Another early wake-up call at 07:00 courtesy of the church outside our window : first the chime, then the 7 bongs, then two minutes of continuous bell-ringing then, just when we thought it safe to collapse back on the pillow, two verses of 'Morning Has Broken'! Fantastic! You don't get this at home. Another great breakfast started the day and we were off again ignoring the riverside option which is 'muddy and not suited to road bikes' at the best of times, and is probably under water at present. Instead we took the more westerly Rhein Terrasse route through the wine growing region. We passed from village to village along good cycle track or farm/vineyard roads making rather rapid progress with a warm tailwind broken only by a coffee stop in Mettenheim. The next break, following many photo stops, was for a long lunch at a perfect wine restaurant in the town of Nierstein (which is, unsurprisingly, the centre of the Niersteiner wine region). After lingering awhile with the food and wine we set off again and rejoined the Rhine on a rougher gravel track. As we entered the outskirts of Mainz we had a Paris-Roubaix experience with a stretch of serious cobbles past railway sidings. Then we were there, the old part of Mainz where we found a superb bike shop where Anne bought a new seat pack and the man in the shop modified her rack to accommodate it. Having eaten well at lunchtime, our walkabout, after checking in, involved only a shared flamkuchen and a beer/wine. We certainly haven't deserved the calories today. So, today went from vineyards to shunting yards, blacktop and gravel to cobbles, and ended up with another massive cathedral. One thing all cathedrals have in common: they all have large parts covered in scaffold!
p.s. What can we see from our window? Answer: twin church towers. Roll on 07:00!
57.2 km; 15.2 kph avg; 3:44 moving time; 202m ascent
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