And on to Mainz, 11-16 June

The cycle route from Lauterbourg to Mainz

Inside a jumbo -Speyer

As mentioned before, Karlsruhe is celebrating the 300th anniversary of 'Karl’s dream' - Karl Willem III was out hunting when he had a nap and dreamt of building a city right there. He did exactly that, with streets to radiate out from the magnificent castle. It was 'out the back’ of this complex that we had to find our way onto the correct cycle path, through the once hunting-forest, where now day-care centres take the children to explore and senior citizens take to their bikes. One of the photos I didn’t take was of a bevy of littlies, all alert and excited, exploring the forest beside the path. So heart-warming.

Met some goats en route...

From the road through the forest, we found the crossroad that eventually led us back to the Rhine River and a ferry crossing (there are lots of these) and on to Speyer. 

This town has a technical museum to partly rival the Smithsonian ones. I say partly, because the collection is spread over a number of locations and the other half, including the Concorde and Tupolev Tu-114 (the Russian copy) is 40 km away, too far for an excursion for us on this trip. If we were travelling by car we would have gone there. However, the collection of mounted planes included a Boeing 747, among about 60 other aircraft and helicopters, and there was also a U-boat and Rescue boat to walk through as well. Vintage cars, motorbikes, fire-engines, musical instruments. The whole collection compares favourably with other similar technical museums we have seen in France, Belgium and Washington. A hidden gem.

This captured our interest

These are for climbing into

Actually we only went to Speyer to see the cathedral, a UNESCO world heritage site, being the largest (and also named as finest) Romanesque church still standing. It wasn’t until we got there and pedalled past all these aircraft 'up in the air’ (higher than the Mangaweka DC3), that we realised there was more of interest to us. The church has a 1000 year history, and became a model for many other church buildings but not surpassed. It was one of the largest buildings of its time. There were restorations in the 18th,19th and 20th centuries but overall it retains the form and structure of the 11th century building. Certainly very large!

No camping ground so we treated ourselves to a modest hotel and delicious Italian meal. A memorable day.

Speyer to Mainz

From Speyer we moved on to a small town called Altrip, where we knew there was a camping ground but had to ask several people before we found it, tucked away on the edge of a small lake. Basic, and a delight. Newish facilities, coupled with an area where you can sit around a table in the shape of an octagon, sheltered from any rain, with drinks available and morning bread/ croissants able to be ordered. They even have a cool room. A camper’s dream, keeping things cold! The people running it were really kind and helpful, their daughters also. The three children are taken 33km to school each day, as that is where their actual home is. They spend May to September running the camp, having taken it over from his parents 8 years previously. A lovely atmosphere.

Time here to do a ‘big wash’, so we stayed the extra night needed and were kindly loaned a drying rack to put it all on. While our washing dried we checked out the ferry we would take the next day into Mannheim from a beer garden tucked in beside the ferry crossing. Such things as these will linger longer in the memory than the actual distance covered.

On the ferry, near to arrival on the Mannheim side

Typical glorious mix of nature and industry

Having done our reconnaissance the previous day, it was easy to find the ferry. These trips are usually about a euro and take about three minutes. We had intended to stay in the Mannheim camping ground, which was hard to find. A passerby whom we had questioned led us there on her bike but when we got there it was not possible to stay, because of some administrative dispute. We went on through the town, had some lunch, decided not to look for ‘the other’ camping ground along the river bank, and continued on to Worms, of cathedral fame.

Approaching Mannheim - The Tower

On our right, for a good part of the way, we rode past the BASF industrial area in Ludwigshafen, which is absolutely enormous. They produce chemicals and this is their largest production unit. Road signs told us to turn right for Gates 1-5, right up to about Gate 19. There were huge numbers of bikes (BASF issue or similar) in successive parking lots - and this was a Sunday, so we have no idea why they are there! 

In the late afternoon we arrived at the Worms Youth Hostel, no camping ground being apparent in the district. The YHA was a good choice, as you can eat for a modest price, a good breakfast is included, there is plenty of space, internet available for a reasonable price, and it is right next to the cathedral which we had come to see. Fabulously lit at night. The following morning we spent in sightseeing mode. 

Worms is the territory of the first part of the Nibelungenlied and references are in names, street names and notices dotted here and there. The cathedral is yet another example of German Romanesque architecture, some dating this time from the 10th century, mostly 11-12 and some later additions (Gothic). Quite a lot of historical happenings in Worms but I won’t go into all that. Also heavily bombed in 1945 but i won't go into that either.

We just had time in the afternoon to get to the next marked tent site, (Oppenheim, a small town in vineyard country). 

And potatoes. I forgot the potatoes!!!

When we got there we couldn’t find the reception area and a fellow camper said there wasn’t one, and they had been told to just take a tent space. This we did and had the most amazing site, right beside the Rhine, with its huge barges. 

From Oppenheim to Mainz was pretty cruisy, with the emphasis on pretty. 35km or so, following the river most of the way, and at the end a lovely camping ground really close to the city. 

We pitched our tent between the Australians from Perth and the Australians from Sydney (though to be fair, one was Norwegian and the other German, in AU for the last 25-30 years.) A social evening, followed by a social breakfast, provided by the Norwegian! A lovely end to our descent of the Rhine.

