Zeedam to Emmerich to Wesel to Mainz to Mannheim to Neustadt to Landau

Tony is off back to England tonight, so he is going to catch a train to Rotterdam and then ride via The Hague to the ferry at The Hook of Holland. We met for breakfast, I tried not to eat too much since I won’t be doing much today. Then packed, paid and said our good byes. I promised to send a link to the ‘Blog of Truth’ to Fiona so that she knows what really happened in the last couple of weeks.

I then set off south to Emmerich to catch the train. I got there with over 20 minutes to spare but the ticket office was busy handling what seemed to be a vacation booking. So in the end I just bought a ticket from the machine (and yes I could see how to get the bike a ticket) and caught the train to Wesel.

Train ride to Wesel – Read my ebook. Once in Wesel I went to the ticket office and an incredibly efficient young man, with great English, did all the ticketing for me. It helped that I could show him a photo of what I thought the routing would be. I got a coke and then on to the train.

Train ride to Koblenz – Read my ebook. I’d planned to do my diary as this was the longest leg but couldn’t be bothered. The train was quite busy, it is Saturday, and people kept sitting in the bike parking area which made it difficult for all of the people that got on and off during the trip. Fortunately I was on the train for the full route.

My next leg was meant to be Mannheim, but the train was cancelled L The info people gave me an alternate which went through Mainz which was in half an hour but would make me 1 hour late arriving in Landau. Bummer, no Tour tonight.

Train ride to Mainz – Read my ebook. Arrived late with only a few minutes to change platforms and I missed the train L The info people gave me another alternative, and another hour later, so I went to the platform and then at the last moment the train moved to a different platform. Sigh. A new route and another half hour later, so now 2.5 hours later than I expected. Sigh.

Train ride to Mannheim – Read my ebook.

Train ride to Neustadt – Read my ebook.

Train ride to Landau – Read my ebook. WooHoo!

What a long day! Fortunately I’d picked a (rather expensive) hotel only a block from the train station so I had no problems and was out of the shower by 8pm. I went for a walk into town but there wasn’t anything appealed so I thought I’d try a regional speciality that reception told me about, a Tarte Flambée, which they described as an Alsatian pizza. It was nice but not enough carbs for me, so I had a glass of Riesling with it J

The room is huge and quite warm so I did some washing in the hope it would by dry by morning (and it was). I had a flick around the channels to see if I could see a re-run of the tour. I found one, a two hour coverage that was just finishing. Oh well, I read for quite a while and then bed around midnight.