May 8, 2022
Day 26: Worth to Drusenheim
Despite being so close to the French border, our hotel Vater Rhein came up with a no questions asked ten jammer breakfast. Aside from the many varieties of sliced and soft cheese, cold cuts, yogurt, brotchen, etc. they had great fresh fruit - good watermelon, banana, pineapple, etc. Add bacon, scrambled eggs, cappucino machine, it was terrific!
The hotel is named after the god of the river, an associate of Neptune. He is pictured on the wall of the breakfast room:
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The Rhine, of course, spends a lot of time running through the middle of Germany, such a where it says "Germany" on the map below. But in the Alsace region, where we are, it suddenly forms the border with France. So if you would be cruising down the west side of the river, at that point near Karlsruhe on the map, you would suddenly be in France. That actually happens just north of the (French!) town of Lauterbourg.
The actual border now looks just like this, but internet will show the same spot with various levels of barricades from the past. And during WW II, oh boy.
The radweg (errm "piste cyclable") looked like this for us for some of the day, and otherwise we were riding the other side of a dike, with a good surface but no view. For Grampies, this kind of path is just heavenly.
There were lots of cyclists on the trail today, and we found most (or all) of them to be German speaking. As we got further from Lauterburg, I was impressed that so many had apparently cycled "down" from Germany. But no, most had crossed on ferries, from Germany, which remains across the river. Sitting on a bench and watching a ferry cross, we were so pleased to think that passing from Germany to France and the reverse is so easy. To us, the EU is just the greatest thing.
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We are now in Alsace, which is a unique self contained region, but which has passed back and forth between France and Germany many times. Half timbered houses are part of the Alsace look, but they are a little different from those seen in Germany itself. Here are some shots from town along the way:
Of course, Lauterbourg, the first French town up was of greatest interest, because it would contain the first Patisserie. I got sent in, and saw this:
I am the one who often advocates eclairs even for breakfast, so this was great, and the photo does not even show them all. I came out with two, one chocolate and one coffee. I don't know why I played it so conservatively, because it could have been maybe raspberry and pistchio. Dodie comforted me with the hope that more would be found down the trail. Dodie also asked what they had had for sandwiches and what the baguettes looked like, but I had been so dazzled by eclairs I had not even looked!
Beyond pastries, another fancy thing we can look forward to hereafter is churches. In Beinheim, we stopped in at one, that had a very plain exterior, but was quite nice inside. As usual, though this was Sunday, there were no actual parishoners or priests in evidence.
Something a little unexpected in France was a Mercedes storage facility. There were literally acres of new Mercedes sub-compacts sitting there. Most seemed to be the same model, but looking at the wheels as we rolled by, there were many designs. Perhaps such changes reflect varying trim levels. Each car will have many unique details about it, such as VIN, colour, trim, date of manufacture, etc. etc. So somewhere there is a giant database with all the info. But can Mercedes really put their finger in all those acres on one specific car? What if I want just that specific one? How would they get it out?
We have been travelling steadily south, and of course the Spring is progressing a bit as the days go by. But it was quite interesting to see the raps here, with the yellow flowering almost done, and seed production underway. The bright yellow fields earlier and up north really added to cycling there.
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I expected our hotel tonight in Drusenheim (France) to offer the typical very teeny space, but the room turned out to be a reasonable size. It's lacking in electrical outlets and it's a bit of a chiropractic exercise if you want to use the toilet and also close the bathroom door, but it's ok.
Dodie is very unthrilled by the heavy single quilt, vs two fluffy single ones as in Germany. She also thinks they do not know how to fold in the bottom sheet. These features bugged her enough that she threatened to leave the country for tomorrow night (by crossing the river), but in the end we are toughing it out. We'll be sorry if even the heavy big quilt turns into a tightly tucked blanket at tomorrow's place!
One thing about this French hotel, it felt kind of good to go through all the arrangements - "Hi, I have a reservation, where can we put the bikes, the door to the bike shed seems to be locked, what is the wifi code, no we don't want breakfast tomorrow, we want to leave at 7:30, can someone open for the bikes then, I thought we already paid on Booking, wait I'll go get my card, etc. etc etc" in French. They still speak German here, and French of course, but English is a non starter.
What gave Meaning to Life for today: Eclairs!
Today's ride: 68 km (42 miles)
Total: 1,532 km (951 miles)
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