Tail winds, Castles, Vineyards and another wild goose chase

 Tuesday May 24th Bacharus to Oppenheim 83km

Yesterday was a stellar day in terms of scenery, pathways and the tail wind that helped us fly down the trail between Bacharus and the city of Mainz. Initially we were riding through this pretty gorge with forested slopes on both sides interspersed with steep vineyards on the slopes. We crossed by ferry from the west side over to the touristy town of Rudesheim and continued on down to the attractive city of Mainz which we reached about 6pm.


Crossing the Rhine by ferry between Bingen and Rudesheim



Riverboats and vineyards between Bacharus and Bingen, a beautiful section of the Rhine

One of many castles (schloss in german) along this section



When in Rudesheim, one must try the Rudesheim coffee (made with locally produced brandy), and apple strudel for Frank.

We stopped for beers before we rode over the big bridge to the city of Mainz

Mainz. This city is famous for Johannes Guttenberg, inventor of the printing press. A museum named after him is just out of sight. That Church, dom of St Martin is ovet a thousand years old.


The rest of the evening was less than stellar though. We decided to aim for a campground about 20km south of Mainz. With about 5 km still to go, we thought we'd check out a couple of hotels we passed, but both turned out to be closed. So on we pressed, only to find out that the campground was private and we could not camp there. One of the staff members did give us a hotel recommendation just a few km away, so we headed there, only to find a brand new looking hotel that was also closed. Luckily nearby was a big grocery store with wifi, so we got on Booking.com and found another room in the area, got the address and followed the directions to the location. By now it's 9.30pm and Daphne is getting rather hangry! And we're both quite frustrated. All we see at the supposed address is an apartment block and a row and residential houses. No sign of any kind of guest house or hotel. We're baffled, and there are hardly any people out and about to ask, and the one man I see looks positively scared of me as I ride towards him asking if he speaks English! He runs off saying "night, nicht!"

I go back to look more closely at the apartment building that our directions led us to, and I see a small sign on the wall as I get closer that says "hotel eingang". So maybe there is something here? There's nobody around, one entrance door is locked but I find one that is open and I hear voices behind a closed door. So I shout hello and find a couple of people working in a kitchen, but they don't speak a word of english and one looks like he's three sheets to the wind. No help there. But they did seem to indicate that there is a hotel upstairs after I showed them my booking on my phone. Yipee! At least we were in the right place.

Meanwhile outside, Frank is approached by a lady who seems to know something and asks if she can help. Obviously she is somehow part of this "non-hotel" organisation and eventually is able to get us keys to our room. And we were able to put our bikes in a garage. So by 10pm or so, we were finally able to plonk ourselves down and breathe a sigh of relief  - and cook up some back-up rations we had in our panniers, using our little stove. Actually the room itself was nice, no complaints about that. But the access was so weird and the building houses a bunch of other offices, with this group of rooms on one floor that were run as guest rooms.


The apartment block that housed our "hotel"room


The signs on the building didn't exactly suggest a hotel! No wonder we were baffled

 Cooking up a dehydrated meal late last night in the mystery hotel room


Comments

  1. JirkaMay 26, 2022 at 4:07 AM

    When we were in Scotland a few years ago, we cooked like this at the hotel. Our guide warned us not to do this, because we can start fire protection, in addition, handling open flames is strictly forbidden and we will pay for any firefighters. There is nothing to do with hunger, so we cooked, he didn't light anything, the firefighters didn't come, it turned out well :-))

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. DaphneMay 26, 2022 at 6:00 AM

      You're absolutely right - hotels would be horrified to see this, and with good reason. We only do it on tiled floors in a well-ventilated room, and not very often

      Delete
  2. AnonymousMay 26, 2022 at 4:24 PM

    That is an awesome story. I'm sure it's way funnier with the retelling. And getting hangry is very dangerous.

    ReplyDelete

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