4 July 2007

Jockgrim, Germany to Mannheim, Germany

It was yet another dismal, cloudy morning with off and on rain. After looking at the weather forecast last night on the internet, we weren't hoping for anything better until Saturday. We had a nice breakfast with Barbara and took off expecting another rainy day. The morning went smoothly as the trail signs were great and we only had a couple of short rain delays. By lunchtime we were in Speyer, a very cute German town with a nice cathedral that we visited after having a nice lunch. It was cloudy and cool when we arrived, but by the time we left the sun was breaking through the clouds and it actually looked promising for the afternoon.
As far as the afternoon goes, the weather was the best we've seen for some time. There was very little rain and some wonderful sunshine. We did great following the route on the west side of the Rhein and took the ferry at Altrip to get to the east side where Mannheim sits. The signs on the east side look a little different from the signs on the west, but they started out pretty easy to follow. Then, about 7 kms outside of Mannheim, the bike trail took us into some woods and the trail branched off everywhere with a definite lack of signs. At one point we got turned around and did a complete loop, but from there we figured it out and rode right into the city center. We called our warm showers host, Benny, and he said he would meet us after work at the water tower at 6:40. We went right over there (it was hard to miss this city landmark) and had about an hour to do some chores before he showed up right on time. His flat was only about a block from there, so he walked us o!
ver. We unloaded our gear and locked the bikes up in the underground garage. Benny lived on the fifth floor but earns the award as our only host with an elevator! He made us some delicious spaghetti and a little later his friend, Ira, came over and we talked the rest of the night. We also did some juggling since they were both anxious to see some new tricks.

Kms 75.16
Time 5:14:40
Avg 14.3
Max?
Total 2886.6