No chimes to wake us this morning, just a bunch of blokes under our window in the courtyard talking loudly at 01:30, 03:30 and then the staff emptying bins at 07:00! The weather has flipped again and it's quite chilly this morning. After crossing the river by the Mainz road bridge and cycling a few kilometres, it started to rain. Waterproofs donned, we continued until coming across our least favourite German words: Hoch Wasser, umleitung'. High Water, diversion! So we moved sideways up the hill a bit and cycled parallel to the Rhine for quite a distance until deemed safe to return to the riverside track. A brief coffee stop at a campsite coffee shop broke the journey until we reached Rudesheim where we caught the ferry back to the west (south) side of the river at Bingen. The rain continued, to a greater or lesser extent, and we were glad to keep the waterproofs on as it was still only c.16C. As we reached Bingen centre the rain increased and a lunch stop was called. Yet another flamkuchen was consumed (salad for Anne) and we continued when the heavy rain eased. By 14:00 the clouds cleared and the sun returned to build the temperature to something more pleasant and we rode to Bacharach for a beer stop (and a long chat with another German cycle-tourist on a lone 5-week tour). The scenery has changed dramatically as we leave the flood planes behind and enter the Rhine Gorge section with its characteristic super-steep vineyard-cloaked slopes. Then it was on to our destination at St Goar where the famous Loreley Rock dominates the skyline of this pretty tourist village and the cruise boats and freighters ply their trade up and down the river. For the first time this holiday it was cool enough to eat inside, which means that this is the first meal we have had without inhaling smoke from an adjacent table; boy, do they know how to smoke over here!
64.8 km; 16.3 kph avg; 3:57 moving time; 159m ascent
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