Day 31: I would bike 1000 miles and I would (not) bike 1000 more
Today, on our bike tour from Bingen down the Rhein to Koblenz, we hit the 1000 mile point on our trip. One nice thing about using the imperial system is that we get to celebrate both the 1000 kilometer point and the 1000 mile point when biking just about anywhere outside of the states.
Our day was actually rather short, only 75km, and the biking was about as easy as it gets, going along the Rhein. No major navigation issues, as we just had to follow the Rhein all day, and we would normal hit around 30km/hr when we hit long flat sections of the trail.
The entire day today was marked with Castles. For the entire day, one or more castles were visible. Everything from old run down medieval looking castles to very modern/Disney looking castles. They were quite beautiful to look at as we were biking.
We stopped about with around 20km left for s beer garden. Matt and Mark both got the traditional bikers drink, a Pilsner mixed with sprite so you don't get too drunk and can keep biking. Nate, on the other hand, wanted to maximize alcohol content per euro spent, so just went for a regular beer.
We stopped at a beer garden in Boppart, and sat along the river side watching many bikers we had passed pass us back, and discussing how we really hadn't seen a bridge across the Rhein for miles. Every 20km or there was a ferry across the river that you could take across. We're guessing that we biked around 50km in between bridges. As we sat watching the ferry driver go back and forth we marveled at his skill docking the ferry on both sides. That being said, if that's all you did all day everyday, you'd probably get pretty good at it too.
After our stops for drinks, we quickly finished the rest of our bike into Koblenz. We did not know this, but Koblenz is a very touristy town. There are lots of castles here, and a gondola to take tourists across the river from one castle to another. There is also a monument with a long history that can be seen in the cover photo here. The monument is at the corner of the Rhein and Mosel rivers. It was originally a monument to the German king. However, it was damaged by an artillery shell during WWII. After the war, the French took it down, but then it was put back up to celebrate German unification after the destruction of the Berlin Wall. Today, parts of the Berlin Wall are put behind the statue, and all the flags of the German states are flown around the statue. The EU flag is also flown, and for reasons we can't figure the American flag is also flown. We all gave it a hardy salute though.
It's getting hot here again, and we're once again sweating in our tent trying to fall asleep. Hopefully it will cool off soon. Tomorrow should be an even shorter day as we start up the Mosel to Luxembourg City. Three more days of biking and we should be there!