Bacharach to Koblenz
One almost perfect day
What makes a perfect day on a bike tour?
The scenery. That’s big. And today we spend 50km riding through the perfect scenery of the Rhein Gorge: a sparkling, blue/green river, steep hillsides covered with grapevines, medieval castles atop rocky hillsides, postcard perfect river side villages. All the clichés.
What else? The road under our wheels. Today the road is flat, paved, mostly level, mostly smooth and, importantly, separated from the road. There’s no tussling with Audis, just effortless cycling. And I mean effortless. Who needs an ebike? Our super touring bikes just hum along, chewing up the kilometres.
Weather? Well, today’s weather is maybe a titch warmer than either of us would prefer, but with the sun out, there’s blue skies, making perfect views (see earlier point).
Attacks by military operatives? We are riding along minding our own business and I stop to take a photo of a railway tunnel entrance (Victoria, take notice. This is how you build decorative tunnel entrances.) There’s a buzzing sound and neither of us can figure it out. Is it the overhead lines for the trains? We’re a bit far away. Nothing else around … weird. We set off again and realise the buzzing comes from a drone, actually two drones hovering just behind a tree. Are they stalking us?
We ride on, then hear the sound of a helicopter. A dark-coloured, military type helicopter that seems to be heading straight for us, then veers off. So maybe not after a couple of Australian cyclists.
Only minutes later a Top Gun type jet fighter plane streaks along the valley, tipping sideways as it navigates a curve. I saw Top Gun: Maverick. I know they’re using us as training targets …
But we survive this apparent military attack. Phew.
We reach St Goar – the end point of yesterday’s boat cruise – in no time, and decide to push on to Boppard for ice cream. It’s a hot day; we need an ice cream lunch. We reach Boppard and find a likely looking place – umbrellas are a good giveaway for eis cafés. We should have picked another place. At most German, if not European, cafés when you sit down there is a waiter there almost immediately wanting your order. This place had a sign asking us to order inside. Fair enough. I go in and order fancy brechers (translates to mug, but usually means ice cream with toppings in a tall glass). Then we wait. And wait. And wait. I’m less concerned about the ice cream, but I’m hanging for a cold drink. (Remember, it is a very hot day.) Then the ice cream comes out. Then finally – it must have taken half an hour – the drinks.
How do you make an ice cream less good? It’s all pretty standard here, with the same menus. These come out, and either because it is hot, or because they have been standing waiting to be transported to our table, they’re kind of droopy. And they just don’t taste as good. We should have gone to the other shop.
With bellies full of ice cream we continue on, still hugging the river, thankfully. On this hot day the water and the greenery beside the river certainly help.
Riding is still hot and thirsty work, so we stop for a cold drink at a Biergarten. Neil chooses cola beer. What the actual?
And look at the foam … it looks like it is made of Yarra river water.
After this almost perfect day on the road (everything but the ice cream, and it was OK) we arrive in Koblenz and check into our hotel. We’re greeted by an actual person at the desk, who welcomes us, shows us where to put our bikes, gives us a map and recommendations, all with a beautiful smile. I’d like to see a self check in kiosk do that!
We follow her recommendations all the way to the Biergarten on the banks of the Moselle, where we indulge in our end of day beer ritual. One of Koblenz’s main claims to fame is Deutsches Eck (German Corner or German Point), a promontory where the Moselle River joins the Rhein. On our visit, this prominent tourist site is closed off, for a festival. We instead follow the hotel reception’s next recommendation, which is a cable car ride across the river to the fort that watches over Koblenz. There’s also an event happening up there – some kind of tribute concert – but we find a viewpoint and stare back at Koblenz through the rays of the burning hot sun. It’s all a bit hazy out there with the sun in that position.
Hungry now, we follow the third recommendation – a restaurant on the Rhein. The first two recommendations were good ones; this one, not so good. It’s a busy German/Italian place but we get a table easily. Within minutes a woman with a rough voice that could only have been cultivated over decades of cigarette smoking growls at us, pen poised over notepad, so we fumble around ordering drinks. Just as we are about to order food, she growls and stalks off. The people on the next table share wide eyes and uncomfortable smiles with us, acknowledging her rudeness. I see her stalk up to the restaurant host, talk rapidly and point in our general direction.
Next thing we know a lovely fresh-faced smiling woman shows up, switches from German to English immediately and takes our food order. Now I’m not saying that everybody should be able to speak English – any communication problems we have are ours alone because we are travelling in a country without any decent grasp of their language, but using basic German words and backing that up with pointing at menu items doesn’t warrant the growl and stalk off treatment.
She did come back to take our money, and no, there was no tip!
We walk through the quiet streets of old town, looking for a place for a nightcap. On the way we pass by another of Koblenz’s attractions – the Schängel Fountain, aka Spitting Boy. Last year in Brussels we encountered Pissing Boy. You can imagine what he does, but he is a bit of a town icon who is often dressed in outfits reflecting the occasion in town. When we were there it was graduation time, so Pissing Boy was wearing a cap and gown (with his appendage helpfully left uncovered so he could continue his business). Spitting boy just stands there, building up another delivery, and every few minutes spits it in a great geysering spurt.
The term Schängel has its origins in the 20-year affiliation (1794-1813) of the city of Koblenz to France. It refers to the German-French children born during this period, who were often named Jean (German: Johann or Hans). In the Koblenz dialect, “Jean” usually became “Schang”. Over time, this eventually developed into Schängel, a trivialisation of Schang.
Today, all native Koblenzers consider themselves Schängel and love the little guy who stands for wit, quick-wittedness and the Rhenish (Rhein river) way of life … and I would add, dirty little, mischevous little boys.
We find a small bar, which, like other places, has a TV showing a World Cup (soccer) match and we sit down. After a time the young man who is running the bar joins us and we have a lovely and wide-ranging conversation with him, starting with the World Cup but moving onto his studies and other topics. It was a really lovely interaction. Maybe sport does connect the world.
By the way, Switzerland defeated Bosnia and Herzegovina 4-1, with the last three goals scored in the ten minutes or so it took us to walk back to our hotel. We missed the best bit! As our young friend said, “I watch all games … I want to see goals.”
Stats for today:
- Distance: 48.86km
- Climb: 35m
- Average speed: 16.9km/h
- Average temperature: 34C
- Moving time: 2:53:23
- See our ride on Strava
The beer picture
At the end of a day’s ride, our tradition is to enjoy a beer, and to photograph it for posterity. Today’s beer picture was taken at a beer garden on the banks of the Moselle River in Koblenz. Half a litre, the smallest size, and with a brezel to stave off hunger.
Along the way today:
Click on an image to scroll through the gallery at full size.
