Grettings from Köln

"are you allready in Köln"?? ( we can somehow hear you asking that)
Yes we are in Köln, in the giant Ruhrdistrict - the largest cityarea in Europe which is some of a shocking contrast after 4 days ride in the hilly german countryside.
More from Köln later

After 5 days of rest in Bamberg, we were more than ready to take this big step by crossing Germany to the most western point we will reach on this trip.
First up to Bad Brückenau where we slept on a little expensive hotel, but nice breakfast and service though. Later it became even better when we recognized the croatian flag outside side by side with the german flag. The receptionist told us, that in this exact town the croatian nationalteam in football recently had their camp during the world cup 2006, and that the croatian sportjournalists actually lived on the same hotel and had their conferences and meetings with the team there..... suddenly the price didnt seem so wild. We were suddenly somehow " honoured" by living there.

Further it went through the idyllic landscapes, that was like a giant version of those you can buy in piece by piece if you are a collector of electrified trainmodels!
Up and down it went like in the Czech Republic, but now we were somehow used to it.
We must remember the kindness and helpfull german people we met everywhere. As soon as we picked up our map to look out for which way to go, some people always immediately stopped up and asked if we needed any help.
When we reached the little village Dorheim outside Friedberg and asked where it was possible to stay for the night, the owner came right to us and wrote down some good examples to choose from.
Of course we went back there to eat that evening - very cozy atmosphere and enough portions of food(!!) at Guiseppe!.... very nice waitress too by the way!

Next day we started up with lots of energy as the day before, but there is something even energy cant fight, and that is TERRIBLE WEATHER!
Suddenly, in the middle of the woods on top of the hills far from any shelter, a huge summerrain almost exploded around us with lightenings and thunder and strong cold wind..... DOH!
We never had a chance to cover ourselve so we get deeply wet - tried to find shelter from the wind somehwere in the woods hoping that the weather would change, but it was a truely hopeless idea. We get colder and colder, and decided to find a settlement for the night....which we found more than enough of at the very gently and warmhearted family Krekel, who owned the "landhaus sommerberg" in Fussingen-Westerwald.
It was like coming home! Frau Krekel made us coffee and tea with cookies and washed and dried our clothes for free, while we had a nice talk with Herr Krekel, who seemed interested in our bestiaryproject.
Next morning we had the most huge breakfast ever on this trip - Frau Krekel even gave us chocolate and extra food for a lunchpacket on our trip.....HELLO! THIS IS WHAT WE CALL HOSPITALITY!!

the last episode up to Köln was 138 km....the weather was almost as bad as the day before, the wind was directly against us, the hills seem taller and taller and there were so many trucks on the roads, that our nervesystems werent the same after, but then out of a sudden we at the river Rhine, and that gave us a smile on our faces again - because that river flows through Köln and then we just had to follow it up north....and it was flat landscapes all the way aaahhh.....

Well Köln is our last task before going directly to Denmark, but we hope that we can post pictures and more about Köln before we will leave from here friday.

see you later!