mushrooms and something unidentified but all were very nice.  I started with a potato pancake with lots of vegetables on it and then went on to a spicy pork dish with rice.  The pork was hot and needed the beer that washed it down – a perfectly pleasant meal served by a friendly, smiling Korean girl.  I thought I’d go looking for a bottle of wine to help me compose the blog and found a small food market in the railway station that had an excellent selection at incredible prices.  There was a bottle of Sicilian wine that I purchased last month from Virgin Wines at £11.99, reduced from the list price of £14.99 that was being sold for 8.99 euros!  In the end I went for a Primitivo from Puglia for 3.99 euros which would cost at least £9 in the UK, and it was extremely good. 

I know that the UK tax wine significantly, but I am amazed that I could buy such good value wine at a railway station where you would expect to pay a premium.  It helped me feel a bit better about losing the entire blog when my computer decided to go down when I had almost completed it.  That’ll teach me to save often.  The reason it went on strike is that the version of Windows10 needed updating so I then had to wait for the new version to load.  I eventually decided to let it do its own thing overnight and went to bed, knowing that I had a bit of time in the morning, before leaving, to recompose it.

Despite being a single bed, it was extremely comfortable and, aided by the bottle of wine, I slept soundly until woken by the alarm at 7am.  Breakfast was included in the room price and good.  Only warm scrambled eggs, no bacon or sausages but vey good mini croissants and fruity rolls and the usual cold meat and cheese that you expect in Germany.  I’d been onto the website of the hotel in which I’m staying tonight to see a note in German that suggested the restaurant might be closed so, expecting the worst I had a good breakfast and noted that there is a bakery next door to the hotel that opened until 6pm.  It took me longer than anticipated to recompose the blog, pack my kit and retrieve the bike from its overnight home, so it was 11.21 before I was able to leave. Knowing that my route was largely uphill and about 60 miles I was expecting it to take about 6 hours, not leaving much room for error if the worst came to the worst.

I didn’t start off too well: the route had failed to load properly onto my phone, so I wasted another 10 minutes getting it to work.  My route took me across the Rhine on the railway bridge and I had to lug the bike up three flights of stairs to get there.  Fortunately, there was a bike rail so that I could push rather than lift, but it was still hard work.

Eventually I got going and made my way out through the suburbs which seemed to go on forever and I have been in built up areas for almost the entire day.  It was not until the last 10 miles that I was in open countryside.  The road cut back and forth over the A4 autobahn and, about 15 miles in climbed quite steeply before dropping down into the valley of the River Agger.

 I had looked at the planned route and noted that it was due to go across country at this point.  Annoyingly Google Street View doesn’t work in Germany – it’s not allowed for reasons best known to themselves but it also, crucially, means that I can’t check out my route in advance to see if it is going to impossible places.  Part way down the hill I got the off-route noise and retraced my steps about 30 yards up the hill to a small farm entrance that was signed as a no through road.  The tarmac ran out and it became a muddy mess, then a grass field with several beehives on the headland and then Rita said, “Turn left”.  Left was a steep-sided valley falling a good 200 feet through an area of felled trees: absolutely no way I could get down.  I retraced my steps back to the road and went down to the bottom of the valley and along a main road until I caught up with my planned route, having gone a couple of miles out of the way.  No great hardship but time was moving on.

I now started climbing up the river valley: never steep but without much relief. 

There was ribbon development for the best part of 25 miles but there was a cycle lane or track all the way.  I was caught out on a couple of occasions, failing to cross onto the other side of the road to pick up the cycle lane, but it made for worry free cycling.  As a matter of interest, I took a picture to illustrate the current fuel prices.

As the houses ran out the road steepened and Rita urged me to take a right down a gravel track.

I knew that I was heading for an old railway tunnel that saved me from climbing over the top and I duly found it.

Re-examining the map, I think I could have joined the tarmac path about three miles earlier.  The tunnel was brightly lit,

much better than the Bath twin tunnels and the tarmac track continued the other side for a further couple of miles.  It ended by a Lidl, so I dived in for some nectarines and Jaffa cakes in case I needed something later.  Incidentally Lidl and Aldi are entirely dominant in this area, I don’t recall seeing any other supermarkets and there seemed to be one or the other at least every 5 miles.

I now had about 11 miles to my destination, and it was the most difficult of the day.  The cycle lanes had disappeared, I was now dicing with fast moving traffic, and it was inexorably uphill until the last mile and a half when I came sweeping, thankfully, down a hill at 20 miles and hour, arriving at about 5.35pm.  The receptionist had slightly better English than my German and booked me in and asked me what time I would like dinner! So, no worry on that count.  She showed me a garage for the bike and sent me off to get clean in plenty of time for dinner at 7pm. It’s been chilly all day but quite sunny at times with just a few spits of rain at one point.

Day 10 – Ski resort in summer   

Having stuck my bike in the garage overnight I found my large room on the first floor. Twin beds were rather low but mine must have been comfortable because I slept like a baby.  There were three radiators so drying clothes was no problem and plenty of power points.

I went downstairs at 7 and was shown to a table and asked what I would like to drink.  Beer please.  Large or small?  Large of course. I chose a starter of Flammkuchen, in my ignorance expecting them to be pancakes, but what arrived was a large thin and crispy pizza with lots of vegetables and cheese.  It was very good indeed.  So who invented the dish, Germans or Italians?  I followed up with pork schnitzel with a mushroom sauce, again excellent as was the side salad.  The fascinating bit of the evening was the table of three Italians and their German host who were speaking their common language, English, and managing an unstilted conversation covering, amongst other things, the Italian further education system and what their children were doing.  Quite amusing to listen in.

