Day 4: Waldshut to Neuenburg am Rhein

A long day in time if not in distance. The rain which has so far been our constant companion, stopped after 30 minutes and we had an entire day in the dry. This was one of the main pros of the day. Dr T’s knee problem was joined by my knee playing up. These trips really are all about how much punishment you can give your body without it just packing up.

A broken knee and some well coordinated nail polish and bean.

The Hotel Berghaus did a lovely breakfast including a full display of the bakery potential in small round lumps of bread.

Who knew there were this number of bread roll types?

It was definitely still raining when we left the hotel but after a while the rain stopped and the sun came out — sort of. We zoomed along the German side of the Rhine and then crossed over into Switzerland. Then back into Germany, and then back into Switzerland. For quite a large part of today we were pretty unsure which country we were in.

There were little cute German (or maybe Swiss) villages along the Rhine.

I think this is German.

We stopped in a Bad Säckingen for coffee while they were doing their Sunday morning bell ringing.

You definitely need sound on for this one.

It’s an old joke but Bad Säckingen seemed pretty good to us.

We crossed the Rhine once again but this time on a stunning old covered bridge.

Take that Madison County!

There followed a long section which was pretty excitingly off road. The Eurovelo folks definitely like a difficult gravelly path through the trees. It’s very pretty although your average speed drops a very long way unless you’re willing to do a “crazy Tom Pidcock” and power your way past the walnutty old folks taking their dogs for a walk and the impossibly German families with their insanely cute little blond kids on tiny bikes.

The selfie of the day is after 15km of gnarly off road gravel. Not sure why we’re smiling.

The signage on this route is absolutely outstanding. In Serbia, Romania and Bulgaria, I would regularly cycle for an entire day not seeing a single sign for Eurovelo 6. Here in Germany (or is it Switzerland?) there were signs every 100m.

Great signage Eurovelo dudes!

I am more tickled than I should be that our route (EV15) has, for the past couple of hundred kilometres, been coincident with EV6 which I followed from Budapest to the Black Sea. It turns out that the first half of it from the Atlantic to Budapest follows the EV15. Completing the EV6 was one option after last year’s ride so it’s nice I’ve done some of it.

It seemed to take an awfully long time to get to Basel. I suppose the off-road cycling caused that but we did spend a lot of time cycling through endless fields of maize watching the km to go drop down very slowly.

Quite surprisingly, there’s no maize here but there is a giant bio fuel reactor in the distance.

On the way, we saw quite a few of these:

Is it a house?  A church?  An animal store?

If anybody has any insights into what these are, let me know.  They often come in pairs which face each other across fields.

Finally, as Basel got nearer, we braved the chaotic cycling which is navigating the suburbs of any large city. Strange junctions and tram tracks waiting greedily to suck your front tyre into an accident which will only result in expensive dental reconstruction.

We finally reached the river again and stopped at an achingly cool riverside coffee shop. Two coffees and two inedible “Basel speciality cakes” cost 22 CHF. At this point, it became clear that we were pretty tired and there was 40km to go. As we sipped our wildly overpriced coffees and attempted to masticate the inedible — but brutally expensive — Basel speciality cakes, we reviewed our options.

You’re in Basel you idiot!

Two buggered up knees and Dr T practically weeping with tiredness weren’t a good starting point but the last 40km looked doable. Maybe not a great idea to push on but it was really the only option.

Getting out of Basel was also fun. Motorway underpasses, one of the largest inland container ports in Europe, heavy engineering and train tracks. What joy. We very temporarily crossed into Germany — on the aptly named Zollstraße and then crossed a cycle bridge and we were in France! Country number 5.

As one might expect, the French have not fully embraced the concept of Eurovelo and therefore we had to sort out what the route might actually be called in France.

Whatever it’s called, it’s really rather tranquil and beautiful.

A large part of the route followed a canal through Petit Camargue de Alsace. The gravel was lovely, the route was beautiful but there was definitely a feeling that a mutiny was about to kick off if we had one more difficult junction, one more confusing French sign, 10 more km to go…

There were further endless fields of maize. I suppose they end up in those bio-reactors. One would think that turning those fields over to solar panels might be a better use of the land? Then again, the capital cost of solar panels is a hell of a lot higher than planting a bunch of corn seeds.

Our final border of the day. Almost a Bridge Too Far.

I think we crossed an international border 9 times today. The final one involved scrambling up a gravelly bank and then over this 19th century era bridge. We were back in Germany for the night.

We are staying at the Hotel Am Stadthaus which is very firmly in the three star zone. I know I had promised to up my game but this is the best hotel within 50km so it’ll have to do. Unfortunately the towel rail has been switched off for the summer but I used my superpower (Charm-Middle-Aged-Woman Man…the shittest Marvel superhero) to get the owner to lend us her tumble drier.

We ate at the only restaurant in town which is a cheap down-market semi-Italian joint where everybody is having a good time, the food is more than acceptable and the price is low.

This hits the spot.

Big decision for tomorrow. Both Dr T and Dr K are limping with a buggered up knee each. Dr T fell asleep in her pasta tonight so I think 120km to Strasbourg might be a “Strasbourg too far”. So the plan is to have a day off tomorrow. We’ll take the train from Neuenberg to Strasbourg (somehow) and have the day off travelling during the morning and then the afternoon in Strasbourg. This seems pretty sensible although there is obviously some chance that either the German or French railway systems will conspire to leave us on a platform in the middle of nowhere because our bikes aren’t reserved or the right colour.

We shall see…

Stats:

• Distance: 112km. Felt like more.
• Climbing: 437m. Garmin definitely lies regarding the climbing. Said it would be 200m this morning. Although most of it is just bumps.
• Average Speed: 18.7kmh. The gravel really really slows you down.
• Others: Contact points seem ok (not the euphemism for “soft tissues”). We both have a right knee in pain and without a rest day, Dr T would be doing a Fletcher Christian impersonation tomorrow morning.

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