Day 18

The day started, at the previous had finished in Worms. Wagner's cycle of four epic operas - The Ring of the Nibelung - is based on a poem in Middle High German (the Nibelungenlied) whose scenes are set in Worms. As a result there are a couple of tourist spots dedicated to this. The Nibelungen museum (dedicated to the story) and the Nibelungen bridge over the Rhine which has an ornate bridge defence tower. Both of which I visited before I left. 

Glen and I parted company in the morning at the bridge. Glen is following the Rhine cycle route as his objective while I am cycling Zagreb-Brussels, but on a route of my choosing. I didn't want to spend another morning looking at flood defence dikes and wanted to push on the Koblenz if the day went well. Glen wanted to stick to the route and, as he had a fixed ferry date, had no reason to push on. 

I decided to cut across country and miss out a bend in the Rhine with the penalty of some hill climbing. (See below). The arrow is not literal!

I would rejoin the Rhine route at Bingen where the river enters the Rhine Gorge.

Almost immediately I climbed onto some rolling hills about 150 meters above the river and then spent the morning climbing and decending valleys and ridges between 180 and 250 meters high. This is serious wine country with the fields set out with vines in military rows. The grapes seemed about ready and testing showed them to be very sweet. No idea what grape but they were mostly black!  

The villages were much prettier than in the industrial areas around Worms though not as floriferous as the French ones. Well kept, prosperous looking, and many with signs for wineries which I assumed were open to the public. 

Some of the hills were quite sharp and the road edges were pleasingly populated by a large number of very pretty light blue thistles and the cornflowers which had kept me company most of the way from Zagreb. 

Being on my own I amused myself in this stage of the day by trying to remember Rupert Brooke's poem "The Old Vicarage Granchester" which is about missing England when he is in a hot Germany. I succeeded, with some effort, in remembering the whole of the eighteen lines of the first verse (which is the best bit in my view) and was outrageously pleased with myself!

Unlike the main cycle route, which is an M25 of touring cyclists, there were no cyclists and few cars. However, around 20km from Bingen I was slowly passed by an elderly gentleman (Elderly! Not much older than me. How depressing!) on an electric bicycle. I decided to keep up with him and we engaged in the kind of hopeless conversation that takes place when two people have no knowledge of each other's language. However, I have become skilled in this and by miming eating and saying Bingen very loudly he understood that I was heading to Bingen for lunch. He shouted, equally loudly Bingen and Zimmer, from which I understood he lived near Bingen and was returning there. I followed him, by mysterious and hidden paths known only to local cognoscenti, the 15km or so to the Rhine cycle route about 5 km outside Bingen. The advantage of this was that from the point he left the main road to the Rhine was 15km - all of it downhill. I thanked him profusely and took his picture. 

This is the last part of the Rhine flood plane before it enters the gorge and when I got to Bingen I realised I had been in these parts before. On the opposite bank was a village and monument I recognised. The village is Ruddeshiem am Rhien and my bother and I visited it on a School trip in our early teens. Spooky.

I met a very pleasant, English speaking, young lady cyclist in Bingen but as I wanted my lunch I was unable to continue the journey in her company.  Lunch was great though.

Now in the Rhine gorge I sped along at a tremendous rate on the excellent dedicated cycle path along the river bank. The gorge is decorated by riverside villages, vineyards, and castles perched high on the hill. I passed the famous (why?) Lorelei Rock on the way. The second picture (taken from Google) makes it look more interesting than mine. On it the cycle path can be seen (on the left bank between the hotels and the river)

Around five o'clock I came across a very busy and obviously popular village on my side of the river by the name of Boppard. I decided to stop and consider, over a beer, whether this would be a good spot to stop. Laura, the English speaking waitress could not, immediately, name a great place when asked. This made me think I might move on.  I checked Google maps and found to my amazement I was only 20km from Koblenz. I found a cheap room (but with a 7.6 rating) on booking.com and made Koblenz in just over an hour. I had cycled 80 miles in the day, much of it hilly, without really noticing. Happy days!  Here are some castle pictures. More on the album.