Cologne rest day

Day 8 - no cycling!!

Had a late wake up & start to the day, left the hotel about 11am and searched out some brunch, we found a fabulous little cafe called Textile which was decorated with pieces of clothing hanging all over the place. A couple of hot chocolates & food & we were off to the Cathedral via some other old stuff. It was raining, cold & miserable in the morning. 

One of the old city gates. Köln eigelsteintorburg

Insturments ready to play - bands played in this area all day.

Looking back through the city gate Köln eigelsteintorburg

Cologne Cathedral is breathtaking. We entered while a church service was underway & the sounds from the organ were awesome. We decided to return later in the day when services were not underway to get a better look around.

A rain soaked Cologne Cathedral

The detailed stone masonry was amazing.

One of the side naves (right hand side as you enter the cathedral)

The main nave of the cathedral - just amazing. 43m high.

The northern stained glass windows from around 1509

One of the other stained glass windows

Very old window washer ...

A door knob on the entrance doors

When we left the rain had stopped & the sun was shining. We walked down to the River side & found this strange creature. (Yes I am wearing short sox with my shoes ... It is colder than I like!! 

Dianne with the spires in the background

Wayne with someone on a horse statue behind (either
Friedrich III or emperor Wilhelm I)

Wayne pointing to the D8 sign post we need to be following.

Hohenzollern Bridge from Cologne side of the Rhine

Design fail here ... Read the sign. These guys were employed to stop people walking across the red bricks.

We then headed down to the chocolate museum... That was well worth spending a couple of warm hours looking around. Learned so much about chocolate & they even had displays about the human rights issues surrounding chocolate that have always been a part of the industry.

Still rain soaked

A fountain in one of the many town squares

Old buildings everywhere.

Statue and fountain

This is a detail from a larger statue

Cobblestones - everywhere, lovely to look at, awful to ride on.

The older organ in the cathedral.

The newest organ in the Cologne Cathedral. The birds nest organ.

The names of the Cardinals who are buried in the Cathedrals crypt.

Detail of the stone work and holy water bowl.

Candles lit by the worshippers

The Cologne Cathedral.

Schokoladenmuseum Köln

The Germans are a bit soccer crazy

A world cup soccer ball made of chocolate

The amount of foil required to wrap a Lindt bunny

The best chocolate fountain ever!

More soccer balls for sale

And this is the reason Hershey chocolate tastes so bad ...

Ordering our own flavoured chocolate. If you do this - do it before you look around the museum as the order can take up to an hour to be filled if it is busy.

Bike sized pieces to keep us going.

A quick lunch on the go & we headed back to the Cathedral via the old riverfront area while it was not raining.

Bratwurst on a bun - the best of German cuisine.

Some of the old part of Colgne, much of which had to be rebuilt after WW2.

Very pretty view of the old part of Colgne with one of the mnay churches behind it.

After the chocolate museum we headed back to the cathedral for another look.

Detail from the crypt door in the Cologn Cathedral

The cathedral is so big, bigger than I expected.

Waiting for 5pm Sunday mass to start.

The stained glass windows are lovely.

 

We ended up staying for 5pm Sunday mass as we wanted to hear the amazing organs again. The sound was incredible. The mass was in German, and are not Catholic, so it was a bit foreign but there were quite a few people and it was a good, warm place to be.

Off to find food and to watch the game between Mexico & Netherlands which was very exciting.  We are both exhausted, but thankful for the rest day. Tomorrow we head for Bonn.

A frieze along the side of a wall somewhere.

Our budget hotel - no breakfast included in this one.

Walking home to our budget hotel through the park.

Orsoy to Cologne

 Day 7

Days distance 111.71

Total distance 423.3

Garmin ride details 

111 kms 60 of these in the drizzling, cold, unpleasant rain. Not many photos due the awful weather.

Our route and we did stray off the Rhine route

Setting out for the day

We set off from Orsoy with Cologne as a possible destination, but it was about 80kms, so it may not be reached depending on a number of factors... the main one being the rain.

After sufficient cheese loading we headed off, following the Route 15 Rhine sign posts, a slight deviation from our trusted D8 route. The 15 took us over the Rhine on a ferry into the outskirts of Duisburg. 

We rode ride past this power station

The ferry that took us across the Rhine

Barges coming our way while on the ferry

After the ferry we skirted around the massive power plant and under the 300m chimney.

And headed into the industrial part of town ... Not very pretty!!

A factory chimney spewing something out ...

That plume of toxic something was released just before we got near there .... Then we rode past and whatever it was rained down on us ... Smelled like sulphur, it was disgusting, but must have given me superpowers for the day as I felt very strong on the bike.... Or a strong desire to leave this area as far as possible.

Industry at its German best

Yes, the Germans are so proud of this area, it has it's own tourist route ....

After riding through such not nice scenery we came to this ... which made us forget about the yukky stuff

 

And then we got more industrial park

One of the many bridges we passed on our ride heading into Duisburg.

And under ...

Sheep doing their community service on the banks of the river.

Continuing along the Rhine's course, going over a small inlet at Duisberg.

Some ships ...

A container port in Duisberg

Still pretty, but this where I made a navigational error & we started following the WRONG river.... I had my suspicions as it was a lot smaller... Took us about 20kms off course ... Lesson learned - follow the signs when they are given to you on a post....

A sculpture in a town we were not supposed to be in....but we didn't know that yet - even though the river was a lot smaller.... (we were at Mulheim)

A really really long bridge (Ruhrtalbrücke) we shouldn't have seen along with old houses & churches that were on the wrong route...

( the track was gravel & very bumpy as well)

A classic German village scene in a village (Hosel) we should not have known exists ....

We then discovered we were in the wrong place via Google maps & had to head South West to get back to the Rhine ... It then started raining, alot .... And there were some big hills to get over into the next valley, that almost did me in...

A quick lunch in Lintorf at a kebab place, purchase of plastic bags to cover our gear & selves & were were off again....

An apple stop outside of Dusseldof, which I didn't get any photos of due the rain, we did stop in Dusseldorf and refuel with hot chocolate & apple cake. It was pouring. Very unpleasant, but no better way to spend it than travelling ... Maybe not on a bike.

These bags cost up 10cents each, and we got our money's worth out of them. Sorry environmentalists...

Those make do shoe / vegetable bags kept our feet snugly dry for the entire 60kms in the drizzling awful conditions.

Stylish ..

Hoorah Cologne!! We still had about 5kms to go & accommodation yet to find. I was wet through as my jacket did not do a good job of keeping the water out and the temp was about 15degrees. Cold cold cold!!

Cologne - so close yet so far

Finally at our resting place - and looking at the stuff we picked up along the way, no wonder the end was getting harder ... Our bikes were so much heavier. We were tired, exhausted, I was very cold & just wanting a hot shower.... A 9.5 hour day .... Not including lunch time. We go slow as we need to stop often to check routes etc. we sit on about 19-20kms an hour when we get a good run. The villages slow us down with traffic lights and photographing.

Filthy bike

Looking forward to a warm bed, 2 nights on one place, no bike time & checking out Cologne.

I was so tired I wasn't even very hungry!!

Personal best distance EVER!! Worst off course route EVER!