Today, I had a lazy morning and hung around at the biker hotel until 12. I was tired and it was nice to sit back and have coffee while others were loading up their bikes to ride out.
I had planned to pass Bonn and head for some small nice roads up towards Osnabrück, which would be about halfway to Kiel. There was no accommodation booked but that was what I aimed for.
It seems like I learnt nothing getting lost in Luxembourg, because now I did it again in Bonn. When I finally found myself where I wanted to be, hours had passed. It’s tricky with the small villages and roads, my map hasn’t enough details to be useful sometimes so there was a lot of stopping, looking on the map, reading signs, turning back etc. All this took time and energy, not until I reached road 55 could I relax and just ride. The scenery was fantastic, so green, and all shades of green too.
The day passed quickly, as always, and I was cold and tired. I was annoyed with myself that I had lost so much time circulating in the beginning of the day because now I wasn’t sure how much further I could go on. At 7 o´clock I found a hotel in Beelen, a village shortly before Münster. I didn’t make it as far as I wanted but I felt too tired to continue.
The hotel is alright, I put the heating up in my room because it seemed freezing when I arrived. I was reluctant to go in to the bar to eat and drink since it was so smoky. It surprises me that the smoking ban is not implemented in Germany, maybe it’s not a EU law as I thought. Anyway, I went for a walk instead and found a grill where I had a burger and a beer.
Now it’s a bit after 9 and I’m ready for bed. Tomorrow I need to push on a bit and it stresses me. I’ll have to use the autobahn more and I’m not happy about that. Today, I used it for short bits and it felt intimidating. I’ve been on the autobahn plenty of times before, maybe the feeling is different now since the knowledge is greater. I have ordered breakfast at 8.30 tomorrow and I plan to be packed and ready by then (which is early for me). So now it’s time to get good use of the bed and snuggle up and hopefully soon fall a sleep to the music of Lars Winnerbäck.
