View Larger Map
Wednesday, July 3rd - Cochem to Koblenz, 6283 km
It is only 55 km to Koblenz at the confluence
with the Rhine, so I take my time this morning. I offer my goodbyes to the boys from Mainz. I won't be cycling with them as they are rushing on to get to home today, 140 km in this summer heat. They are packed before breakfast and on the road as soon as they have eaten. 
I ride up to the castle and shop for tape to repair my padded handlebars before leaving. The day is already hot when I leave Cochem around noon. I have to fight a stronger headwind today, but I still manage to arrive in Koblenz by 3:20. If there is a tourist information office in town I cannot find it. I stop a woman pedestrian and ask where the city centre is and I get a puzzled look back. So I cross the bridge over the Rhine, thinking it must be on the other side. But there is nothing much on the east bank. I realize the centre is on the west bank. It just doesn't look like much of a city centre.
The guide book tells me the youth hostel is in the castle on the east bank so I look for signs for the castle instead of crossing back over. I see the castle high above me and a road that leads up the bluff. A warning sign says the grade is 18%. Once I get started up there is no stopping, because it is too difficult to get going again and impossible to push a loaded bike up such a grade for more than a few metres.
Doing this steep of a grade on a loaded bike for a full kilometre is enough to blow out one's knees. Fortunately, that doesn't happen, but I need to zigzag back and forth across the road in several places, especially near the top, to make it there. It is the most challenging hill I have ever done.
Needless to say, the view is amazing from the fortress, but I am not leaving it youth hostel until I leave tomorrow, because I am not climbing that hill again. The hostel in Ehrunbreitstein Fortress is interesting in itself, beyond the views over Koblenz and the Rhine. It is much brighter and appealing than the one in the fortress in Sagres. I am sharing my dorm room with three Polish youths and I am soon invited to be part of their late night supper group. There is also a punky Australian guy named Murray, 23, who chats with us for a while. There’s not much else to do other than chat when there’s nowhere to go.
When lights are out I can hear Murray playing with himself - the soft, rhythmic smacking sound of a wet cock being stroked. He is not too discreet about it, perhaps hoping to get something going with the other guys in the room, but when there are several of us sharing the room it is more awkward than exciting. I listen carefully. If others join in I will too, but they don't. He's certainly in no hurry. He keeps it up for at least an hour, but no one complains either. They just pretend to sleep, but the sound is harder to ignore than snoring.
PHOTO 1: Cochem from across the river
PHOTO 2: gate to the castle
PHOTO 3: view of Cochem and Mosel Valley from the castle
PHOTO 4: east Koblenz with castle from west bank of Rhine
PHOTO 5: east Koblenz below the castle
No comments:
Post a Comment