DOWN THE RHINE

As we continued on down the Rhine it was generally pretty pleasant but we did have the odd occasion where it was not so nice, for example when we had to venture off into the countryside when there was no trail beside the river and on this occasion the path was pretty overgrown which was not a problem until I scored a stinging nettle to the face - ouch!

Most of the time though we had beautiful scenery and how could you not like cycling by the water....

or even away near the fields....

As we venture over one of the many bridges over the Rhine we came across a  pretty strange sight -  along both sides of the bridge were hundreds of padlocks.

 When we looked a bit closer each one either had something engraved or written on it, usually initials and a date.  We later found out that the custom is to lock one on to the bridge and throw away the key!!!
I wonder how many people have regretted that decision or brought in bolt cutters?????

Every country we have travelled through has it's own set of signs for cyclists and the sight we kept a look out for in Germany was like this.

Sometimes they are a bit hard to decipher but mainly very helpful, and it's good to come across one when you are almost positive that you've made a wrong turn.  As a lot of the roads are not very clearly markedit is sometimes a bit of a mission to decide which way to go at an intersection but Dave generally steers us right.

In the meantime we are still finding Great buildings all along the way, even though we are not sure what half of them are!

As we have been travelling along the Rhine to its origins, there are signs posted every kilometre and its  a real kick to see the numbers getting ever smaller.  When we first connected with the Rhine they read in the 800's - so we are getting closer....

And now for something  different and useless to us these days are these machines that we have found all over the place......no age restrictions here......and as far as we could see none were vandalised...

 It's a cigarette machine!!   This particular one was at the entrance to one of our camp sites but we found them in heaps of random places.

Not all of the interesting buildings were churches or castles or even super old.  Even some of the houses are pretty special with artworks on their walls.  Not sure if they have to redo them every so often but we have seen quite a few.

We finally reached the city of Koblenz.  Now normally as we are on a pretty tight budget we wait until we find a free loo, but in this case I didn't want to wait and Dave could not resist taking a shot of me spending 50P  to have a P (so to speak)  also the lady manning the station was pretty funny as she was Welsh speaking German!  - Well I thought it was funny!  That's me in the doorway - not the yellow shirt - or the Blue one!!!!

It had been ages since we had taken a day off from Riding, and Koblenz was a really interesting place so we decided to give ourselves a bit of a spoil. So we went to the Tourist information office (as usual) and asked them if they could tell us about a cheap hotel which they did and they even phoned and made the booking.  It's always a bit of a risk to know what you will end up with but we always try to make the best of whatever we end up with.  - The outside looked ok!

And it seemed just perfect for us according to the sign!

The lady was very nice that greeted us and she said we could put our bikes down in the cellar - down the stairs.  So we unloaded the gear and left it in the passage and Dave carried the bikes down the stairs to the cellar.  I then picked up some of the bags and proceeded to head UP the stairs to which she said " no down here' and led us down the stairs, past the cellar room with the bikes and to the back of the passageway.  We were wondering what on earth we had gotten ourselves in for and she said that they had just renovated this room and we were the first people in it........

 As you can see, Dave was very comfortable, and the room was lovely - the only drawback was the WIFI was a bit dodgy away from the windows but Dave found that in this position he could catch up with all the news from home!  We almost didn't want to leave after 2 nights and go back to the tent!
We did happen to find some other toilets in Koblenz but these were not open to the public.  We thought that the name suited them fine though!

All along this part of the Rhine we were coming across some amazing castles...

There were just so many that it was hard to comprehend, and how some of them were built on the sides of the hills defies thinking about.

Koblenz itself was full of beautiful old buildings and the detail and cleanliness of some of the roofs was worth sharing.

Even though we have chosen not to travel into the l arger cities,we have found so many wonderful buildings that we really don't care about missing some of the better known ones.  This church was magnificent but hard to pass on the sheer size and the detail in the decorations....

 Even the man hole covers in the street were not your usual functional bland....

Dave found another exclusive shop - this one was more to his taste - Beer Steins!!!

I got really excited at one point in our day of exploration when I saw an Organ Grinder with a monkey!  I dragged Dave over so we could take a look and was all prepared to give the monkey some change, but to my dismay - The monkey was stuffed - literally a stuffed toy!  I was most disappointed!

So we went on to discover some more modern sculpture - one for the footy show me thinks!

Thumbs Up!!
And some more castle ruins.

We decided to climb a monument at the junction of the rivers, and as Dave was approaching he encountered on of the mad tourists........hehe

But we managed to get the photo - this is where we have just come from.......

and you'll just have to wait for where we are going............

AND SO TO GERMANY

We left you hanging on the border - well straddling it if I remember.......
It is a little disappointing not having to be checked out and in to each new country or at least knowing when you have crossed a border but in this instance we knew for sure that we were now in country number 10 on our journey.
One of the first amusing things we came upon in the first village we entered was some hay bale art -

We are always finding interesting things in the strangest places, and this was something we just came across carrying sand from a quarry to the river - no one around but the conveyer rolls on.....

 and the other view...

Shortly after we got our first view of what was to become our constant companion for the next few weeks - the mighty Rhine river....

