May 14, 2014
Day 15: Rudesheim to Frankfurt
Yesterday I characterized the Middle Rhine ride as being from Koblenz to Bingen.. That was only partly right. That is the 60 km with all the fantasy castles and towns. But to stop things at Bingen would leave out Mainz. Mainz is a pivot point - it really is the end of the middle Rhine Radweg, and it is the end (for us- the beginning) of the Main Radweg.
So this morning we set off along the east (right) bank of the Rhine, still some 30km north of Mainz. Certainly, here were no castles, but we did get to observe some interesting things nonetheless. First off, school kids, from very little to perhaps 10 year olds, were out in troops with their teachers. Most were walking, along the Rhine, and I would guess quite far from their schools. And one group ws out on bikes, with the teachers carefully explaining to them "We are going to turn left, take the middle of the street, signal a left turn, watch out for the gormless Canadian tourists", or something like that. We feel that the children were all being introduced to walking and cycling, in a very commendable way. We stopped to talk to one group of elementary kids, and Dodie gave each a "Canada" sticker. There were fourteen kids and she counted fourteen stickers. Half way some kids began counting with her, in English. Impressive.
Maybe we are reading in too much, but we also passed a playground which, in addition to the usual ridem duckie on a spring had a bicycle on a spring.It makes sense that a society that values outdoor sport and cycling would start introducing kids to the idea at a young age.
The idea that fantasy castles and suchlike stop at Bingen was exploded when we wandered into Eltville, still on the right bank. Here were a huge number of beautiful and extremely old half-tiimbered houses. There was one where the paint and mortar had come away, and that revealed the underlying construction a bit. Once the half (or diagonal) timbers are in place, the sort of triangular spaces created are filled, seemingly with anything. In this one case it was brick in some places, and straw in others.
This type of construction is termed here "fachwerk", and is a branch of the general concept of timber framing. Look up timber framing in wikipedia and you will find discussion of different techniques and styles.
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Notwithstanding Eltville, cycling was pretty normal until we reached the bridge to Mainz, on the west bank of the Rhine. We stopped in Mainz two years ago. Then as now we looked in a guidebook and found that there are are 52 listed attractions in the place. We must have been stronger that time, because we ran around trying to look at quite a few of them. This time we just headed for the two biggies: the cathedral (Dom) and the nearby Gutenberg Museum.
The cathedral and museum both front on some connected large squares. Dodie's first reaction on looking at these was to remark on how much public space exists in towns here. The space actually looked way bigger than last time, because then it was completely filled by a giant farmers' market. There were so many people and so much going on, that we were lucky to find a place at the outside seating of the Dom Cafe, for a bowl of ice cream. This time that would have been no problem, but it was too cold to enjoy ice cream!
Last time we were disappointed to find the Gutenberg museum closed. But this time 5 euros and we were in! Gutenberg, of course, is the guy who almost 600 years ago "invented" printing, using move-able type and a press. The timing of this was in the vicinity of 1438 to 1448. Gutenberg was born in Mainz, did some of his development workin Strasbourg, and returned to Mainz. Gutenberg's most famous printed product was the bible, which he did at 42 lines per page. Between 1452 and 1455 Gutenberg produced 180 copies, using six presses and 20 staff. Gutenberg got sued by a creditor then and lost control of the workshop. It sounds a lot like modern stories where the founders of great companies based on inventions eventually get forced out.
The museum tells the Gutenberg story and has examples of his presses and work, but it is much more than that. There is a vast collection of rare books and sections on oriental printing, newspapers, childrens books, art nouveau and book art, etc. Naturally, we just ran through. Nobody could absorb anything useful in under a few weeks. But hey, this time we at least got in.
Of course our other objective in Mainz was to visit at least one bakery. In line with our quickie approach this time, we just chose the Dom Backstube. Dodie sent me in, with a license to get one thing for now and one thing for later. I had a hard time deciding, and so I came out with a big bag of stuff. (Actually, many bags - they tend to individually bag your choices here). Dodie was not impressed, claiming there was no room on the bikes for all this stuff. Later, I was able to drop my position as the goat and become the hero, as these bags were what kept us from starving in the evening.
