[Home]     Cycling Down the Rhine Wednesday 30th August 2017 Roppenheim to Speyer All fairly straightforward today, nobody fell off a bike or hung their underwear up in someone else's private parts. My arm is a lot better now, although still not 100 percent; good enough for today's 87.8 km though. We didn't see a lot of the Rhine today, just a couple of short stretches with the rest being mostly easy levees and cycle-ways. In graffiti veritas xx Halfway along we came to a retail park and I was able to get a pair of cheap sun-glasses to replace the cycling specs I lost. Andrew then bought a pair for himself, exactly the same, so we can now cycle along looking like mafiosi or the Blues Brothers on tour. He also acquired an end-of-sale, bright yellow sleeveless T-shirt, only a couple of sizes too small - very, er... eye-catching. A Blues Brother in his finery Along the route we met various other cyclists, however, and passed a few words with them - they're all very friendly and nice. Friendly cyclists Andrew and me along the way With some helpful route guides We've done nearly 450 miles now, slowed down a bit by the aftereffects of my accident. That means probably another 9 days before we can ride triumphantly into the North Sea, or onto the ferry and thence home. Today we have a room at the Luxhof Hotel in Speyer, a place just across the Rhine from the main town of Speyer. In the evening we walked across the bridge and tried one of the two possible veggy options at a very well-patronised riverside bar: vegan curry wurst and chips. Plus, of course, a couple of beers. From the bridge over the Rhine at Speyer The Luxhof Hotel The vegan sausage was ok but there wasn't a lot of it and the 'home-made' curry sauce it came in seemed to be tomato ketchup with a bit of chilli added in. Nonetheless it all went down and was ok. What wasn't ok was trying to pay for it and go. Three times we asked for 'die rechnung' and after 20 minutes our patience expired. We had a look at the menu, roughed out what we thought we owed and I took it to the bar, put it down and said 'We've asked for the bill three times, this should be enough, wir gehen!' And we left. Shocking, eh. Tomorrow will probably be Oppenheim if the restaurant police don't track us down and apply their machetes first. Today we did a robust 87.8 km or 54.5 miles, bringing our total to 449.89 miles.