Since this was one of the nicer weather days we'd had so far, we were glad to have bicycle rental reservations in the very pretty town of Beilstein. There is a recreation trail along most of the river so we set out with no plan (but plenty of water and a few snacks). We made it down to Zell and had a nice little lunch before heading back. The total round-trip ride was about 35 miles.
Along the way we rode through several long-term family camping complexes. A few of them had their own little beer garden on site. We wondered how long some of the campers had been there because many had full on planters full of flowers or were maintaining their own bit of grass with electric mowers. Honestly it looked like an extremely enjoyable way to enjoy a holiday.
I wished I could have flown off with the broom option but the bike was fine too
The town of Bremm. Where the Bremmer wine comes from!
Lunch and the turnaround town of Zell
Back in Beilstein
Just like Cochem's castle, this too was destroyed by the French in 1689
At this juncture you'd think we would take it easy for the rest of the day and go to bed early. Well...looking ahead at the weather it became apparent that tonight was going to be the best chance for some night sky photography. I packed up my astrophotography stuff and the two headlamps I brought on this trip. We had a light but really decent dinner at a tiny bar and then Hans agreed to accompany me back up the same vineyard slopes we climbed the other day but this time at nightfall. I polar aligned my setup and took some test shots of the castle while we waited about an hour for full darkness. In the meantime we could hear raucous music and singing coming from an evening party boat on the river. Unfortunately, I did not get a lot of time with the Milky Way before clouds rolled in. Once the sky was obscured I figured why not use this opportunity to take some night shots of the city too. By 11 pm it was quite dark up on the hillside so we used the headlamps to carefully pick our way back down the vineyard and to the quiet streets of Cochem. Then, it was bedtime!
Quite the view from up here at night
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