This morning I woke to the alarm at 7 but rolled over and didn’t get up until about 0815. I didn’t have far to travel, although much of it was up hill, so I was in no tearing hurry to leave.  The bill for everything was about 100 euros which was about right for a fairly smart country hotel. 

It wasn’t busy but I imagine earlier in the season they would have had plenty of families staying and enjoying the surrounding countryside.

It was sunny but cold when I set off at 0944.  I was able to avoid going back onto the main road and crossed over it and headed straight north into a steepish climb into the still lingering mist which hung around in places for the first seven miles.

It was a bit of a dog’s dinner of cycle paths, cycle lanes and nothing at all which switched back and forth from right to left and back again. It was easy to miss the crossing and end up cursing with no way forward.  However, after about seven miles the road turned back to the south and followed the river Lenne pretty much to its source. 

At Inderlenne I left the river and headed north, climbing more steeply up a wooded valley

that made me reach for the power button which I switched on and off until I reached the top of the climb about three miles later at Altastenberg where I saw my first ski-lift and looked back down the valley. 

As I was cycling along the top a German cyclist called out to me and I said I was English.  He answered in perfect English that my bike tyre looked a bit flat.  It had felt a bit odd at time going around corners but didn’t look too bad.  However I got the pump out and give it a bit of wind. 

The road then dropped down to the main resort of Winterberg which seemed to be doing quite good business at lunchtime.

  There are a lot of mountain biking trails around the area and some of the ski-lifts were operating to bring bikers back up to the top. Given that the top height of the resort is only 842 metres I can’t imagine that they have had much snow in the last few years and the summer trade must be very important to them.

I went wrong leaving the town but eventually picked up on a short section of the Ruhr valley cycle path which took me to a state road which I followed for the final 17 miles to my destination at Korbach which I reached at about 4pm.  At one point Rita beckoned me up a rough track but, having consulted the map, I declined and kept to the road.  I shall get myself clean and wander around the town which looks interesting.

It’s been a relatively easy day, making use of the motor when required and the scenery has certainly been an improvement on the last couple of days.

Day 11 – go east old man             

The weather forecast for Saturday was pretty dire, with heavy rain forecast first thing and the possibility of showers all day, so I went for a wander around Korbach before supper. It’s an interesting old place, though old is relative.  Although the buildings look as though they have been there for ever, only one of the wooden buildings predates 1664 when the town caught fire and largely burned to the ground.

Korbach itself has a long history.  Granted town rights in 1186 it became a prosperous community standing, as it does, at the crossroads from Cologne to Leipzig and Frankfurt to Bremen. What surprised me was that it became a member of the Hanseatic League, as I thought this was confined to Northern Germany.  The town’s main industry today is a Continental AG rubber factory.

I had looked at the menu for Am Dalwigker Tor,

which is where I am staying, and it seemed a bit limited, so I thought Id look out for alternatives on my ramble.  In the end I plumped for an Italian, Bei Maurizio,

where I dined on tomato soup with Bruschetta – soup good, Bruschetta less so, followed by good Lasagne and an excellent mixed salad. The bill was about 33 euros with a couple of beers. I made my way back to write the blog.

The single bed, which didn’t look as though it was going to be comfortable, confounded expectations and I awoke to the alarm at 0700.  As forecast, it was pissing down outside, so every chance on the “rain before seven, dry after eleven”, saying, that I’d get away with a relatively dry day.  Breakfast was excellent – the best so far, with everything that you could ask for including some very nice local cheeses. Hot eggs, both boiled and scrambled and loads of cold meats, including some I hadn’t seen before.  I paid up and left at a few minutes before 1000, with a journey of about 60 miles ahead of me.  It was mizzling and cold and I wrapped up well. As I climbed the hill out of town, I felt the back wheel give way and pulled over, beside the Covid testing station, to find a completely flat tyre.  Rob had made my tyres tubeless, which means that, instead of a tube they are filled with a sealing liquid which will cope with most small punctures by immediately sealing the hole. This, however, was more catastrophic and, although I had the means to repair it, I decided to put a tube in instead. At least with a tube I know where I am: they’re not difficult to fit and can be repaired.  The only problem was that only one of the tubes that was carrying was the correct size for the tyre and I know, from, past experience, that fitting the wrong sized tube can result in more punctures.  I fitted the correct tube and hope for the best.  I’ll try to pick up a couple more next week in Leipzig and hope that this one lasts the distance – I’ve got some patches just in case I need them.

The first 28 miles was very lumpy, and I had to switch on the motor on several occasions. I came across a Saturday morning gymkhana on the edge of a small village just before I tackled a steep hill. 

I saw a lot of horses on my journey today.  The other thing much in evidence were apples.  The roads were strewn with them in places, and I saw trailers laden with them and groups of people picking them. The early part of the day was mainly on roads shared with traffic, although it wasn’t heavy.  As I came down a steep hill onto lower ground I could hear a lot of hooting of horns and a convoy of cars came past, evidently a wedding party. It seems that it is de rigeur to roar round the countryside tooting your horn to celebrate. I continued through Weimar – no not that one- and onto Vellmar where I joined a good cycle path for several miles.  Unfortunately it deteriorated into a muddy gravelled track that eventually gave me the “turn left” down the headland of a field.

  I consulted the map and worked out a way of getting to where I needed to be, which was the cycle path along the  bank of the River Fulda, quite a substantial river so far from the sea, which becomes the Weser at its confluence with the Werra. 

I now had an excellent ride for about ten miles on a tarmac track which followed the Fulda down to Altmunden, the confluence with the Werra.

