8th August: Düsseldorf to Köln

Cycling and other travel

cycling to Köln (cyclemeter map)
- distance 28·22 miles (255·53 cumulative miles so far)

Mission accomplished. We has a fairly long drinks-stop in Dormagen, at a café specialising in drinks, the pleasures of books and reading and wasps. It was next door to an Apotheke where Elly bought some eye-drops and I some glucose sweets. jPhone/USB-werk continued to get along, but I’m no longer so overjoyed because I don’t quite trust things after the previous day’s hiatus,

We travelled on, following cycle-route signs to Köln. I took advantage of a long deserted stretch of cycle-path to do a Paula Radcliffe. It’s better to get your cross-bar damp than to suffer or stop. We also passed through a huge industrial complex dominated by Ford before the route hugged the Rhein again on the way into Köln.

Near the city centre, the path was blocked by a Hare Krsna parade – even native cyclists couldn’t dodge through it. Fortunately it passed by quite quickly so we were free to move on to our hotel, an ibis in the Altstadt-sud area. The hotel staff were seriously hassled by their card-key system malfunctioning – they had to take people to their rooms and let them in with master-keys.

Our first activity was to use the laundromat across the road from our hotel – I now have properly clean lycra to re-mank. We then ventured onto Köln’s underground (to restaurant by U-Bahn – cyclemeter map) to get to an Ethiopian restaurant advertising vegan food. Total foodgasm – I never want to eat Ethiopian again because it won’t be this good. We both had green lentil ‘salad’ starters (green lentils, oil, lemon juice, some spices and chilli, with rolls of ethiopian flatbread. We then had the ethiopian quivalents of talis – tasters of different kinds of food served on a flatbread. The way to eat is to tear off some flatbread, roll some food in it and then munch, indian-style. I like this! We tried two ethiopian beers – an amber and a lager style. Both good, but I think the lager had the edge.

Then a final journey back to our hotel, where I’m writing this. We now have key-cards and the staff are much relieved. It’s not as hot as previously but tram and car-noises are keeping me awake enough to write this.