View of Mainz from the camping ground

Germany for real- Karlsruhe

9-10 June

The next ‘stage’ of our ride was from Lauterbourg to Karlsruhe, now in Germany proper. As soon as you leave Lauterbourg you are over the border. More agricultural land then the Rhine, which the cycle track follows up to the Karlsruhe bridge.

Up and over, along and through, and we arrived at the Karlsruhe Youth Hostel, where we stayed over 40 years ago. Well, sort of. It has been added to, modernised and updated in the human sense. Breakfast is included and the evening meal available for a very fair price. Bonus for us was meeting David, chef and general handy-person, who comes from north of Brisbane and has been there for 3 years. We really enjoyed talking with him about nothing in particular. And he gave us Vegemite! We stayed there two nights, as we wanted to explore Karlsruhe. (2 people in a 6-bedded room, plenty of space)

Second bonus was the Karlsruhe Museum, which has a stunning antiquities section, one of the most significant in Germany. From 3000BC and across many cultures, the finds are diverse and staggering, in number and quality. The rest of the museum is interesting too but the antiquities are worth a detour for.

It is the 300th anniversary of the town and they are gearing up for 15 weeks of celebration. The front of the castle is being converted into a temporary stage, by the look of it and people we spoke to were sorry we couldn’t stay!

Alsace

2 June - 8 June

We took trains to Mulhouse from Lyon, and spent the night in Mulhouse camping ground, familiar to us already. Off on bikes next morning. Which is where this year's blog begins.

The trip Up north but Down the Rhine on the French side is at this stage largely through agricultural land, combined with the back streets of towns and villages. An interesting mix. Maize, maize and more maize, much as it was in Brittany last year. Also wheat, barley, hybrids of one or the other (we can't decide), a bit of canola, some sunflowers, market gardens - silver beet, carrots, beans, peas, asparagus, potatoes, cabbage...at least for starters. 

This is country that Vauban designed defences for, so we had to stay the night at Neuf-Brisach, a fortified town with brilliant, totally-Vauban ramparts, ditches and the rest built between 1698 and 1703 - the 'ideal town' of the times, which is on UNESCO's World Heritage list. The camping ground is just outside the outer defences and we could easily walk into the centre, where there was a museum with a cool model of the original fort/ town. As for us, we had our own fort in the camping ground, with a sleeping floor, a shaded table underneath and a ladder upstairs. There were two electric points, LED lighting across the top of the 'tent' inside, lighting for the table and all for €5 more than a tent site. There was also coffee for €1.00 and reasonably-priced beer at reception. Stayed 2 nights...

A second Vauban excursion occurred further north, where we followed 'deviation' signs that didn't follow through and we ended up by accident, but happily, at Fort St Louis. It is as recently as 2008 that the defining edges of the ramparts have been cleared away and you can now clearly see the outer shape of the fort. The interior is a sort of sports ground. We biked right to the edge of the Rhine, looking over to Germany, then found our way back to the deviation, around it, and on with the route north.

Germany is on the other side!

Meanwhile, further south, we moved on through agricultural land and small towns and villages, some with excellent pastry shops, where you can sit down with a coffee and some of the wares ( often savoury flans) for a reasonable price. We deviated to see the Maginot line memorial - not a lot to see but good to actually see, since we were brought up with the Maginot Line, this line of defence for WW2, designed to defend France from the east, along the borders of Italy, Germany and Belgium. A complex of large concrete bunkers with store houses, ammunition, sleeping quarters and extensive underground tunnels, unable to fulfill its purpose, since Hitler came into Paris through Belgium, not actively defended, as they were a neutral country. We kept coming across these concrete structures alongside the cycle path - there are over 2000 in Alsace. A huge undertaking but in the end, strategic nonsense.

Strasbourg was a highlight, as we stayed there for a Sunday morning and visited the cathedral during the morning service prior to ordination of priests in the afternoon. The choir's singing was a dream, there were a number of priests in their festive robes, and the cathedral was imposing even to seasoned cathedral visitors. The other thing that really struck us was the number of cycles. just everywhere. Our hotel (modest, shared facilities) was very near the station and the area was filled with bikes. These are additional to those parked under cover, both near the station and 500 metres on, where we parked our bikes in a secure, video-monitored, manned bike park covering a large area, for free. Bikes are everywhere, as are places where they can park. Streets are given over to bikes, bikes and buses, bikes and pedestrians, in a way which seems to work. We liked it.

The last place in Alsace before you cross the border into Karlsruhe is called Lauterbourg and it features on the signposts for many kilometres. By the time you get there it seems as if more people are speaking German than French and the architecture is either extremely Alsatian or plainly Germanic. The campsite is beautifully situated on a  river bank and people pay for access to a 'beach' area. Not our sort of beach but we did have access, had we wanted it. Luckily they had a few specialities available as we got there somewhat late and tired. Nothing that a beer and a local 'flamed tart' ( almost a variety of pizza) couldn't cure! Oh, I think ice cream also featured that evening...

Lautersbourg - our last campsite before Germany

Map here (can't download it onto the blog):  Alsace map