Germany

Gutentag and welcome to Germany!

From Paris we caught a train to Strasbourg and then started cycling down the Rhine to go visit the German side of my family.

Wild camping was a little more challenging (and wet) in Germany, but we managed.

Mmm beer.

The woods behind the city of Karlsruhe.

Cycling through fields on backroads was delightful.

The rapeseed was blooming and had a distinctive cheezy smell. Apparently a lot of it gets used for biofuels.

A Twike

Odenheim - my home in Germany.

Uncle Seppel looking like my Dad in so many ways.

A whole bunch of Blasies.

Heildelberg.

View of Heidelberg from the castle.

My aunt and uncle were kind enough to take us to the Maulbronn Monestery - a UNESCO world heritage site. Rather impressive in the sheer amount of detail everywhere you looked.

St. Goar

At some point we had to pull ourselves away from the good food and beer that my relatives were very generously offering us and head off on our bikes again. We caught a train back to the Rhine and kept cycling towards the airport.

One of the many barges and castles on the Rhine.

This section of the river is flanked by steep slopes and cliffs on both sides. In addition to the endless barges going up and down the river, there is also a railway and a highway on each side of the river. All this traffic bouncing between the steep sides of the valley made this a very, very loud place. As pretty as it was, I was happy to cycle out into the quiet of the forests and fields above it.

Yet another castle.

And then we flew back to Edinburgh and discovered that the canal bike path takes us from within 2 km of the airport to 500m from our doorstep. Sweet.

James with his Remoulade in a tube - his German souvenir. I got horseradish in a tube.