Koblenz – Lahnstein and Castles

Today I have done two cycle rides.

The first, in the morning, was a repeat of yesterday morning’s Mosel trip, but this time with husband, in-laws and dog in tow.

We had a very nice time and had lots of comments from people about Poppy in the bike basket. She had a bit of a swim in the Mosel.

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James won lots of brownie points with Poppy for playing Stick Fetch
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We sat on a bench near the hydroelectric lock on the Mosel near Koblenz and had various passers-by chat to us
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On the way back we stopped at Netto for some groceries and Poppy was banished from the bike basket so that we could fill it with shopping. She ran alongside me on the cycle path back to the accommodation.

That ride was 8.5 miles (at 5.9mph average) and helped us work up an appetite for lunch.

In the afternoon James and I decided to go for a bit of a ride together. The strange thing about Koblenz is that although it’s an interesting place with various rivers joining it, there aren’t actually that many different cycle routes you can do from here. We had a bit of a look at the map and decided to ride down to Lahnstein which is where the river Lahn joins the Rhein just a few miles south of Koblenz.

We headed off on the now-very-familiar route to Deutsches Eck and then south from there on the same route I took yesterday, crossing the Rhein via two bridges – the first to a little island full of VERY posh houses, and then across on a path beside the railway bridge which goes over the main part of the Rhein.

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The cycle path is nearest to you on the picture and, as you can see, the trains are VERY close. A huge freight train came past just after we had crossed the bridge. I was relieved that we were back on terra firma before it went past but I think James was a bit disappointed – I think he was hoping to see how much the bridge bends!

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It’s better to cross the bridge first before looking too closely at it – the cycle path bit doesn’t seem held on by much!

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Looking back at the bridge – the road bridge is right beside it.

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And looking southwards – this beautifully colourful wall.
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After crossing the Rhein we were in Horchheim which seemed to have a good selection of restaurants and cafés. We pressed on by bike, following the cycle path right alongside the Rhein. We went past Niederlahnstein and then the river curved a little and we caught our first glimpse of Schloss Stolzenfels (which just happens to be the name of our apartment).
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And here am I enjoying the sunshine.

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Here is a close-up of the Schloss with some friendly geese.

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Right around the corner from here was the river Lahn and the main part of the town of Lahnstein. James and I faffed around a bit crossing the river and trying to see if we could cycle up one side and down the other but weren’t sure where the nearest bridge that we could use was, so in the end we cycled up the north bank of the Lahn which had a very decent path.

There were some adverts for a bar called Shark (Haifisch) and outside this bar was a pirate boat.

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Lahnstein has, of course, its own casle – Burg Lahneck.

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Here is James pontificating upon the road bridge. We concluded that we wouldn’t be able to cross on this one as we couldn’t see any sign of a path on our maps.

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And here is a closer view of Burg Lahneck. The Germans were very good at castle-building!

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We cycled up alongside the Lahn to the lock at Friedland (they named doorbells after it!)

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The scenery was different from alongside the Rhein with far more trees and everything much narrower.

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We saw what we think is a Prout catamaran moored in the marina up the Lahn river.

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We weren’t sure how far up to cycle and in the end turned round when we reached 10 miles cycled. This is heading back towards Koblenz – anyone familiar with the area will recognise this radio antenna.

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When visiting the Rhein or other rivers you are often reminded how often they flood (and presumably why they are spending a fortune doing flood defences in front of our apartment). This building has high-water marks almost twice as high as James!

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The inscription tells you that Goethe stopped there for lunch once.

And this is a pretty old customs building!

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We passed this mural and Neptune did rather remind us of Wowbagger. And, rather topically, the mermaid looked a bit like Kate Middleton.

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Here am I posing in front of the mural.

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A little further on we saw another mural by the same artist. This interesting building, with its artwork, was the local public toilets!

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Lahnstein turned out to be a very nice place to visit and eventually we headed back up the Rhein, retracing our previous route. We decided to cross the Rhein back to Koblenz on a different bridge so cycled further up the east bank, this time to Pfaffendorf. The bridge crossing was very wide and easy to find.

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When up on the bridge we had a lovely view of Ehrenbreitstein glowing in the afternoon sunlight.

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When we came off the bridge we somehow missed a cycle path sign and found ourselves riding the wrong way down a slip road. Fortunately there was no traffic so I survived!

We routed ourselves back via Deutsches Eck and who should we bump into there but my in-laws who had walked to the foot ferry and taken that across. We cycled back and they headed back by boat – but we got home first!

Didn’t actually have any cakes on this trip but I have an Apfeltasche to eat as my dessert this evening!

Statistics for today
Total cycled: 27+ miles
Afternoon cycle ride:
total distance: 19.07 miles
Average speed: 8.5mph
Maximum speed: 18.6mph
Total time: 2 hours 14 minutes

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