September 4 - Did We Really Pass This Way Before?

Friday - Andernach to Cologne (Koln)
Sunrise is finally late enough that we sometimes see it now! This is the view from our room.

This is how you squeeze a road, railroad and bike path in limited space.

52F and sunny with no wind!

This is how bikes cross to the other side of the road.

We remember doing these switchbacks but there is a lot of today's section that we don't remember. We checked the blog later and realized that it had rained pretty hard that day so we must of had our heads down a lot!

Wagram Bridge, built in 1813 by the French under Napoleon. Did we mention that borders have been pretty fluid over time in all the areas of Europe that we've visited so far. They seem so set in stone on the modern map but really they are a figment of the imagination. They are more like transition zones of varying widths.

This area was also the Roman Empire's frontier in the first century AD....just to make things even more mixed up.

At first we thought this was part of a castle.

Then we saw the other half on our side of the river. These are the Remagen Bridge abutments. It was taken by the Allies in World War II before the Germans could destroy which made it easy to cross the Rhine River for the 10 days it remained standing. It is now a museum and memorial to peace.

We must have just whizzed by last time, trying to get to dryness.

Apollinaris Church, also in Remagen

It looks stormy but we didn't get wet.

Getting close to Bonn

The Bonn boys watching us pass through. Last time we spent the night in Bonn.

We stopped for ice cream at the ferry dock restaurant. The Rhine route is on both sides of the river so we were wondering why all these cyclists are taking the ferry. Since we were ending up in Cologne for the night we chose to stay on this side.

We think this is why they went to the other side of the river. 

But heavy industry was followed by heavy pastoral!

Last time we were only passing through so stopped briefly and checked out the plaza next to the Cathedral.

Now our memory banks are back in action as we totally remember coming into this part of Cologne on a bright, sunny day and counting all the bridges that we would pass under.

We have been leapfrogging Gunther and Anne all day. They are from Mainz so this is their "backyard". All of us had to walk our bikes because of the crowd around the Chocolate Museum.

What a difference! Last time the museum was closed and this area was totally deserted.

This is the view from our 6th floor hotel room, the top of the Dom, tallest Gothic cathedral in Europe outside of Italy.

Donna making BIG bubbles. The whole area seemed like one big celebration.

Just one of the groups making music. We asked the hotel clerk if this was a special weekend of some kind. His response was "It is just a normal Cologne summer weekend"