  I crossed the bridge over what was now the Weser and headed upstream along the Werra.  I still had about 12 miles to go on the flat on cycle lanes or paths, so it was all looking pretty straightforward.  However 5 miles from the end the skies darkened and it chucked it down for five minutes.  I managed to get under some trees but still ended up pretty wet.  The bright point was that there was a lovely rainbow to follow the storm.  So it was that I found my hotel in Witzenhausen at about 1715.  The receptionist speaks about as much English as I do German, but he managed to convey the basics of where to put my bike, breakfast time and where to find my room.  Although only 60 miles, it’s been quite tiring: the first part of the day involved a lot of climbing and the last part involved cycling on the flat which means there is no rest, which you get coasting downhill.  Within a few miles of my start in the morning I shall be in the old East Germany.

Day 12 – Sheltering from showers



The Frau Holle-Land-Hotel ehem Burghotel Witzenhausen, to give it its full name,

stands on the edge of town, in front of Schinckel’s brewery and restaurant where I dined.  The two pints of light ale were excellent.  Menus don’t seem to alter much: lots of pork and schnitzels and a decided lack of puddings.  I had cream of onion soup and a Landsknechtschnitzel which came with mushrooms, onions, speck and herb butter together with a very good side salad.  All perfectly fine, but I find myself wanting something a bit different.

The hotel sells itself on the back of a Grimm brothers fairy tale about Frau Holle.  If you’re interested in the story, Google it.  What I did find interesting was reading the Google English translation of the story on the hotel website, because it highlights the fact that pronouns in German dance all over the place depending upon what is being referred to.  To take a short section of the story “Then the girl went back to the well and did not know what to do; and in his fear of the heart, he jumped into the well to get the coil. It lost its consciousness, and when it awoke and came back to itself, it was on a beautiful meadow where the sun was shining and many thousands of flowers were standing.”  So, using his, he and it referring to the girl, where we would use she and her. Goodness knows how the LGBT community in Germany decide how they want to be called.

The weather forecast didn’t look too bad – overcast, with possibility of showers all through the day.  Make that probability.  I had booked breakfast for 930am but had second thoughts, given that I was travelling about 75 miles, so came down just before 8 and there was only one other person in the dining room.  Good breakfast with the usual scrambled and boiled eggs, cold meat and cheese and yoghurt and muesli as well as all sorts of bread.  I ate well and left at 0833.

 It was dry but overcast as I cycled through the centre of town and stopped to take some pictures.

 

I crossed the River Werra for the last time and started a steady climb on an open road with no cycle lane.  As I reached the crest of the hill I came across this sign and entered what was previously the Deutsche Demokratische Republik more commonly known as East Germany.

  The inner border area that was guarded with watch-towers can still be made out on maps, although less obvious on the ground and, at this point, follows the boundary between the States of Hessen and Thuringia. Presumably that road would have ended at the border and has been linked since 1989.

 I was interested to see what difference, if any, there was between East and West, 30 or so years after re-unification, and, from a single day of observation, I would say virtually none.  The housing is very similar, although the bigger towns and cities have Soviet style blocks of flats.  Prosperity looks very similar with plenty of flash cars in the old DDR and car dealerships in all towns.  The area through which I have travelled today is fertile land, well farmed and maintained with up to date farm machinery, and looks no different from what I was travelling through three days ago.

Seven miles into the journey I joined the Leine river cycleway which I followed for the best part of 20 miles to Leinefeld.  On the way the heavens opened and I took shelter under an old railway platform. 

Having restarted, about five miles further on an even heavier storm forced me into a cover over a picnic bench where I stayed for about 10 minutes.

Finally in Leinefeld I took cover under a road bridge during the last major storm of the day.  There were odd spits and spots later but nothing serious.  I have spent most of the day on cycleways.  Until 50 miles into the journey all the tracks were smooth tarmac and a joy to cycle along.  Then, as I turned off the main road, I felt the back wheel go flat.  The sun had come out, so it wasn’t too much of a chore to stop and unload the bike, remove the back wheel, and set about finding the puncture.  I expected it to be beneath the tyre tread, but it was on the inside, which was a bit worrying as it suggested that there might be something sticking out from the rim.  As I explained yesterday the inside of the tyre was still covered in sealant, so It may be that it had picked up a bit of grit and caused the puncture.  Anyway I cleaned it as best I could, and stuck a self adhesive patch on, hoping that it will last until I can get a replacement tube.  Imagine my dismay when I realised that the way ahead was a rough gravel track for the next 2 miles.  I cycled gingerly avoiding pot-holes and all was well.

However 5 miles later my route took me alongside a railway track, another gravel road with pot-holes that took me to an unmanned level crossing.  I couldn’t work out what to do, so continued on what was now a grassy, muddy track until I found an underpass.  I had a further couple of miles and what seemed like an eternity before I was back on tarmac.

After that all went swimmingly.  Each town has a cycle path, often not wide and demanding a stop at intersections and between towns there was a cycle track away from the road. 

I worked out that it was better to stay on the main carriageway through the towns and then take the cycle path in the country.  This worked splendidly and I made very good time for the last 20 miles of the journey.

The hotel I am staying in is on an industrial estate outside the town centre of Sangerhausen so I’ve had no opportunity to explore. With my stops and starts, I didn’t arrive until about 5.30 so by the time I’d washed everything it was time for supper.

Tomorrow is a public holiday to celebrate German Unity Day so I may have problems in finding a bike shop on my way to Leipzig.

