Pont Gate

We had a nice relaxing breakfast on the terrace with Lars & Sabine, and then were pedaling towards Aachen, Germany at 9:30 AM. It was a little longer riding with about 65 miles to cover, but after nearly 1900 miles of riding we are in a groove of cruising along “high-tailing it.” Some of our daily routines are stopping for berries on the side of the trail, picnic lunch breaks, Exploring the inside of churches, and stopping at produce stands along the roadside. We passed by Tagebau Hambach, Germany’s largest surface mining area, which has a current open area of 17 square miles and is about 2000 ft deep. It was an amazing view! Since it was Saturday there was quite a few cyclists out on the road and on the trails. We arrived in Aachen at about 5 PM and sat by one of the large city gates enjoying the views for about an hour. Within navigated by the giant cathedral to Thomas’s house, our Warmshower host. We got cleaned up and had a delicious pasta dinner with Thomas’s homemade marinara sauce (I believe the secret is the feta cheese 😀) After dinner we took a stroll up the largest hill in Aachen to watch the sunset, and heard the folktale of how the hill was formed by the dropping of a giant bag of sand the devil dropped on his way to hopefully cover the cathedral in Aachen. Got back to the flat at about 10:30 and we’re pretty tired from the day, so easily fell asleep by 11 PM with thoughts of pancakes Thomas had suggested for breakfast.Read more