Once the meetings were over we spent a day in Heidelberg with Ash. The town is packed with tourists but the ruined castle overlooking the town makes it well worth the effort. On the way back we witnessed a breakdown in technology as the GPS navigation system in Ash’s hire Mercedes-Benz (he got a free upgrade) lost the plot. It directed us down a dead-end service road and when we tried another road it continuously asked us to do u-turns. Ash had a lot of faith in the disembodied female voice that had directed him so well over the previous week and it was only after about 6 u-turns that he allowed us to switch back to using the perfectly good map I was holding.
Leaving Ash on the Sunday we headed north to the Rhine River. We tried taking some quiet roads but ended up on a bike route. Feeling out of place we got back on some freeways and dropped into the famous Rhine Valley in time to camp on the edge of the river near Bacharach. This was a great spot – a well preserved little town on the river it was surrounded by steeply sloping vineyards and overlooked by a restored castle. The castle was a youth hostel but was booked out when we were there. We went for a morning ride the next day using the well patronized cycle paths on either side of the river. We also really loved the Riesling from the wineries surrounding the town and happily whiled away a few hours on a sunny afternoon at one of the wineries’ winestubes (wine bar).
We pulled ourselves away for a quick visit to Koblenz to see the junction of the Rhine and Mosele. Allegedly you should be able to see the clear waters of the Mosele mix with the browner Rhine but on the day we were there it was hard to see any difference in color. We then followed the Mosele upstream through more lovely vineyard\river scenery. The wine continued to be very drinkable and we had a fantastic dinner spot on the rivers edge on one night just outside Traben-Trarbach. By this stage we had enough German and enough wine knowledge to pick both winebars and wines so enjoyed riding back into town for a pre-dinner drink.
Next day we passed through Trier (checking out the famous Roman black gates that have guarded the southern approach for 2000 years) and then into Luxembourg. We had a quick look around the capital (confusingly also called Luxembourg) and liked what we saw – it is a pleasant city with a picturesque old town. We stayed just north of the centre and the next day managed to finally pick up some roof racks for our little car. We soon had the bikes on the roof and began to reap the benefits of being able to go for a ride without first completely re-assembling the bikes (mine had to have both wheels, the handlebars and the back disk brake caliper removed before it would fit in).
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