On the Road again I (Cologne to Bad Godesberg by train & bike)

After three days in Cologne, with the only bicycle trips (remember, there was a bike in Cologne?) to the train station and back, I’m anxious again to hop on a bike and go somewhere where I've never been before (or where I might have been as a 7 year old but I forgot)

There are some boundary conditions though (aren't there always, darned ;-). It is Monday morning now; I should be in Frankfurt in the later afternoon; and I should be at Frankfurt airport at 11 am on Wednesday to catch my plane to Vancouver.  In preparation of all this, I booked a hotel in OOOPS for tonight. It stars with B and is close to the Lorelei, but I can’t remember the town’s name right now. (Boppard is the name ;-)

So I ride my bike from the South of Cologne to the main train station right next to the cathedral (~10 km)

and buy a train ticket to Koblenz. In Cologne main train station I am yet to find the ticket vending window. The self-serve ticket-vending machines are a night-mare. Koblenz is the town where I served the 15-month-long military service, that was mandatory in Germany at the time. While my attitude towards authority was very similar to the one I display these days; in those days I didn't yet know how to deal with it.

how Cologne

My urge for discovery already hits me at Bruehl, where I just get off the train because of cravings for adventure and food.

Bruehler Schloss

The oddities of Bruehl start at the train station. Bruehl claims for itself the title of "Bicycle City" on account of its small size and lack of even the hint of a hill in the area.  But any sarcastic smile is gone once you have lifted your bicycle up or down the train station stairs.

The gardens of the Schloss

My gut feeling about the rest of the town is very similar to that I have about its train station and within half an hour I am on a train again. I am still hungry but plan to get off the train in nearby Bonn (Birthplace of Beethoven).

The reason I get off in Bad Godesberg instead of Bonn is that in Bruehl I could not find the part of the train that accepts bikes, ended up lifting my bike up the steps into the train only to see that the door across the train was out of order. In German train stations the doors open on random sides of the train depending on which side of the platform the train comes in.  I was planning to get off in Bonn for lunch, but the exit was on the side of the out-of-order door and pushing the bike through German railway car was out of the question.  The next station was Bad Godesberg and the exit just happened to be on the side that was accessible to me.