Along the way there are all sorts of things that we never expected to see - near the town of Xanthen there are Roman ruins......

And I am not quite sure which town this was but there was yet another great set of old city gates!!

We often had the choice of taking the trail on either side of the Rhine and when there is no bridge to cross then you can often take a ferry....

All through Europe we have come across lots and lot of religious statues.  Some are elaborate,some very plain, but this one was just a little different..

We then traveled on to one of our many campsites, this one just happened to be on Bistlers Island, and was the largestcampsite in Europe so we were told.. This is a site map.

For such a large camp it was totally unorganised when it came to where to pitch your tent and we were just lucky enough to get a small patch big enough for our tent and a little area to sit and eat!

But the 'peice de resistance' had to be the amenities block -it was like entereing some sort of Roman Baths......... Blocks and  blocks of mens and  ladies Loos,and theshower block went on forever.........
They even had the Marble statues.....

And a full on Supermarket with a cold room for beer to rival Dan murphy's - incredible!!
BTW the red arrow is showing people where to extinguish their buts!  -cigarette -

As the Rhine meanders along, so does the cycle route and we often found ourselves crossing to the opposite side -some of the bridges were elaborate and others...

 were even more elaborate!

We had not encountered a lot of rain since crossing the channel, but had decided after our efforts in the UK, that if it did rain then we would just shelter, sit it out and wait for it to stop.  We didn't want to fight the elements any more,so one morning when the rain started, we just set up a shelter and decided to have a cuppa...

but there was someone else with the same idea and we soon saw him heading towards us......

And he enjoyed a bit of sticky bun we fed him...

We also found this crazy water feature in the middle of a town square.......

And this was the front view....correct me if I'm wrong but to me it looks like a very well endowed woman clinging to a very large blue chicken????

 At some campsites we added our 'basher' for a bit of extra shelter, which in effect gave us another 'room' especially good when raining...

there were fields where you could buy flowers by the stalk on the honour system at 1 euro per stalk.....Dame Edna would have loved it....All Gladiolis!!

We continued to see some wonderful statues.

and fountains...

and of course our favourite forest paths

where we continued to discover these sort of buildings in the middle of nowhere...

and of course there was always the Rhine...our constant companion......where travel varied from the up market cruise boats..

to the not so up market.....

and of course there were always the 'themed' boats -this one was called Moby Dick..

And we met this little fellow Aussie on a ferry while crossing the Rhine..... Not sure if his visa is still current  but he seemed pretty happy and in no hurry to go anyplace else...

But we could not stay and join him as we had places to go and people to see....

HEADING OUT OF THE NETHERLANDS

We have really had a blast cycling in the Netherlands, with it's wonderful cycling paths and flat countryside, but one of the highlights will forever be a visit we made with a friend to see something called the PANORAMA MESDAG in The Hague.
Photos are not allowed there, but even if we could have taken them, there would be no way that you could even begin to pass on the experience.
If you are interested, check it out on Google, but better still if you get the chance and are anywhere near The Hague go and check it out!!!!   Thanks again Friedel!!

We left the coast of the Netherlands and started on our long journey South.  The coast had been really good but it was nice to get back into the country side with its canals and lovely little bridges.

and not all the canals had running water but still were beautiful!

As we got further out into the countryside we came across mile upon mile of Glasshouses

And we all know that glass gets dirty, so someone has to clean it...........

or something!    The inventor had to be a glass cleaner in another life I think....... and it looks like this machine has it's work cut out as it's just on row 1......

The laws re riding bicycles over here are different to Aussie and it was nice to feel the breeze riding without a helmet for a change - ok for the cycle paths!

And we have found lots of unusual  shops specializing in one thing only.  In this case Cigars!

We have also passed some lovely little farms on our travels, and the scenery is so nice - especially as the weather has been so greatsince we crossed the channel to Europe..

Dave continues to enjoy all the different boats that we come across in the rivers and canals and this great old Tug boat caught his eye ....

And we really need to take some lessons from the Dutch when it comes to providing for cyclists.. how is this for a way to get from one side of the freeway to the other - just for cyclists..

 Dave has done a massive job of navigating us all round the place and always finds interesting trails...

In the Netherlands we have tried where possible to camp in 'mini camps' or 'small camping' places, which usually means where a farmer has set aside a portion of his property for camping and has provided toilets and showers.  These are usually a lot cheaper than the large camping parks that are more like holiday resorts and cost a lot more.
Some of the little camps are pretty basic but this one we stayed in one night also had a museum of all sorts of old things including bicycles...

And the very next camp had something even stranger just sitting out in the field...........

Dont ask!        
We loved this spot and it provideda really good place to take a day off and just relax.  Especially as we were the only tent in the place!

The house at this campground was also a B&B and had a small bar so it was nice to relax with a glass of wine and chat to the owner about the place.  When I asked her how close we were to Germany she said not far....

"See that house over there?"  "That's Germany!"

So next morning we headed off again and very soon reached the border!!!!
Where I was divided---literally --- one foot in Netherlands and one in Germany........

Where the story continues...........