from Köln to Denmark

As mentioned in the lines below, we made it up to - country nr 7 on this trip - Denmark.

4 days it took from Köln to reach the danish border.
Most of our days went by just driving and driving and driving - now the only thing we had on our minds was to " go home" as fast as possible.
In the beginning that was not very easy
We had to find out of the giant labyrinth called "Ruhr district".
What a crowded area!!
nothing but cityareas and a few green areas with parks or hills and many MANY different roads to choose from. Well basically we just had to go north, but on the other hand we werent so interested in beeing " united" with the numerous of monstertrucks that operate in this area, so it was a matter of using the " 6th sense" somehow, which wasnt always that easy.
We get some good advice from other bikers from time to time, but in the long run we always ended up by beeing confused because of the many different signs, that ( perhaps) could send you in the direction you needed, but sooner or later some signs will change their names without letting you know in advance and there for you tend to change the direction so it fit with the main course....yes it sounds confusing and it was confusing.
But as many times before on this trip we were saved by nice people.
Especially in Wuppertal when a guy, who was out for a little exercise with the bike more or less change his route just to lead us out in a favourable direction - ( thank you Peder Bodenhausen!!)

As soon as we were away from Ruhr life became much easiere.
Not only could we continue on the same way, that would lead us in up north, but - and maybe even much better - the mountains and hills were gone!! From now on it was only "flat story". Pancakelandscape all the way!

Not much from the last days to mention - well we could if you really ask for it, but the impressionlevel was on lowest level, and then everything just seem to vanish as soon as you´ve seen or hear it. But one thing still impressed us though.
When we came to the town Rendsburg there was only when way to cross the river there, and that was to go under it !!
Now that was a new one....
A special bicyclelift lead you down to some tunnel in the underground, and then you just pass under, untill you reach another lift in the end to take you up to the surface again.
A very special experience indeed!

We drove like maniacs.
We were now able to drive much longer distances than we were used to, and we broke our distancerecords almost everyday.
The last day when we set out from south of the river Elben and up to the german-danish border we drove 196,5 kilometer..... well we could make it that far because we knew that we had a place to stay in Sønderborg and there for we didnt need to look out for any hostel or hotel for the night...13 hours we were driving that day by the way.

The last 20 km before Padborg ( the border) was in completely darkness and somehow it was almost like a revelation with biblically undertunes, when we started to scream and sing and then shortly after the lights from the border appeared and Nina and Jens ( mother and brother) were waiting with waving flags , water and chocolate to welcome us.