Author Archives: Robkeene

Our penultimate day once again greeted us with glorious sunshine. We headed down to the Danube, which has grown substantially since I waded across it 2 days ago.

We’ve really found the German food to be excellent and good value. They do great salads and good sized portions. The “Gastof’s” (inns/ pubs ) are very similar to English pubs. Lots of people meeting to drink beer, eat and chat. Very different to the French culture we’ve been used to.

Our guest house was a superb family run business, which was the best so far on our trip.

Comfy beds, great food and all the family were friendly.

After we’d feasted ourselves on the wonderful breakfast, we once again set off to try to find the way onto the cycle trail.

The bike map takes a while to catch up and then it tries to send you down little alleys, which you can’t find and so on.

I then worked out that we were the wrong side of the church, so I shot off in the right direction. Whilst turning herself around, Sue missed where I’d gone, so we lost each other, fortunately not for too long, but needless to say I received an earful, which didn’t start the day off too well!!

We established ourselves on the route, and had been pedalling for about 3 kms when I realised there were 2 major cycle routes out of town, and I’d chosen the wrong one, following another river valley, instead of the Danube🥱 (More earache!)

Fortunately it connected with the Danube 30 kms further on at Ulm, so we decided to carry on.

It was a good choice as it was a very pretty route, and Sue began to relax and smile again!

A really massive building. At 530 ft high it is the highest church steeple in the world: according to Wikipedia. It took a while to build, as they started construction in 1370, and finished it in1890, that’s more than 500 years!! It was worth the wait.

After yet more culture and beer, we were back into the countryside; our favourite place! Apparently we were now in Bavaria, but there were signs to welcome us!?

We spent the night in this little town after a very good Indian meal next door.

A day of Schlossing and Storking.

As we stayed just under this lovely looking castle (schloss), we decided to have a mooch around this impressive historical building and get another fix of culture, before we started pedalling again.

The trail was very varied, and we went through very tidy villages and small picturesque towns, then along the river, through woods then open countryside. Another day of sunshine.

Lake Constance was a great place to have a day’s break. Such a beautiful clear lake with the backdrop of the Alps in the distance.

On Sunday morning I took my early mug of tea to sit on the beach and admire the view. I had quite a shock when I saw these three sharks swimming near the shore!

The rest of the day we went for a walk along the shore and found a great little restaurant for lunch . From our table we looked down on 3 beach volleyball courts and were entertained by some energetic youngsters playing some very exciting games.

Again, I spent some time maintaining the bikes. Both our front tyres had had slow punctures for a few days, so I thought I’d have a look. I couldn’t believe the size of the thorn that had been through the tyre and tube. We’d done 300 kms, since we first had to first pump them up.!!

The thorn must have been so smooth and round it made a near perfect seal in the tube!!

We’d decided to rejoin the Eurovelo 6 a little further to the east, so this crossing enabled us to join other bike routes to achieve this.

The bike route around the lake is very popular, so you couldn’t really relax and cycle side by side.

A plane full of Canadian bike tourists had recently arrived and they’d all been armed with matching red electric bikes. They were trying to get orientated with the maps, in order to find their way along the coast to meet their return boat in the evening. They were all provided with pre paid voucher books for food, ferries etc. The whole idea was ghastly to us!!

Our bikes unfortunately had to share their room!

After some very heavy overnight rain, we woke to grey skies and cold temperatures but luckily the rainfall had passed by.

We breakfasted in the guest house bar. Other locals were also in there for coffee and chats; we were the only ones not smoking!

It seemed odd to us, as we’ve not been in a smokey bar for years.

We set off at 9am, with the idea of getting to a bike shop. My chain had been jumping the cogs, making a scary din, and I was worried it had become stretched and needed replacing. We quickly found an open bike shop with 3 people who were all mending bikes.

We carried on along the Rhine on the border of Switzerland and Germany, not sure what country we were in. You could only easily tell by looking at the parked car licence plates, either a D for Germany or CH for Switzerland. The border doesn’t always run along the centre of the river, that would be far too simple!!

