Our day started with another excellent hotel breakfast. The first part of our ride was through some very flat land, with vast wheat fields.

This is still horse country, as evidenced by this statue in Daverden, one of the first towns. We also saw many other references to horses, such as horse motifs on the gateposts of large properties. There are also a lot of beautiful horses grazing in the fields.

Our route still followed the Weser river, though often you could not see the river, as we travelled through farmland or small villages. We paused to see this soccer match in progress, after a bit of a detour along a rough riverbank path.

Part of the river is canalised, and there was a lock, even though the landscape is so flat.

There was a big wind farm alongside the wheat fields as we were getting closer to the city.

Today was a short ride, only 45km to Bremen – we took a bit of time riding through the urban outskirts into the centre of the city.

We found our super modern accommodation (7 Things Your Basic Hotel) near the university and did some sightseeing. The old town has some amazing buildings including a huge Cathedral.  The folk tale about the Bremen musicians (a donkey, dog, cat and rooster who scare away robbers) is very popular and it is hard to take a photo of the statue, as there are so many tourists photographing themselves next to it. We ate traditional pea soup with sausage at an outdoor market.

            

       

Then Andreas, who we had met in Gailingen phoned and said he and Silvia would come through from Hamburg to see us, and that they would meet us in the Alex pub in the city centre in an hour. We thought it would take longer, and went for a little walk around. We were surprised when he hooted at Kris on the street just as we were returning to the pub. He had ridden at speeds of up to 200km per hour on the autobahn to get there so quickly. They then booked a hotel room near the city centre, so they didn’t have to drive back that night.

We had another memorable evening together.

First we went to a beer garden along the river front for beer and bretzels.

   

Then we had a walk along the waterfront, where a festival with lots of music and food (and hundreds of people) was in full swing.

      

There were a number of groups of hen or stag parties walking around. The German tradition is that the prospective bride or groom has to sell things to raise some money – usually little bottles of liqueur. We bought some from this lady.

We had a final beer at the Alex pub, where our bicycles were parked. Then a slow ride back to our hotel, some km away but through a quiet part of the city alongside a large park.