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So, after blowing just two hours in Mainz, we retraced our steps over the bridge and set about heading up the Main. (Perhaps I should make it clear that the Main River is pronounced "mine", and although it is a big and important stream is not actually the "main" one in any sense.)
The path along the Main leading from its intersection with the Rhine was neither ugly nor beautiful. It was just normal, decent cycling. The weather was cool but there was no rain, so we just proceeded along. Sometimes signage was a little weak, and we stopped to consult the GPS. Each time, someone would stop and ask if we needed help. This was oftenactually useful, as a local person is faster than a GPS, particularly if you are trying to work around construction. Our main takeaway, though, was the impression of the generosity and kindness of the people. There would soon be some minuses and plusses added to this impression.
When we began to approach Frankfurt we needed to decide whether to go into the heart of the city, or whether to bypass it and perhaps catch it just before flying out in 80 days' time. The old town (altstadt) on our map seemed to have some things worth seeing, so we decided to go in. First, though, we would find our now customary small hotel, somewhere on the outskirts.
Frankfurt had other ideas. Small hotel seems to be a rural, tourist phenomenon. What we found were some few signs for a couple of hotels, with names like "Motel One" , and arrows pointing vaguely away from the river, to the south. As the traffic had intensified getting closer to Frankfurt, we had gloated because we always were given an off road bike path. That is one of the things I have touted about Germany - there is always a bike path. Now, though, we ran into the fine print about that rule: Yes, there is always a bike path beside the road, but there is no guarantee you will have a way to cross the darn road. So now we had arrows pointing to presumed hotels, but no easy way to get there. We ended by carrying the bikes up many steps to access pedestrian overpasses. This requires unloading the bikes and carrying the bags separately. What a pain!
The arrows had lead us to an ultra sterile area of office buildings and hotels that looked like office buildings. At the first one I waited in line, only to be told the place was fully booked. Did the girl behind the counter have any suggestions about where to look next? No. At the second hotel they were also fully booked, as was the third. These are giant multi-story establishments - what is going on in this town? The last man did have a suggestion: check with tourist information, downtown. Yeah sure.
Our answer was to head back to the river to find a secluded bush to camp behind. First we had to noodle our way around to avoid carrying the bikes back over all those stairs. So we left the sterile office buildings and entered an area of sterile apartment blocks. Our plan to visit Frankfurt was starting to evolve into a plan to beat it upriver as soon as possible.
Anyway we returned to the river and stopped to put on some warmer clothes. When the light is dropping, it's getting cold, and you have no place to stay, staying warm helps to fend off any sense of impending panic. As we stood there, digging out clothes, a man came along and called through a locked gate for someone to come open up. The gate was the entrance to the Niederrad Schwimm (and paddling) Club. When someone did come, Dodie implemented a strategy taught her by her Dad - "it never hurts to ask, the worst they can say is no, which leaves you no worse off". So Dodie asked. In so doing she struck a vein of pure generosity. Sure, we could set up our tent on the lawn. Actually, why not sleep in the building? Unfortunately, we only have cold shower. You could also swim in the river - it's very clean! There are some drinks you could have, at the bar. Oh, we also have some foam pads, no need to unpack your stuff. We will give you a key to the gate, just drop it in the letter box when you leave". And with that, I guess, we were left in charge of the whole club compound, buildings, and equipment!
Just before that, we got to meet one or two of the members. Two of these were Michael and Katja. They have the dream of coming to Canada and paddling in the Broken Islands off Vancouver Island. Of course we much enjoyed telling them about British Columbia, and inviting to come visit us there.
I guess the good vibes at the Schwimm Club have reversed the bad vibes from the hotel clerks, and tomorrow we will head into Frankfurt and see what it is all about. Then clearly we will flee back to and up our river, where at least we feel confident of a place to stay, even if it is only under a bush.
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Today's ride: 77 km (48 miles)
Total: 912 km (566 miles)
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