Tuesday, 17^th July
Being unable to comfortably reach Dover quayside in time to catch the European Bike Bus at 4pm, we decided to stay one night in the youth hostel there. This was a wise move, since our journey by rail took longer than anticipated and we had to catch a later train from London to Dover.

On arrival at Dover YH we found the overnight storage facilities for bikes unsatisfactory – in the back garden accessed by a gate which looked a well worn target by thieves. In answer to our protests we were sent around the block to the YH annexe – much better with a proper shed to lock our bikes in. Our fellow hostellers included a group of Lithuanians.

Wednesday, 18^th
We spent the morning looking around a bit, in blustery weather conditions. I was interested to see Route 1 of the National Cycling Network running along the sea front. This is the route that goes up the eastern side of Britain, including through Norwich and Norfolk.

By the time the European bike express bus turned up it was pouring with rain and we were sheltering in the quayside waiting area. The bus is a double decker, with a double decker trailer for bikes and baggage. We were the last passengers to board so we had the last two seats, in a rather cramped situation near the door. No sooner had the bus driven into the hold of the ferry than we were out again for the crossing.

Arriving in Calais, we re-boarded the bus and were off for our 10-hour drive to Basel. Appalling weather conditions during the journey; I felt sorry for the drivers. We arrived at the Formula 1 hotel on the outskirts of Basel at 2.40am, where Christine and I were the only ones to disembark. Christine had booked the hotel room in advance, and used her credit card and a pre-arranged code number to access the hotel. We met no-one but took our bikes into the ground floor room arranged for us, where we slept the rest of the night.

Thursday, 19^th
We had breakfast in the foyer of the hotel, then left to cycle to the railway station in the German sector. We cycled along the Canal Huningue, familiar from our previous trip to Basel. We took three trains to reach Konstanz where we stayed in a hotel opposite the railway station, above a McDonald’s. 
(Cycled 11 miles)

Friday, 20^th
We’d been given tokens by the hotel to take breakfast in McDonald’s. Not terribly appetising but we capitalised on the selection by having two different dishes and sharing each between us. It was raining. We spent the morning walking around the highlights of the town, using a map picked up at the Tourist Information Centre. We bought some food for lunch and ate it in our hotel room.

In the afternoon we got the bikes out and cycled to Meinau Island in Lake Konstanz, accessed by a peninsular. The island is largely botanical garden, which we walked round. It was lovely – organic, butterfly house, maize maze, floral sculptures, herb garden, etc. I took lots of photos (slides). We sheltered under a very large garden parasol during a very heavy shower.
(11 miles)

Saturday, 21^st
Before setting off from Konstanz, we found a cycle shop not far from the Rhine where the young assistant changed the battery in my cycle tachometer. From now on all distances are recorded in km.

We set off along the Rhine route, which to begin with was along the southern border of Lake Konstanz. The sky was blue, it was warm – perfect weather! We were in the company of lots of other cyclists, mainly going in our direction. One vehicle was a recumbent tandem, the rider at the back being upright, the one at the front recumbent. If I’d managed to get the camera out quickly enough I’d have got a photo, but they were past in a flash! We followed alongside a railway line – no fence between the cycle path and the railway, something that would be unheard of in Britain. We also passed a couple making use of the barbecue site in a spinney beside the path. Always the river was close at hand or visible a short distance away as we passed through crops of sunflowers, maize or flower-bedecked meadows. In woodland, we passed from Germany into Switzerland, with a border post in evidence. We thought about people in WW2 trying to escape from one country to the other in these forests.

On entering Schaffhausen (Switzerland) we admired the comprehensive cycleway signpost – now why can’t we have something like this on our NCN? By telephone we ascertained that there was a two-bedded room available for us at the youth hostel. The problem was trying to find it. It was away from the river, up several steep hills (we were used to the flat lands near the river) but we got there eventually. A tiny little room, but it was adequate for one night. The hostel was just about full, but very nice. We went out for an evening meal at a nearby restaurant, and sat outside in the dark – very romantic!
Distance 52.6km Average speed: 13kph Time on the move: 4hrs Maximum speed: 39kph

Sunday 22^nd
After a good breakfast at the youth hostel, we set off to see the famous Rheinfalls. We had some climbing to do, up a rough track. When we got to the viewpoint above the waterfalls we found it crowded with tourists.