Day 13 – Tilting at windmills



My hotel arrangements on my annual long trip mainly centre on Booking.com, a Dutch company who have revolutionised hotel booking.  Their website is easy to use and with a couple of clicks you can book accommodation well into the future and, just as easily, cancel it.  There are other agents such as Hotels.com and Trivago but, in my opinion, none are better than Booking.com.  The hotel companies such as Accor, B&B Hotels , Premier Inns and Travelodge have upped their game to compete and, indeed have bettered them with offers, if you join their “club”.  So It was Booking.com I went to, to search for accommodation between Frau Holle and Leipzig where I am staying tonight.  It’s about 130 miles between the two, so the ideal position is 65 miles from Frau Holle and 65 miles to Leipzig.  The nearest place I could find sensible priced B&B, with a restaurant nearby for an evening meal, was Sangerhausen which was about 73 miles from Frau Holle and 60 miles from Leipzig, perfectly ok distance wise. 

The Rosen Hotel was chosen entirely on price, and I didn’t even consider its position in the town. In the event I was quite surprised to find myself cycling almost out of the town, past some Soviet style blocks of flats, and onto a trading estate.  I stopped to check my position because I have been known to put the wrong co-ordinates in RWGPS in the past, but no, I was where I should be.  A couple of hundred metres on and there it was, a modern building with an attached Bowling Hall and Fitness Centre.

  The receptionist who booked me in knew more English than my German and I was given my room key and told to put the bike in the Garage which was about 50 metres from the hotel – no problem.  My room was a typical businessman’s room, plenty of power points and a good bathroom and two radiators for drying the clothes.  The attached restaurant, which is also the meeting place for the local Lions and Rotary clubs, was open until 8pm so I went for some food at about 7.  I chose Würzfleisch und Käse, chopped meat, almost certainly pork, in a velouté sauce topped with melted cheese.  It was very tasty if quite difficult to eat with a fork because of the stringy cheese.  I followed with cod fillet with grilled vegetables and a dill sauce: it was superb, beautifully cooked with well-cooked veg and potatoes, all washed down with a couple of pints of light beer. It would have been nice to finish with something sweet, but nothing was available.

The single bed was comfortable, but I didn’t sleep well.  I don’t know why but I was up a couple of times in the night for a pee and a drink of water.  I went for breakfast at about 0830 and was the second person in the dining room.  An excellent choice of food with scrambled eggs incorporating chopped sausage, two different types of sausage including a chipolata, and some pork meatballs, boiled eggs and the usual cold meats and cheese, muesli and yoghurt with fresh fruit salad, and bread in all sorts of forms.  As good as any so far: the Germans certainly know how to do frühstück.

Next door to the hotel was a bike store, but being Unity Day and a public holiday, I wasn’t sure if it would be open.  I left just before 10 and, if it was going to open, 10 would have been the time.  It all looked very closed, and I tried to see if there was anyone in the building just as the rain started.  No joy, so I sheltered from the shower and put on my rain jacket. I knew that I was in for a certain amount of cross country today.  There is a main autobahn to Leipzig but that was out of the question.  Alternatives that didn’t involve rough tracks were non-existent.  I’ve already told you about the lack of Google Street view in Germany and this is where it comes into its own, allowing me to see what sort of surfaces I’m up against.  I just had to grin and bear it.  I started off on a tarmac road but was soon sent across open farmland, albeit in a road made of concrete sections which made for easy riding.

  I was cycling past the remnants of the Sangerhausen copper mining industry, notably the Hohe Linde slag heap that rises 150 metres above the surrounding area. 

My route followed the main road but zigged and zagged, sometimes on good surfaces and sometimes on no more than grass, but I eventually made it to a hardtop road after about 12 miles.  It was quite lumpy but no very steep pitches, so the motor stayed off until I got to Stedten, 22 miles in, where I had to climb a cobbled road for about a mile – not a great experience with my puncture worries.

I was now entering Don Quixote territory: there were wind turbines everywhere – literally hundreds of them and doing good work on a breezy day.

  I was glad that the wind was largely behind me.  I dropped down off the plateau and into a wooded valley of the Saale river which I crossed on a weir.  I stopped to take a picture but couldn’t see the weir so just took a pic of the bike alongside the river.

  I found my way onto the levee of the White Elster, and, my word, it was hard work on an earth track.

  I was beginning to despair when I had to scramble under a railway bridge but, finally, I reached a hardtop road and the levee track became tarmac for about seven miles of joyful riding.  There were lots of other cyclists going in both directions, families with a trailer on the back of a bike and a toddler on two wheels for the first time and hardened racers trying to get up some speed.

The Wite Elster became the Neue Luppe (New Loop)

and I left it and ventured into a forest where I became lost.  Rita said “turn right” and there was no road, so I continued until I eventually caught up with my route four miles later, at one point blasting through what was barely a track through the trees – in a way quite fun.  The New Loop became the Elsterbecken and I was within three miles of my destination without having seen any real signs of development.  There were now lots of cyclists heading for the city centre, past the Red Bull Stadium, home of RB Leipzig football team who are hosting Glasgow Celtic on Wednesday.  I was puzzled, as I cycled along the river at the massive steep steps that come down from the Stadium to the river bank.  Apparently the Red Bull Arena (capacity about 47,000) was built inside the original 100,000 seater Zentralstadium, that incorporated these steps as an access.  They are now largely unused and overgrown with grass in places.  The original stadium was, at one point the largest soccer stadium in the world.

Once I left the river-bank I was in the city of Leipzig, only two miles from my hotel but I had something of a challenge.  I started to see crowds of people, then hundreds of policemen, all tooled up, some in riot gear and paddy wagons all over the road.  There were marchers and people drumming and playing music as I pushed my bike through the throng. Surprisingly there was little resistance to my direction of travel.  The crowd parted and I passed through. Eventually, curiosity overtook me, and I stopped and asked a group of police who weren’t doing much, what was going on. An English speaker told me that there were two separate demonstrations, one against the Government’s energy policy and the other against the war in Ukraine and, particularly, the possible use of nuclear weapons.  He reckoned that there were about 10,000 people involved in the two demonstrations that they were trying, apparently successfully, to keep apart.  There were the usual professional demonstrators dressed in black with their faces covered and plenty of other “ordinary” people who wanted to stand up and be counted.

