Moving on quite quickly now and a couple of nights at a site at Kirchheim where it would certainly have been an advantage to have a motorized bike or scooter as the pitches were at the top of a hill – fine to cycle down, but going back up was quite another story! Had to cycle 5 miles to the supermarket which was O.K. but coming back… well! Good excuse for one stop was to photograph a house with a lovely painting on one wall and a painting of a window and balcony which looked very real.
Next stop was a favourite spot at Rodenkirchen just outside Cologne where we were fortunate enough to get a pitch right by the river again and there was plenty of river traffic to watch with barges going up and down as well as very sleek hotel boats and boats doing river trips – a boat with a disco kept us well entertained with its music for quite some time as it went up the river and again on its return a couple of hours later!
The barges are in a great variety of sizes and with varying cargoes – some piled high with containers (though at the moment they are restricted as the river level is so low), some carrying piles of coal or gravel and we saw one with a great number of green tractors and lorries.
Sometimes there is one barge pushing another and sometimes there are two abreast. Very easy cycling on the path between the campsite and the river and when we cycled the 5 miles into Cologne we found that the path now goes right into the city whereas before we had to go up to the road for the last bit and use the cycle path up there. A favourite ride has been to cycle in the opposite direction to Surth, a little way down the river where there is a pontoon restaurant – a perfect setting for a nice meal.
Didn’t do the cycle bit this time, but friends who came to visit us took us by car and we had a lovely evening – plenty of activity to watch, and a very reasonable priced meal.
We do seem to have met the unsettled weather and its definitely much cooler – we are having to adjust after the heat of Croatia and Hungary – and when it rains – it rains! Feel very much on the homeward stretch now having just arrived in Bruges.