We cycled through several picturesque villages in the heat, before finding our next night’s accommodation in Frau Meier’s nice little house in Hohentengen. Frau Meier’s garden sloped down to the Rhine, and we sat on her balcony with a cool drink on arrival. Christine and I had separate rooms. In the evening we chatted to Frau and Herr Meier and another guest Dorthe, a teacher cycling alone. Excellent accommodation.
Distance 38.6km Average speed: 12kph Time taken: 3hr Max spd: 39kph

Monday, 23^rd
Quite a few cyclists on the route today to Laufenburg. We stayed B&B at a hotel we saw advertised along the way, a palace of a place. We also took dinner there since there was a thunderstorm and prolonged heavy rain throughout the evening.
Distance 42km Average spd: 13kph Time taken: 3hr Max spd: 45kph

Tuesday, 24^th
We continued along the Rhine, finishing the day at Warmbach on the western outskirts of Rheinfelden. Rather crummy accommodation in a pub / restaurant on a busy main road.
Distance 41.4km Average spd: 12kph Time taken: 3.5 hr Max spd: 30kph

Wednesday, 25^th
We passed through Basel again, where we bought food for lunch, eaten on the riverbank. As we go along, I take photos of cycle friendly infrastructure, to show them back home how they cater for cyclists in Europe and how cyclists could be better catered for in Norwich.

The weather now is very hot, 33C. Late afternoon we had a violent thunderstorm but managed to shelter in a tunnel under a motorway along with three other cyclists. We were lucky – we were by the tunnel just as the storm started. The others arrived in increasingly drowned state as the storm went on. When it had passed and we could continue on our way we found ourselves marooned on the Rhine path by floodwater – all other tunnels under the motorway were a metre deep in water. There were several doggie walkers unable to get back to their cars – quite a bit of consternation.

We managed to get off eventually and found our way to the nearest small town, Bad Bellingen, to find accommodation. A spa town, we walked through a park / boating garden which was steaming in the sunshine. We found accommodation in a very nice private home, then went into town to get dinner in a hotel.
Distance 52km Average spd: 13kph Time taken: 4hr Max spd: 31km

Thursday, 26^th
Before moving on we took a look around the park, which contained a spa swimming pool. We hadn’t brought swimming costumes unfortunately for it looked very inviting. We retraced our route of the previous evening to the Rhine bank, which we followed all the way to Breisach.

Dear old Breisach, first visited on our Freiburg / Basel trip at Easter 1998. We were glad to be able to see more of this lovely little town, as well as rest during this excessive heat. The YH was full but we managed to find accommodation in a very comfortable little hotel in a pedestrianised street. We booked in for two nights. Our bedroom door opened onto a balcony at the back. We slept with our door open slightly, but barricaded!
Distance 44km Average spd: 13kph Time taken: 3hr 20min Max spd: 30kph

Friday, 27^th
A ‘rest’ day. We cycled to Neuf-Brisach, on the French side of the Rhine. This was a fortress town, rather stark and with a completely different atmosphere to the German side. We also had to speak in French of course. It was so hot we soon returned to the German side where we took our ease.
Distance 17km Average spd: 13kph Time taken: 1.25hr Max spd: 33kph

Saturday, 28^th
We left Breisach and cycled to Wittenweier. This included some roadwork but also a lot of rough gravel track along the Rhine. Weather still terribly hot. We stayed in a very nice gasthaus.
Distance 50km Average spd: 14kph Time taken 3.6hr Max spd: 24kph

Sunday, 29^th
The lady from the gasthaus sent us off with apples and peaches to sustain us. The route today was very similar to yesterday – rough gravel track alongside the Rhine. We arrived in Kehl and managed to book into the YH, my first German one. We had a very nice en suite double room for the equivalent of £12 each for B&B. We took ourselves off to the town for an evening meal (all pedestrianised central area) but being Sunday this was rather hard to find and, when we got it, somewhat sparse.
Distance 39km Average spd: 12kph Time taken: 3.25hr Max spd: 29kph

Monday, 30^th
First we visited the railway station to buy tickets for the train tomorrow, for we intended missing out on a particularly industrial section of the route. Then we cycled over the river bridge to Strasbourg where we spent the day sightseeing in this very picturesque city. We visited a park where there was a stork sanctuary – the storks were standing around on their nests on the tops of special columns. We also went to the Orangery with storks nesting on the chimney pots. We visited the European Union administrative buildings, in one of which Christine worked for a year several years ago.