Eventually I was able to mount up and cycle the last mile or so to the Premier Inn where I am staying the night.  I know what I’m getting; a comfortable bed for a couple of nights, an English speaking receptionist and the ability to take my bike into my room.  I’ve paid for breakfast as well.  I’ll spend tomorrow exploring Leipzig and getting my bike sorted and then off to Dresden on Wednesday.

Day 14 – Loitering in Leipzig

 Today was designed to be a day of rest and recuperation and to see some of the sights of the historic city of Leipzig.  Having arrived last night in the middle of right and left wing demonstrations, albeit on a public holiday, to mark German unity, I wasn’t sure whether there would be any repercussions today.  In the event there were no problems.  Founded in 1409, Leipzig university has over 30,000 students on what must be one of the most modern central campuses in the world.  60% of the university buildings were destroyed by Allied bombing in WW2 and what remained were pulled down by the socialist DDR Government in 1968, to be replaced in the 1970s with a rebuilt Augusteum and Paulinum.  The city tower built in the shape of an open book was originally part of the university development but was sold by the city fathers to Merrill Lynch and is now an office block. 

Throughout the day I came across small groups of students drinking lots of beer and occasionally shouting slogans against a move in German politics to the right.  There is still a significant concern in eastern Germany that there is an undercurrent of right-wing extremism in German politics.  The DDR was a highly oppressive regime, as I will go on to illustrate, but it did espouse what many see as pure socialism and there is still a feeling that it was not all bad.

Last night I went for a wander around the main railway station, adjacent to the Premier Inn where I am staying, as I had in Cologne.  I found another convenience store and picked up a bottle of Primitivo for 2.99 euros before dropping in on an all you can eat curry buffet which was a bit of a con in that most of the decent dishes were excluded from the deal,  Anyway I ate sufficient rice, dhal, vegetables and chicken curry for 17.99 euros to feel that I had my money’s worth and retired to write the blog and drink the wine (which was very nice). Interesting to see many of the policemen and women, still openly armed, who were on duty earlier, looking for food at the Bahnhof before, presumably, departing to other parts of Saxony

Breakfast this morning was the usual German extravaganza, with the addition of bacon and sausages as, I suppose, a nod to Premier Inn’s Britishness.  It was an excellent breakfast and set me up for a day of sightseeing.

First of all, I needed to solve my bike problems.  I have been unhappy with the tyre on the back of the bike which has some quite large punctures, although it has survived the last day and a half of rough tracks and cobbles.  I decided to visit Lucky Bikes who are two minutes up the road from the hotel and I was there, together with 8 others, at 0950, waiting for them to open at 1000. 

It’s a large store mainly selling bikes but with plenty of other components.  I bought a replacement back tyre and two tubes for a lot more than I would have paid on-line in the UK but it gives me peace of mind

I dropped the tyre off at the hotel and cycled on into the city centre.  I’d decided to visit the main art gallery, Museum der bildenden Künste Leipzig and then see how the day developed.  On the way to the MdbK I passed the opera house, built in 1960 to replace the old house destroyed by Allied bombing.  It’s an impressive building, rather Wagerian, which is appropriate in that he attended school in Leipzig, but I did not go inside: sadly no opera tonight or I might have ventured out. 

I locked my bike to a stand outside the MdbK and paid 10 euros for a day ticket.  It’s a brutal concrete structure with a lot of glass, built in 2004 to replace the original building destroyed in WW2 and has a huge amount of empty space inside it.

  The galleries lead off a central atrium and are well curated with English descriptions. As one might expect it majors on German art but there are works from all over Europe including pieces by Picasso, Matisse, Monet, Degas et al.  The top floor is given over to the development of German Art from the start of the 20^th Century, showing, inter alia, how art had developed a resistance movement to the excesses of the DDR.  There were some nice pieces by Lucas Cranach, father and son and it was a good experience.

I retrieved the bike and cycled on to the Runde Ecke which was the HQ of the Stasi during the DDR and part of which has been turned into a museum showing the nature and working of the East German secret police.

  The building on show has been left as it was in 1989 and comes across as a typical austere civil service building.  I was able to get an English audio description, as no attempt is made to translate the copious written displays.  Nonetheless it was an interesting hour and a half seeing just how pervasive the Stasi was in the everyday life of a German citizen. Relying on people to snitch on their relatives and neighbours and recruiting from the age of 12, it was a fearful organisation that kept the populace under control.

Having seen how small the central area was, I decided to go back to the hotel and ditch the bike and continue my explorations on foot.  I passed the Altes Rathaus,

the old Town Hall, which houses a museum on Leipzig local history that I didn’t visit, on my way to St Thomas’s church, where J.S Bach was the choir master for 27 years and is buried. Being Lutheran it is not as decorated as Catholic churches but has a majesty that is enhanced by a magnificent organ, one of two in the church.

Opposite the church is the J.S Bach museum which was free to visit today.  It was a fascinating place, well curated with a good audio description and a certain amount of interactive display.

I could happily have spent a full day in there but moved on to walk around the rest of the central area, taking in the Neues Rathaus – vast, with the tallest tower of any Town Hall in Germany.

Incidentally there’s one of the beer swilling groups of student protestors in the foreground!, and the Judicial buildings, beyond the inner ring road.

I couldn’t say that it has been relaxing but it’s been good to get off the bike for most of the day.  Tomorrow I’ve got a 75 mile ride to Dresden and then a day off to explore that city.

