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Stage 5 - Rastatt to Speyer 83km (08-Jun-2019)


Ursi was up at 6.30; went to the bakery to get us some breakfast. By 8.15 we hit the road, on a reasonably mild and sunny morning. It took us all of a few minutes to get out of Rastatt and as usual, the bike paths were superb. Riding through magnificent country side, we had 82km ahead of us, thankfully pretty much all level riding.



We initially thought, today would be all about riding but it turned out to be quite different but exciting especially when we came to a dead end to cross the river. More about that later.
The villages on the way were quaint and cute and decorated with some interesting displays


Riding through forest, fields and parks, there were so many opportunities to take beautiful photo.



Near Karlsruhe, it got a lot more industrial, we came across this massive power grid with the most beautiful ground cover of flowers in all shapes and colours




Our route took us past a huge coal factory and along a waterway, 



until we came to an abrupt halt – this massive structure, which went all the way across the river. We first thought it was a dead end, but then we discovered that we could actually take our bikes across – first took all the luggage off, carried it up the stairs, then the bikes up the stairs, then the luggage and bikes across the long walkway and at the other end, we did the same in reverse. A bit of an effort, however a hell of a lot easier than trying to find another bridge across. 





Riding along some beautiful lakes, one of them looked like a man-made lake with a row of either ginormous ducks or small geese, not sure which it was

Finally, arriving in Speyer was a relief, by this stage we had been going for a number of hours and were glad to get to our destination. One of the first things we say coming into Speyer was a huge Boeing 747 propped up, in what we later learned was the Technical Museum of Speyer.


Met our host and settled into our Airbnb. Coffee, shower, change and off to explore the cute little town of Speyer.





A great day overall with a perfect ending with dinner at an Italian restaurant that served the best pasta we have had in a long long time, and to top it off, our very own Ashleigh Barty just won the French Open – go you good thing.

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