Back in Kehl we studied a plaque to Sigmund Freud, a former citizen who left ‘to die in freedom.’
Distance 33km Average spd: 9.5kph Time on the move: 3.5hr Max spd: 25.5kph

Tuesday, 31^st
We took the train from Kehl to Mainz, changing at Offenburg.
We cycled along the riverside path, through a park, to the youth hostel where we had a double room overlooking the river. This is another beautiful YH, as was Kehl. Terribly hot weather.
Distance 8km Average spd: 7.7kph Time taken 1hr Max spd: 21.5kph

Wednesday, 1^st August
We took an early boat down the Rhine from Mainz to Koblenz, a wonderful journey lasting 5 hours. It was very picturesque - castles, cliffs and vineyards along the way. The weather was magnificent, cooled by the breeze as we moved. We arrived in Koblenz around 2pm and spent the afternoon looking around this, Norwich’s twin city. The youth hostel, part of a 200-year-old fort, was situated on the opposite side of the river, high on a cliff overlooking the city. It was a terrible struggle to climb up the steep slopes to get to it. We booked in for two nights, which gave us a free day to see more of the city.
Distance (2 days) 28km Average spd: 8kph Time taken: 3.5hr Max spd: 34.5kph

Friday, 3^rd
We cycled along the west side of the Rhine to Remagen, where we found accommodation in a small, old-fashioned hotel on the riverside. Our bikes were put away in what had once been a theatre in pre-war days. It still had its decoration, stage and balcony. Our room overlooked the river, along which there was now a non-stop stream of cargo boat traffic. The weather was slightly cooler with some showers.
Distance 55km Average spd: 13kph Time taken: 4.25hr Max spd: 39kph

Saturday, 4^th
We had a rest day wandering around Remagen. We visited the Bridge, which played a strategic part in WW2 – now only the two piers remain, one of which houses a museum. The exhibits reminded us how the German people, in this case the inhabitants of Remagen, suffered in the war. I found it humbling to realise that the Germans suffered too. Christine found it depressing, but I found it fascinating as well as very sad.
Our total distance now stands at 499km. Will we make it to 500? Yes, just a few metres down the road.

Sunday, 5^th
We set off from Remagen along the Rhine route. After 9km I had the first and only puncture of the trip. We’d stopped by a roadside coffee bar, which was closed, and we’d just set out our repair equipment and were getting down to work when the lady (also called Christine as it happened) came to open up her coffee bar. We had to move out of her way, but she proved very helpful to us. In our difficulty in getting the tyre back on again after changing the inner tube, she got down on the ground and soon got it all put together again. She was much more helpful than most of the other cyclists passing by; they just let us struggle. But one man who stopped with his family to have coffee was also helpful and talkative. Of course Christine and I had to partake of coffee before continuing our journey.

We eventually made it to Bonn where we bought tickets for the boat on to Koln (Cologne). We also made enquiries at Bonn railway station about trains to Rotterdam, to make our way home. We were told that Dutch inter-city trains don’t take bikes, we could travel only as far as the German / Dutch border. So how were we to get home?

At Koln we landed in the middle of a funfair taking place along the riverbank. Crowds of people, very difficult to push our bikes through. We wanted to find the youth hostel but had great difficulty. We were in fact very close but its location was not sufficiently well signed. We made it eventually, a large block which we’d originally mistaken for a block of flats. We were lucky – we were allocated a luxurious en-suite double room – my 500^th hostel overnight.
Distance 30km Ave spd: 12kph Time on the move: 2.5hr Max spd: 24kph

Monday, 6^th
We cycled to the railway station to try and get home. Amazingly, after what we’d been told yesterday, we had no trouble at all booking ourselves and bikes on trains right through to Hoek van Holland, including changes at Vielen, on the border, and Rotterdam. We then managed to get on the Hoek – Harwich ferry which sailed at 4pm. At Harwich the Anglia train was awaiting us (very crowded – people had to move baggage to allow us to get to the bike racks). We had to change at Ipswich and were right home in Norwich by 10pm, an amazingly quick and easy journey. We’d been away almost three weeks – a wonderful trip!
Total distance for the whole trip: 533km = 333 miles, much of it in tremendous heat.

Phyll Hardie