Day 15 – Punctures and porcelain

I’ve been assigned a disabled room on the 6^th floor of the Premier Inn in Leipzig,

the advantage being that there is more space, and a walk-in wet room in which I washed off the bike, my clothes and myself.  Just around the corner is Casa Madeira a Portuguese Restaurant which is where I repaired, having found myself a bottle of Nero d’Avola in Aldi for 2.64 euros, to be consumed later whilst writing the blog.  I started with whitebait, neatly stacked on top of one another instead of in a heap as you usually get them.  Tasty and with a nice salad they set me up for a piece of cod served with veg and potatoes, not quite as good as the one in Sangerhausen, but perfectly acceptable from a friendly english speaking chef.  A couple of large beers gave a bill of about 33 euros which was reasonable value.

I decided to start early, as there was no reason to delay.  I had about 75 miles to travel and, in ideal conditions, that would take about 6 hours.  I got down to breakfast at 0750 with a view to setting off at about 0830. As yesterday the breakfast was excellent, including fruit salad to go with the muesli and yoghurt. I filled my boots and, having packed everything up, was away by 0813.  The journey out of the city was slow, along pavement bike lanes and competing with trams, and I barely managed 10 miles in the first hour, by which time I’d cleared the ‘burbs of Leipzig.  I seemed to be passing back and forth over the main railway line to Dresden and continued to do so for much of the day.

A couple of hours into the journey and with no problems I crossed the river Mulde at Bennewitz,

and came down a steepish hill on a bike lane to find I had to negotiate some steps – not a great experience.  I’d already passed one Trabant without taking a picture, but I had to stop to take this.

 I actually saw one under power later in the day.  More than 3 million Trabant models were built between 1958 and 1991 when production ceased because much better cars were freely available in the former DDR.  They were a status symbol in East Germany, costing about a year’s wages, and with a waiting time for delivery of up to 13 years.  They were built of a resin bonded fibre, often described as cardboard, which was edible and it has been said that some owners left their cars in fields and returned to find that they had been eaten by cows and sheep!  They were powered by notoriously unreliable 2 stroke engines and belched toxic exhaust fumes.  When the borders to West Germany opened in 1989 there were convoys of Trabis broken down at most of the border crossings.  However they have become quite collectable: because of their rust proof bodies their life span was long and a few exist all over the world.

I managed to take a wrong turn, not unusual for me, but, as I was consulting the phone map I noticed gunk oozing from the front tyre.  As I have already told you in the blog, Rob set up the tyres in tubeless mode which means they are filled with a solution that is meant to fill any small punctures.  However. this one was clearly a bit more serious. I pumped it up hoping that it would seal itself but only a mile or so down the road it clearly wasn’t working so I stopped to consider my options.  I have a tool that is supposed to repair tubeless tyres but I am not confident in my ability to get it to work.  I am much happier with tubes which I have used all my life and can repair if necessary.  I decided to ditch the tubeless and put in the extra tube that I bought at Lucky bike yesterday. I pulled over and propped the bike up against a pile of stones.

The problem with the switch is how to get rid of all the gunk that is inside the tyre.  I adopted the not very green approach of cleaning it out onto the grass and, even then, didn’t manage to get rid of all of it.  Anyway to shorten the story I did my best and pumped up the tyre.  Off I went when, blow me, I felt the tyre deflating badly.  At this point I was a on a road without any cycle way, so I was at the mercy of other traffic. I blew it up and limped on to the nearest gateway where I went through the process all over again.  I found a major hole in the tube but no obvious cause, so stuck a patch over it and hoped that would be the end of it (which, thankfully, it was).

For the first time since the start of this trip I have found myself on roads without cycle ways or paths.  I’ve no idea why, but I have had to contend with traffic for much of the day, and It was not until I reached the Elbe valley. over 50 miles into the trip, that I found myself on a cycle path which took me almost all the way to Dresden.

I have also had to contend with more wind than usual.  It has, generally, been in my favour but blowing across me for much of the time.  I have travelled across wide open plains, so the wind has been an issue.  Interestingly I have seen few wind turbines.  The farm-land looks very fertile and there have been tractors planting crops all the way.

Once I reached the Elbe

there was a tarmac cycle way that allowed me to make good speed to Meissen, my initial goal.

  Meissen porcelain is world renowned, its crossed swords emblem an early trade-mark, and has been made in the same factory in its eponymous town for 312 years.  We have a Meissen serving dish that was generously given to us as a wedding present in 1975 and, although I find much of Meissen ware vulgar, I was keen to know more about the process.  A quick diversion from the riverine plain took me to the museum and 12 euros later I was listening to an audio loop and watching some very clever ladies demonstrating how the clay is moulded, painted and fired and painted again and fired, and painted again and fired, and so on until they end up with the desired result.  It is a laborious process, and I can see why the end product costs so much.  Just to give an example, this tailor riding a goat

is on sale for 56,000 euros and a basic coffee cup, undecorated, will set you back 29 euros.  The museum is huge and contains examples of early ware to up to date pieces.

  They even had an organ with porcelain pipes. 

The whole thing was fascinating and well worth the entry fee, although I would love to have seen the firing process as well.

I carried on along the valley floor, still about 15 miles to travel to Dresden.  The tarmac bike path, much used to cyclists of all abilities, continued until, about 6 miles from the end, I had to take to the roads and pavements.  It wasn’t a great end to the journey, through the suburbs, but my navigators took me to the front door of the Premier Inn where I am staying for the next two nights and then only two more days cycling until I reach Berlin.

Day 16 – Dallying in Dresden

I eventually arrived at the Premier Inn in Dresden at about 5.30pm after my delays with punctures and my most enjoyable visit to the Meissen porcelain museum, and was, again stuck up on the top floor, this time the 7^th.  Sadly, no disabled room but it’s sufficient for me and the bike. I went in search of food and ended up just around the corner at Gänsedieb which specialises in local Saxon food. 

