September 20, 2025 - Bad Honnef am Rhein, Deutschland

 Today started well after a restful evening. Breakfast was later as it was a weekend morning. I had no problem finding the radweg as it was just under my window. 

As I have said, the bike paths are super. They make the ones I bicycled here in 14 seem like pony express trails from the Wild West days. Today’s was no exception, smooth asphalt, straight and level. Perfect for e-bikes to zoom by.

In many locations the towns have built right up to the flood walls. The river can flood and often does. Sometimes it is major damage to the surrounding area, other times it just restricts river travel. River traffic in Germany can also be restricted by drought. Unfortunately at some times on my 14 bicycle related trips I have seen both.

The has many marinas. They are full of pleasure boats, even though you do not see many on the river each day. They very often include both tv camps and tent camps. Here an energetic group was setting up a tailgate area to watch the balls games. 

I traveled through Bonn the former temporary capital of West Germany. Today Bonn hosts the United Nations in Germany. It also hosts an annual Beethoven festival. Bonn was the birthplace for Beethoven. 

As I was leaving Bonn I noticed this unique restaurant. It is not uncommon to see boats and barges turned in restaurants. They usually called Boothaus or something similar as Boot is the word for boat in German. This one was a  multilevel Chinese Restaurant. That I have seen before in Europe. 

A river ferry. As there are only bridges at the major cities they often have government ferries at place for cars, motorcycles, bicycles, and pedestrians to cross the river. At some place they smaller ferries just for pedestrians and bicyclists. I wild a smaller ferry and post a picture of it. I have some pictures of small ferries from previous trips. 

Do any of you gardeners know what kind of trees these are. I thought the way they were planted together and way they are pruned to created an overhead canopy was very interesting. The leaves reminded me of sycamore trees.

I am now in the famous part of the Rhine River valley that both castles and castle ruins on both sides of the river. Sides will get closer and steeper. I walked up to the structure above the vineyards and took a few pictures. It was a nice walk down. On top of the hidgest hill you can an old ruin.

There were some very impressive houses along the walk up the hill. This is just one of them. They all has steep staircases going up to the house. I would not want to deliver anything to these houses on a regular basis.

A view from as high as I walked up the hill. There was a path to the ruins but I did not take it.

I finished my day with a meal of marinated rost beef (Sauerbraten) with potato dumplings and cold cooked  sweeten apples. And of course I had a pils to drink with it. All in all a very good meal. 

Tomorrow I will travel the upper scenic Rhein river avlkey to Koblenz.