The great thing about this trip has been that you never know what to expect around the next corner. The map said we were coming into another town called Stein am Rhein.

I knew it was going to be different when I saw tourist buses with toilets in the car park. There were lots of people ahead so we had to push the bikes through the arch to see some amazing decorated old buildings.

10 minutes later we were at our lakeside apartment, and the beach. It sounds grand, but it’s very sparsely furnished: one glass and one bowl to share!!

At least the bed is comfy.

Here for a day of rest before setting off tomorrow for the final few days.

After a night of rain we woke to low cloud and more rain. Fortunately we had breakfast in the hotel and didn’t have to depart until 11:00; it was still drizzling.

The rain gear came out, and finally my worn out sandals had a rest and the trainers and socks took over. I even put another layer on top. It felt very weird, as it was the first time in 8 weeks!!

We expected a day of rain, as was forecast. but after 30 mins of heavy drizzle, it dried up.

The first 30 km were along roads with a cycle track painted on the side; not much fun, but we made good progress.

Then when the EV 6 took us along the Rhine, it became much more enjoyable.

For our supper we had a really good Thai green curry. No one else was in the restaurant and on a Friday night!?? Everything seems expensive in Switzerland and the local people seem on edge and slightly tense. The car drivers are mostly in flashy German cars and have little tolerance for cyclists!

A big thanks to Manfred for finding out about the tall old buildings in yesterday’s blog. They were old salt mine shafts, if you hadn’t read his reply already.

After 17 days of pedalling 1320 km across France, we finally crossed the Rhine into another country.

The first 30 km from Mulhouse was uninspiring: following a large canal on straight paths.

The highlight of the morning was crossing this canal on a modern pedestrian/ cycle bridge

We arrived in Basel, then crossed this bridge to cycle into Germany, for a few hundred metres, before crossing the border into Switzerland.

These electric bikes are really amazing!!

That was three countries in 3 minutes; even ambitious American tourists would struggle to do European countries that fast !

Heading south from the beach bar, alongside colourful railway carriages.

After these lovely views, the cycle route became unpleasant. We had to cross a 6 lane busy road with a cycle lane painted on the road in the middle of the traffic. It was only really uncomfortable for about 15 minutes, but it seemed like an age to Sue, who was ready to give up at this point and walk!

We’d booked accommodation in Bad Säckingen, across the river in Germany. (Cheaper than Switzerland and the people are more friendly!!) Its name didn’t appeal when I booked it, but it was a lovely little place in reality.

This was the fabulous old footbridge, (cycles permitted ) to cross the border and get to the town of Bad Säckingen.

The ride to our guest house was easy, but getting to our room, a nightmare.

We arrived, tired as usual, and needing someone to take over, greet us and get us to our room for a much needed cup of tea,

As the reception was void of life, I found a member of staff in the restaurant, preparing for supper and he explained that we would have to check in online. Apparently, the latest labour saving system that hotels are using😡😡

Thankfully he showed us where the key for the bike garage was before getting back to his work in the kitchen. I then proceeded to self check in on the phone.

My phone also had had a busy day, steering us through 3 countries and taking lots of photos, so it was tired and running on empty tanks as well.

I had to google translate the email, in order to understand it. Then when I finally found the tiny blue check in link, in the middle of a long comprehensive message; the phone died🤬🤬

Next mission was to find an unlocked room with a socket to get the phone working. Luckily a room was set up for a wedding so I snuck in and plugged it in. 5 mins later I was filling in all sorts of questions, passports, full names of guest etc etc, 10 minutes later I received an email giving us our room number and code to get in😃👍🏼.

This is all in the name of progress!! 45 minutes to check in!!

Sorry for the long rant, but I am getting concerned that humans are now unable to survive without a computer attached to them. Next phase, we won’t be able to do things until our computers give us consent🤔. Scary, computers are taking over. Rant over!