The name means Goose thief and Goose is number one on the menu.  I started with chopped chicken and melted cheese and went on to Goose leg with potatoes and veg.  Both were very nice but with a couple of pints of beer the bill came to 43 euros which I thought was a touch on the high side.  I came back an enjoyed a bottle of 3.99 Primitivo whilst I wrote the blog.

I didn’t sleep at all well, suffering badly from leg cramp and went down to the usual good Premier Inn breakfast just before 9 as I knew that nothing opened until 10.  The morning was dreich with mizzling rain and cloudy skies, and I left the hotel and strolled down towards the river which would take me in the direction of all the sights that I aimed to see. I was still early and wandered around taking pictures of buildings

Rebuilt in old style

until, at 10 I was able to buy a Dresden Museums Card for 22 euros that would give me entry to most of the museums for 2 days. I first went to the Albertinum, which used to be the city armoury but is now an art and sculpture gallery

with an antiquities collection, but mainly from about 1800 to the present – nothing very exciting, mainly German painters who I didn’t know.

I wanted to view the Frauenkirche, the main church in the centre of the city that had been almost completely destroyed in the air raids of February 1945, but it is a working church and was not open to the public until 1pm so I went, instead to the Royal Palace, home of the Electors of Saxony and Kings of Poland which was largely built in the early 18^th century in Baroque style, following a visit to Versailles by Augustus the Strong.  The building was severely damaged by the 1945 bombing and works of repair were only started in 1985.

  Although the work is still on-going there is a lot to see.  Nearly all of the treasure and valuables were removed from the Palace pre-war, so escaped damage.  Some of them ended up in the Soviet Union but were returned to the DDR and the building has a firearms and armoury gallery,

the royal state apartments that are still being completed,

a coin and banknote collection, dresses and costume from the early Baroque, tools, furniture, musical instruments, and a collection of Ottoman art as well as a gallery of treasure



And how’s this for a key?

 An early swiss army knife?

It’s pretty mind- boggling, and really deserves much more than a day to do it justice.

Just before 1, I left, intending to return later, to make sure that I could get into the Frauenkirche.  The church collapsed in the fire-storm and the Communist Government of the DDR refused to do anything about reconstructing it, at one point wanting the bulldoze the site for a car-park but there was fierce opposition both locally and from abroad so that in 1966 it was declared a monument against war to protect it from further desecration.

  During that time local people had been conserving what they could and removing and storing items with a view to rebuilding.  On the re-unification of Germany in 1989 impetus gathered to restore the church to its former glory and it was reconsecrated in 2005.

 

It is remarkable testament to those who persevered against all odds to achieve a building that is virtually identical to that which was destroyed, and completed in less then 20 years.  The crypt beneath the church has been simply laid out to include an area in which you can enjoy surround sound sacred music and areas have been left to show the extent of the damage.

Having fed the spirit, I returned to more temporal matters.  Alongside the Royal Palace is the Zwinger, built between 1710 and 1728 as an orangery and converted over the years to a pleasure garden for the citizens of Dresden.

 

It is the most important building of the Late Baroque period and houses the Porcelain collection, a mathematical and physical salon and a huge Old Masters Picture and Sculpture Gallery from late Middle Ages to the Age of Enlightenment.  In addition, the grounds are laid out with lawns and fountains and are accessible to all.  In the centre of the buildings is a substantial courtyard that is undergoing restoration and careful archaeology.  Again, way too much to take in. in the short time available.  I thought the Meissen museum yesterday was impressive, but the collection in the Zwinger is mind-blowing.  How about this for a piece of porcelain?

Then there is the Semperopera, the opera house, again burned out by the firestorm but reconstructed by 1985.  The leaders of the DDR clearly attached more importance to opera than religion.  I could have gone to see a production of La Traviata there tonight but the days when it was cheap to see Opera in Europe have gone, and the cheapest seats available were 80 euros which for a production of which I knew nothing, with principals who I did not know, in an opera that I have seen many times, seemed extravagant. Sadly I didn’t get to see inside either. But you can se that the weather improved markedly as they day went on

And there is so much more that I have not had time to see.  I’ll leave with some great memories and maybe there will be an opportunity to return in the future.

Day 17 – Into the woods

Walking around Dresden yesterday was as tiring as a day on the bike.  I covered a fair bit of ground but a lot of it was up and down steps, so, by the end of the day, I was pretty well knackered.  I’ve got used to the idea of polishing off a bottle of wine whilst writing the blog, so my first call was on Aldi, in a large shopping precinct, for a 2.99 euro bottle of Primitivo.  I still can’t get my head around how cheap wine is in Germany.  How much profit can go to the producer? As there were several eating places in the mall, I had a good look around and chose Taverna Akropolis.  Craig Charles’s doppelganger welcomed me with open arms and served me a large beer.  I chose Tzatziki with pitta bread and followed it up with a mixed grill.  Perfectly ok but not very exciting: with a couple of beers the bill was 33 euros.

Having put the blog to bed I did the same with myself and, unlike last night, slept very well, coming to, with the alarm at 7am. I was in no hurry to leave as I only had about 50 miles to travel. Another excellent breakfast, courtesy of my deal with Premier Inns, I was packed and ready to go just after 9. I cycled past some of yesterday’s sights

and also the Saxony Parliament building.

