Day 33 ....... Strasbourg to. Neuburg am Rhein ......82 km .......(total 2,789 km)
Someone suggested I place a map of the trail I took today as a reference point
Porticos of Strasbourg
Pierre Petit’s modern “sculpture “. Looks like my local Sainsbury’s car park to be fair.
There is a whole lot to like about Strasbourg and I would strongly recommend it for a weekend visit or incorporate it into something longer within the area.
Gareth.W and I were joined today by two additional gentlemen. Russ.K flew all the way from San Francisco to join me for 3 days and his son in law Eddie flew in from Valencia . Those astute amongst you will recall that Eddie and his wife Heather (Russ and Caroline’s daughter) along with their 11 year old son TJ had hosted me in Valencia.
Russ and Eddie converged in Frankfurt and after hiring bikes with panniers made their way to Strasbourg. For some reason the express trains in Germany known as ICE do not take bikes unless you disassemble them and as a four hour local train didn’t appeal Russ and Eddie decided to hire a driver and private van forgetting that Monday was leading into a public holiday in this part of the world. The 2.5 hour van trip became close to 4.5 hours. So think about that. For Russ . Fly 12 hours across the Atlantic. Arrive Frankfurt 11 am when your body is telling you it’s midnight. Set off at 4 pm for a supposed 2.5 hour van trip that then becomes 4.5 hours and all of this to spend 3 days riding a bike 210 km up the rhine before returning home to San Francisco.
As for Eddie , a keen mountain biker, he later revealed he had never ridden this far on a bike in a single day. Ever.
Gentlemen. An absolute joy to have the both of you join myself and Gareth for this ride towards Frankfurt. I salute your sense of adventure.
Getting the band together .
“Nick and his Cohorts” .
L- R .. The Laeman - Russ.K - Eddie.B - Gareth.W.......
We made our way gingerly out of town and before we had left it’s boundaries we came across this wonderful Orthodox Church.
The Rhine is an impressively large piece of waterway and on bright and clear springs day even more so.
Russ and Gareth take time out to look at probably the only thing we passed today that was older than them. Petrified tree trunk dating back to 3,000 BC.
In this part of very far north eastern France they steadfastly hang onto machinery and values from a yesteryear. Francs? Really?
Just around the corner from where we had lunch you could buy local produce from this “Vendors “ centre. Local farmers drop their seasonal produce into one of these lockers and on an honours based system you select your products and leave your money in a central box that notes the window from where you have taken your goods. Old fashioned values of honesty and integrity sorely missed in some parts of today’s society elsewhere.
The “band” at the border. We got to the German border at 4.48 pm. Just. Moments earlier one of the band had gotten overly excited about crossing an international border and had clipped my back wheel whilst drafting behind me and he hit the ground quicker than a bag of wet cement. From the looks on their faces you’d never know who.
Neuburg am Rhein is not the gastronomic capital of south west Germany and I am sure it will hold up its hand to say so. However we enjoyed a lovely al fresco Turkish themed dinner (think doner kebab) in the spring evening watching the world glide by whilst sipping an oven warmed Turkish red wine of unknown grape variety.
The bands next gig is tomorrow night in Mannheim.