Day 5 (the lost day)

Day 5 June 6, 2011

I write this some 5 days later to fill in a missing day. Funny how you remember places from the small things well here I broke a plate at breakfast trying to juggle a massive plate of omelette. Fortunately the plate with the omelette was OK. We had locked our bikes in the restaurant as the hotel we found was in a dodgy part of town. The owners were very friendly and the evening before we sat in their outside sitting area and enjoyed a cool drink. On leaving in the morning we made our way towards the Rhine again having missed the major industrial centres of Dortmond and Dusseldorf. joining up at the river at Neuss. Soon after we met a Dutch couple who had cycled the route 10 times before and were able to give us good information regarding the route. Like much of this way the track went through areas of natural beauty and history but this were often overshadowed with much heavy industry surrounding almost all of the old city centres. The ride into Koln was very pleasing and after finding our hotel spent the afternoon in the Koln cathredal – truly an amazing building being 800-900 yrs old. The wealth of the church is astounding. We hurried back to the hotel when some strong winds and rain arrived but 1 hr later we went out for dinner to a great vegetarian restaurant – Huge lasagne and salad – mmmh!!!! An ice cream for dessert finished us off.