After a whirlwind 24 hours in Cologne attending the only two Devcom events I could, I left the AirBnB and cycled to meet Pier at the Köln Messe/Deutz Bahnhof. I found him across the street from the train station, already most of the way through unpacking his bike.
>> TABLE OF CONTENTS
| RIDE STATS | |
|---|---|
| Distance — 41.7 km | Climbed/Descended — 130 m |
| Average Speed — 16 km/hr | Elevation (Highest/Lowest) — 63m / 40m |
| Top Speed — 32 km/hr | Steepest Grade — 5% |
| Time in Motion — 2 hr 36 mins | Total Trip Time — 4 hr 42 mins |
This first day was supposed to be an easy 23km ride, a totally doable distance for Pier to do after an overnight flight and eating a hearty German lunch at the midway point.
So why did we end up riding almost 40km?! (42km for me since I started from the AirBnB.)
What happened here? —>
For the long answer (and the first day’s entire journey), check out this video!
The short answer is that we were supposed to take a ferry across the Rhine.
The Hitdorf ferry (Hitdorfer Fähre) is part of the official EuroVelo 15 route, and is the fastest and most scenic way to get to Monheim from Cologne. The ferry’s website said it ran every 20 minutes from 6am to 7:20pm, Monday-Friday. It was a Thursday, so arriving mid-afternoon should’ve been no problem!
When we got to the ferry dock, someone was already waiting in their car. Excellent! We were in the right spot. A couple more motorists arrived, then another cyclist, all of us waiting patiently. After about 10 minutes, a guy rode up on a bike and started speaking German to everyone. The cyclists behind us left, and so did two of the motorists. The woman in the first car, who’d been waiting longer than us, rolled down her window, held up her cell phone and said something in German. Alas, we don’t speak German, but we got the idea — she’d checked something online and there was no ferry coming.
Then Pier walked right up to the dock to find this notice:
What the heck? I was sure the ferry was supposed to be running until 7pm! Evidently, so were a bunch of the locals!
(Later that evening, I checked the website and found a special notice saying that ferry hours were 6am-2pm from Aug. 14 – 29. My theory is that the afternoon ferry driver went on vacation and instead of getting someone to fill the 2-7pm shift, they just didn’t run the ferry for those two weeks.)
Regardless, it was DETOUR time. There’s a ferry farther upriver (Piwipper Böötchen), but I didn’t want to take a chance on another ferry not operating. So we backtracked to the New Leverkusen Bridge, which really wasn’t that far. But the bridge is big and the highway off ramp even bigger, and we had to circle waaaaaay out to get around it.
You can clearly see this “Big Bulbous Detour” on our route map below…
MAP: Cologne → Monheim
… and finally we got to Monheim.
Goose Girl Spotting
On our evening walk in Monheim, it didn’t take us long to notice the “Goose Girl” all over the town.
She and her goose were on the sides of buildings, on sewer drain lids and posters…
… and even the bike traffic lights! When the light turns green, she picks up the goose to cross. It’s so cute!
There are even little geese feet embedded in the sidewalks all over town.
When we got to the lake, we found even more goose stuff, like these sculptures.
Turns out, the Goose Girl (Gänseliesel) is kind of the town’s mascot. She’s on the Monheim coat of arms and the city logo.
And sure enough, here she is at City Hall!
Monheim isn’t very big, and we easily walked from Monheim Mitte (the newer downtown) to Monheim Altstadt (old town) in 15 minutes. Besides many sightings of the Goose Girl, we also saw the Schelmmenturm (Rogue’s Tower) where Pier did his best rogue impression, and a few autonomous buses, which seem to be Monheim’s transit system!
And as we were about to see in other German cities, Monheim has these bike streets where bikes have priority. Cars are still allowed to drive on the street, but they are supposed to drive slow and stay behind the bikes.
After wandering around Monheim, we returned to Monheim Mitte and got some traditional German food…
Next up… Day 2 we bike to Düsseldorf!