Our room was lovely and an hour after we arrived, the heavens opened and it rained most of the night. Good job there was a restaurant on site.I enjoyed a delicious slow cooked beef cheeks and gravy and Sue had an equally good steak and pepper sauce, decorated with a carnation.

Sue slept very badly last night because of me. It happens often, but this time I gently rolled over and the bed on my side partially collapsed, making quite a racket on the wooden floor

I was not ready to wake at all, so quickly became accustomed to my new position, and drifted back to sleep .

Unfortunately Sue now worried that her side would also collapse, so she could not longer go back to sleep.

Luckily it was a beautiful day, so we soon forgot about our troubled night and returned to the canal heading eastwards.

With him we started a long descent down many locks, towards Mulhouse.

We suggested to them that our new friend Gilbert, the postie, had said that we ought to visit the train museum at Mulhouse. Sure enough they took his advice and we met them there as well. The power of word of mouth!

As we had a relatively short day on the bike, this is what we did, and weren’t disappointed. A fabulous selection of trains from steam to the TGV who made the world speed record in 1990 of 515 km/hr!! (320 mph)

The museum was really well laid out and so interesting, such as seeing how they built a railway to Chamonix, so people could go skiing which then opened up the Alps to tourism.

It was a 10 km ride to our accommodation, across the town at rush hour. Sue is getting much better at dealing with towns but it’s still quite intense on a laden bike.

Hopefully we’ll be crossing the Rhine tomorrow, so will have to speak another language. However, I understand that the words beer and wine sound the same in English, so we should be fine🥴😁

I realise that my blog photos are getting a bit similar: rivers, bikes, canals, and some pretty buildings. I apologise, but that is what we’re seeing every day!

We’ve been very fortunate with the weather, and continue to be so. My feet haven’t seen socks for three weeks, and the sandals I bought in August, are looking like they’ve seen five summers.

We started today in the middle of old town Besançon. A 2 minute walk to find a nice patisserie and a tasty french breakfast .

I then extracted the bikes from their fancy accommodation, behind these wonderful doors.

The bikes were loaded up on the street and off we went into a the old town, full of one way streets. However; bikes are permitted to go either way up them! Very scary.

We extricated our ourselves from this medieval town, only to find we were now on the wrong side of the impressive citadel, 500 ft above us. This required another passage through the 500 metre canal tunnel in order to put us back on track and heading towards the North East.

Another day following up another beautiful river called the Doubs, which runs through the Doubs department, no 25.

The river is now navigable, so locks and weirs are regular features. Every weir seems to have a heron who’s claimed his fishing rights to it.

The water in the Doubs is crystal clear. You could see the bottom much of the way. Many fish were visible and some were quite large (approx 50cm)

A dazzling kingfisher flew in front of us for a few moments.

As we had a long day, we wanted to do at least 50 km before lunch. For those in the know of traditions in France, lunch is served strictly between 12 noon and 13:30 and is generally the main meal of the day.

We arrived at a small town called Clerval and spotted some umbrellas with 3 other couples already finishing their meal. It was 13:40, so I thought we’d be turned away. I rushed in and asked the rather buxom maître d if she could accommodate us for lunch. She looked a bit cheesed off, but went back to consult with the chef.

We were in 😁😁 but needed to order right away. We enjoyed a simple, 3 course meal with a fruity local wine, and had unusually prompt service thrown in; because they were all anxious to close up and go home to sleep!!

We were only 10 km from our destination when our bums needed a break. This little bar enabled us to do this, whilst we had a drink.

Another old town, with a castle inside. It took 30 mins to work out how to get into our apartment, as the owner had installed a remotely operated digital key lock, which involved a very long tortuous conversation with him on the phone, in order to break in!

It was a huge place so we pushed the bikes up the wide stairs and were settled for another night.

We had a restless night due to being very hot under the eaves. Then a couple of thunderstorms passed through, rattling the windows, whilst it was booming away.

We were slow to get going as we’d opted for a short day. The rain had cleared and the clouds were moving eastwards.