Friday, July 5th, 2024

Distance ridden 336 kilometres

We woke to a view of perfection. Not quite Alpine scenery, but probably not that far off. The view from our terrace in the early light of morning was just as lovely as it had been in the dying rays of the sun.

There was a longish day ahead, more kilometres to cover than either of the previous two days – coupled with, hopefully, views of another two works by Hundertwasser before nightfall.

The breakfast room was right next door to ours, so we did not have to expend any calories at all in order to gain some more. The breakfast itself was simple but filling, cereal, rolls (beautifully fresh) with the standard array of cheeses, cold meats and hard-boiled eggs. As ever, Lucie did something weirdly “continental” with bread, jogurt and honey. We were nicely set up for the day.

The first Hundertwasser site we wanted to see was in Dortmund, which was over 250 kilometres away, so we packed and left quite early.

We made our way down the steep hill to the valley and set off through the countryside.

As usual, we filled the tank and, in the station, we encountered a Harley rider of a similar vintage to myself. He had no English, I have hardly any German so we contented ourselves with the customary “Harley handshake” and went our cheery and separate ways.

A brief ride down some well surfaced country roads and through a few sleepy villages brought us to the A7 autobahn which we joined in the direction of Kassel. As I say all too often, a motorway is just a motorway. There were, occasionally, some lovely views, but most of it seems purposefully drab and industrial. The number of wind turbines visible at almost any moment is simply staggering.

To prevent boredom setting in, Lucie’s planned route left the A7 at Road 63 and we cut off a long loop of motorway with a drive through the countryside through Marsberg, Brillon Meschede and Arnsberg.

At one point, on the road, about midway between the small towns of Bredelar and Thülen, we passed a rather unusual statue of a miner on our right. There is a lot of mining in the area and it was made to look as if it was “mining” the nearby ridge. 

Then we rejoined the A7 for the final grind into Dortmund.

And grind it was. Although it was still quite early in the afternoon, it was a Friday and the traffic was very slow although this was “German slow” which meant a constant, if low speed and pretty sensible behaviour. Although there were roadworks and tunnel repairs, I never actually came to a dead halt.

Once in the right street, we found our destination Der Spielhaus (Marsbruchstrasse 12, Dortmund) with consummate ease – but then, the works of Mr H are pretty hard to miss – particularly when they are tall and pink! We parked across the road, walked around and took a few snaps and made a metaphorical tick in a box.

We set off for the next place, in Essen, but almost immediately spotted a quite swanky looking fish restaurant, Rodenberg 1770 (Rodenbergstrasse 50, Dortmund). So immediately, in fact, that Lucie snapped me at the table with the Hundertwasser building visible over my shoulder in the near distance.

Despite being bikers, we were greeted warmly. We treated ourselves to a couple of alcohol free beers, which they gave us in wine-glasses (probably to at least try to keep up appearances).

Then it was a coquilles-St Jacques panciota (a sort of ravioli) for Lucie and grilled sea bream for me. Both of the latter we unaccountably forgot to snap.

It was a comfortable place to eat and we may have dallied too long. When we emerged and I took a snap of the nearby Wasser Schloss while Lucie enjoyed a postprandial cigarette, it began to rain lightly and this persisted for some time. Luckily, with the screen and footboards on the Softail, when you are moving in light rain, not much of it hits you.

We passed out of Dortmund and took the road towards Essen. This was more of an urban link road than a motorway proper, but it was very crowded. Progress was slow, but again constant and largely considerate, so again we did not come to a dead halt until we left the highway for the city streets.

After a little bit of messing around, our “quarry” is in the Gruga Park and an exact address was hard to come by, we did find it. Sadly, however, it was behind a fence and we could not find a way to get near it. We needed to retire to our hotel in order to find how to get there and, due to the late hour – and renewed drizzle, we elected to make that try the following morning.

We crossed the city to our overnight lodging, the Hotel am Schloss (Borbecker Strasse 183, Essen). It was fairly basic, but luxury compared with some places we have stayed. The room was spacious (with Lucie’s terrace for smoking), tea/coffee brewing was provided for – and the internet was good. The biggest hiccup was the automated check-in. We were not expecting it and the battery on Lucie’s iPad was dead, so she could not get the email with a code they had (apparently) sent. The HelpLine was an unhelpfully non-existent number. Fortunately, we did finally discover the necessary code, lurking in a confirmation email from booking.com, so disaster was averted.

There were a few places to eat locally, but it was drizzling, we were both tired and we had eaten a good lunch. So I walked to the local Kaufland to buy some milk for my tea and a packet of cookies. I swear the two floored shop was bigger than Quedlinburg in total floor area terms and quite why the owners feel the need to have dairy products the maximum possible distance from the tills baffles me. I practically put in my daily 10,000 steps between the biscuit aisle and the milk, let alone the trek back towards the tills. I was damp from the drizzle so I was pretty hot and sticky by the time I coughed up my four Euros at the check-out, I can tell you, Still, even then I was not as dishevelled as most of the others in the queue.

Back in the hotel, I had a very much deserved cup of tea, which used two teaspoonfuls of my litre of milk.

Then we planned the rest of the trip and booked the accommodations. I have to admit that my contribution to those processes was to occasionally mutter “OK”, but anyway it got done. As night fell, we enjoyed our cookies with some coffee as the night outside was punctuated sporadically by sirens (Germany had just lost to Spain in the quarter-final of Euro 2024).

Then I did what I always do ….. Goodnight world !