Thursday 8th September
We took another bike ride into Cologne, Lucy had a target in mind and only her lack of speaking in foreign tongues was going to mess things up. If only you knew how close we came to blows. “You want, you ask for it” was my mantra until she kicked me in the shins and I gave in.
“Guten morgen, Kann Ich habe ein Cappuccino, ein Kaffee schwarz, ein butter schliessen und ein erdplumplatter?” – jeez, it isn’t rocket science! Not only that, I got exactly what I asked for and the serving girl had no idea I was English – nicht! Not only that but this cost about the same as a couple of coffees in any major city in France.
When we got back to the stellplatz these two Dutch motorhomes built in 1952 were parked two doors down. I told you about the cycle path right in front of us, did I tell you how busy it is? Hundreds, if not thousands of people passing us every hour (yes, really), and all slowing down to look at these two beauties.
Our plan was to move on to Bonn, capital of West Germany for many years, there must be something worth visiting. Our guide books seemed to lack any real enthusiasm for the city and when we arrived at our planned stellplatz we weren’t too impressed. We were three or four miles out of the city, next to a major road with no services, small spaces and on a slope. In the end we just had lunch and on the advice of our friends Nick & Elaine moved onto Andernach which is just to the north of Koblenz..
There are three stellplatz in Andernach but knowing Nick and Elaine we plumped for the most expensive site, €7 per night. The reviews in Camper Contact looked good but when we arrived it was jam packed. This place is very popular so the original stellplatz has been extended into the neighbouring carpark. Motorhomes don’t easily fit into car sized spaces so there is a bit of straddling lines and squeezing in as and where you can.
We took a walk and found nothing of any interest other than a Lidls and a huge supermarket called Kaufland. Kaufland and Lidls both have recycling points where you can get your deposit back on plastic bottles in Lidls and beer bottles and plastic bottles in Kaufland. No where have I seen a pfand point for beer cans but now my question is, can I buy a can in Lidls and take it back to Aldi and make money while I’m drinking beer? Further research is necessary.
When we got back to Frankie he was red hot. 35.2 ºC inside and 32.9ºC outside. It has been warm here for the last five days but this has been a very warm day. The lady came round collecting parking fees and gave us a map of the town – we were looking in the wrong direction, it actually looks rather pleasant here (looking at the pictures) so now at last we can thank Nick and Elaine for pointing us this way.