Friday 10 July – Happy Birthday Kris
Today we reached two milestones – Kris’s birthday and 4,000km on our journey so far!
Our bed and breakfast hostess served up a delicious breakfast and also some advice on the day’s route.
Our first ten kilometers or so, to Koblenz, was still along the Mosel. We saw some more impressive vineyards along the way. At Koblenz we reached the Deutsches Eck (German Corner), the spot where the Mosel joins the Rhine. There is a large and impressive statue of Emperor William the Great and a cable car going over the Rhine.
We passed fairly quickly through Koblenz, following the Rhine. There was an impressive amount of commercial traffic on the Rhine, including barges carrying scrap metal and tractors. We only travelled about 10km along the Rhine before turning off onto a cycle way along the Lahn river, which we followed for the rest of the day to Weilburg. This is a smaller river, also very pretty with regular castles and a fair number of cycle tourists.
There were also many groups of people out in canoes – we were told that motorised boats are banned from large parts of the river. Another feature of the river is very regular camping parks with caravans alongside the river – it is obviously a very popular holiday area.
Bad Ems was a very attractive town, with ornate buildings along the river front.
After Laurenburg, the signs became unclear as to whether the cycle path followed the river or went over a hill. We were advised that we could continue along the river but that we may have to get off and push in places so we continued on. The path deteriorated to little more than a narrow walking track. I hurt myself by smashing my toes against the rock on the side.
Just after this stretch we met a couple of helpful guys, out on a ride. Kris asked for directions and they offered to guide us to Limburg, where they live.
We rode with them for about an hour – this was nice and relaxing as we didn’t have to think about the route.
Here is a photo of Kris with our guides and the Limburg Cathedral.
Here is a new bridge being built alongside the old one. Our guides told us that a lot of the bridges in the area are being replaced.
This is St. Lubentius Basilica in Dietkirchen, which we passed by, still with our guides.
And after we had said goodbye to them we passed through Runkel, with its’ castle.
From here we pressed onto Weilburg, making it a long day at 124km. Here is the view from the Weilburg Schloss gardens, where we had picnic supper.