A most incredible breakfast.  Besides the usual fair of Bröchen, 1/2 dozen other breads, eggs, sausage, bacon, yogurts, fresh fruits and jams and cereals there was fresh tomato/mozzarella with pesto oil on the side as well as smoked salmon.  There may have been more, but that’s all we could eat in one sitting.  We really did need to ride.
Without any pictures of the town last night, we were looking forward to seeing something interesting.  Within three blocks we were not disappointed.

A couple more blocks and we were back on the Rhein to glorious sunshine.  Unfortunately, we missed everything else of the city as the path, sidewalk and road was littered with broken glass.  We tiptoed out of town very disappointed.  But soon our trail took us away from the Rhein and through beautiful vineyards and all was good in the world.

It didn’t last long.

Our course directions today were poor (at best) and the road signs worse.  Seems as if every time we are on a straight bike path there are arrows pointing the direction every 100 feet.  But take us through a town and forget it, not a single sign.  We wove laboriously in and out of small towns with rough cobblestone streets, missing chances of any good pictures with the twisting roads to navigate.  Not sure how, but Jerry managed to navigate us through each town without loosing ‘all’ patience.  Not a stretch of the course I would want to do again.
The day, however, was stupendously beautiful, sunshine and a light wind and not without a couple trips down beautiful farmland paths.

Must say we do miss the last couple of days of busy Rhein traffic and hills stretching to the sky on either side of the river.  With most of the river traffic behind us, it was a much quieter river on our brief encounters with it today.

By 1:00, we were quickly approaching our destination town of Worms, we took a break and had lunch.  Jerry ordered the daily special (note 2 heaping piles of INCREDIBLE German potato salad), since he’d done so well with the daily special the day before.

I wanted something small, recognized tomato and cheese ‘something’, based on the price figured it could be but so big…

…….WRONG.  And of course, you need to wash this down with something…………..

Warning:  stay out of the way of moving forks and knives.

So, now both of us feeling incredibly guilty decided to go further, to work off some of our divine lunch.  Little did we know the light breeze we had earlier would turn into an in your face wind.  A quick trip through Worms, did produce a couple interesting sights.

We finally reached our ‘new’ destination town at 3:30, but took us until 5 pm to find a hotel.  Though Ludwigshafen am Rhein is large, there are very few hotels; not really a destination city.  However, from the 17th floor bar, we had an incredible view of this industrial city and Mannheim across the Rhein.

Still amazed at how many people smoke, but add this to the surprising……….

a vending machine in the lobby of the hotel, that has Bier (beer), Good Bier, in Bottles; of course, there are beer glasses in the room for the true ‘beer snob’.

See you tomorrow.