 I still had currency on my Dresden Museums card, so I thought I’d go across the Elbe and look at the Japanese Palace which was built by Augustus the Strong to house his porcelain collection – quite extraordinary ostentation.  The modern- day billionaire is more likely to spend his money on space rockets.  Anyway, now the porcelain collection is housed in the Zwinger, the Japanese Palace has little purpose.  It was extensively damaged by the 1945 air raids but was rebuilt with help from the French Government, although I can’t find out why.  I had expected to see a Museum of Ethnology but if it was in the building it was closed.  All I saw was a small and poor exhibition of rocks and gems.  The building looks sad and in need of a purpose. 

There are some landscaped gardens which were being enjoyed in the sunshine.  I cycled along the banks of the Elbe and came across this amusing statue,

took some pictures of the Old Town from the New, including this one that shows the Frauenkirche, the Zwinger, the Royal Palace and the Opera house,

and carried on with my journey.

For the first time on this trip, I didn’t wear a jacket.  The weather was warm and sunny and, although chilly to start, I felt comfortable throughout the day.  The first seven miles were on the flat, through the suburbs on pavement cycle paths.  As before, I had to have my wits about me because the paths switched over from one side of the road to the other, but I made it to the first, and most severe climb of the day without incident.  This climb wasn’t especially steep, but it was on the main road without any cycleway, so I switched on the motor to get it over with as quickly as possible.  That has been the pattern for the day, most roads without cycleways but then, when there was a cycleway, I tended to find myself on the wrong side of the road, annoying the car drivers when I failed to use it.

I was heading due north with a slight wind helping me along, but I wasn’t trying very hard, so my average speed has only been just over 11 miles an hour.  The countryside has been quite varied with some pretty villages,

open farmland, and forestry.  Few wind turbines until right at the end of the journey. I came across some cobbled roads

and one that was being extensively resurfaced and claimed to be closed.  I carried on regardless, as I could see no option, and made it through without difficulty.  Just the other side of the resurfacing I found myself on a gravel track which continued for a couple of miles.

  I was in sight or sound of the main autobahn to Berlin for much of the day, occasionally, very close indeed.  After going through the quite substantial town of Ortrand, with this fine Town Hall, (Isn’t Rathaus a great name for the Town Hall?)

I crossed the autobahn for the last time and headed into wooded countryside.  Looking at the map I could see that there appeared to be an off-road route that would cut a bit off the journey, so, with no time constraints, I went for it.  It was a fun ride on reasonable surfaces, past reservoirs and through coniferous forest,

until I caught up with the road again with about 14 miles still left.  Once again, I found myself failing to see a cycle path, incurring the wrath of an impatient Audi driver, until I could finally get across the road and onto it, and finished the day on cycle paths or pavements, arriving at my lodging for the night, in Finsterwalde, which claims, at the city limits, to be a singing town with choirs for all voices, at about 3.30pm, well ahead of my projection.  Time to unwind, have a meal and rest, before the last 70 miles into Berlin tomorrow.

Day 18 – Last day on the bike   

  Hotel zur kulturweberei sits down a side street in the town on Finsterwalde, a town that prides itself on its singing. Weaving was once an industry of the town but quite what culture weaving means, I’m not sure. The old weaving factory has been converted into a culture centre and Town Hall

Not knowing what time I would arrive, I had been emailed to the effect that reception was not manned all the time but I would find my keys in a key box by the gate.  In the event I arrived before the receptionist knocked off for the day, so I was able to book in properly.  There was a basement room for the bike,and I then had to lug my kit up two flights of stairs.  I washed my clothes and myself and turned on the electric towel rail, so that the clothes were dry by morning.  Another excellent shower – I don’t think I’ve had a duff one all trip and a comfortable bed that was, unfortunately, very short.

I went for a look around the town which has an attractive centre

and then back to Vietnamese restaurant, The Saigon.  It was extremely good.  Everything was cooked to order, so service was a trifle slow, but the results were excellent.  I started with a plate of spring rolls, meat skewers and dips which I washed down with a pint of beer.  Then, after quite a wait, a lovely dish of battered chicken with spicy roasted vegetables and a side salad.  All beautifully cooked and, in many ways, it was the best meal that I’ve had.  They didn’t take cards, but I had sufficient cash for the very reasonable 28 euro bill.

The morning dawned a bit dull, and I put on my rain jacket, as much to ward off the chill as the rain. I was heading pretty much due north and there was enough wind to be annoying.  I cracked on as there was no point in hanging around and I had covered 12.6 miles in the first hour, a speed that I maintained for much of the day, only dropping off as I entered the suburbs of Berlin and experienced some shocking lane surfaces.

The landscape was pretty ho hum: some quite large woods which, I imagine, were full of fungi at this time of year.

The roads were straight, which can be disheartening, and, in places, quite busy.  It was the usual mish mash of cycle paths and lanes that ran out without notice, shooting you onto the main carriageway.  Drivers seem to be less tolerant of cyclists in the east of Germany but it may be that cyclists are not so well looked after with dedicated paths.

I passed a Russian war cemetary, two tanks flanking the memorial pillar

I heard what I thought were geese honking overhead but were cranes or storks.  I couldn’t get close enough to tell. They were feeding on an area of ground that had been cultivated but not yet seeded.  When they took off, they were graceful in flight with their long legs stretched out behind them.

Other than that, there were no real highlights to the day.  I was just anxious to get to Berlin and complete the cycle ride. It started drizzling about ten miles from the end but only lasted for about 5 mile and I finished in sunshine. Once I reached Central Berlin the route took me through a park and straight onto the Kurfurstenstrasse, with the Premier Inn about a mile away on that road.

Job done.  Cycling finished and I can now enjoy the sights of Berlin in the company of my son Tom who has driven out to collect me.  As a non-German speaker, it’s been difficult to have conversations. Surprisingly to me, not many of the Germans I have encountered speak English but sign language and the smattering of German that I have, has sufficed, and I’ve muddled through.