An invite to afternoon tea!

Our German friends Frankia. It looks similar to ours but has a different layout

I’d just got in the shower when I heard voices, our Frankia friends were back and he’d come to invite us for a cup of tea, so after the blog, off we went. We had a lovely time, it can be isolated in Ted, and we’ve seen no Brits, even to say hi to, since Ypres which was all Brits. So to actually have a chat was great. However we don’t know the etiquette, how long do you stay etc? I think we were ok though. It also made Brian’s day, they have no solar panel, had all the lights on and were down to 90% and weren’t worried at all.... just me then?!

Afternoon tea with Arthur and Anna

The Rhine at Remagen

A short drive, down the river, once we’d escaped more roadworks in Bonn to Remagen (campsite location: 50°34'38.8"N 7°14'53.1"E). Why is everywhere being dug up, all at once? It’s madness. All we knew about Remagen was “the Bridge” from some old war movie. Turns out it was the last bridge across the Rhine, captured by the Americans in March 1945, as the Allies dashed across France and Belgium to Germany the Wehrmacht tried to stave off defeat by destroying all the bridges across the Rhine. 

The remains of the bridge at Remagen

That this one was captured threw Hitler into a paddy as he had four hi-ranking officers executed. The bridge was eventually destroyed, but not before the Allies crossed it contributing significantly to the collapse of Hitlers western front. It was an interesting enough place, but €12 for a muddy pitch, with not quite a Rhine view and extra for electric and water meant we only stayed one night. On the plus side I’d only read one of the two English books they had in the book exchange, so I could swap for the other!

The Peace Museum was closed but this information board was outside

The two bridge towers on opposite sides of the Rhine

We moved on, another half an hour to Andernach (campsite location: 50°26'29.7"N 7°24'25.7"E). We don’t quite know why we are here, though we are very pleased we are. The lure may have been WiFi at the other site, but on reading the descriptions in the book we decided not to go there, but to go to the one on the river front anyway. We managed a riverfront view as someone left about 5 minutes after we arrived. It’s a great river, huge and fast flowing with huge barges just making for staring out of the window entertainment!

We parked Big Ted at the end of the row, near the tunnel, looking out over the river on the right

Some of the old town walls

The town however is lovely some great city walls which explained the really weird route Doris brought us in on, but that’s what she’s employed for! If we’d just followed the map it could all have gone horribly wrong! What else is there to see, we asked tourist information? Well there’s the geyser....! €15 well spent, an interesting exhibition explaining all about cold water geysers which we’d never heard of caused by

Andernach is a fabulous old town

carbon dioxide dissolving in the water in the cold water under high pressure underground, that like a ‘normal ‘ geyser explodes every two hours, like a pop bottle as the bubbles of carbon dioxide expand and come out of suspension. This was followed by a boat ride down river to the geyser itself. We all stood, staring, not knowing what to expect, when gently at first, before getting up to 60m high and lasting a lot longer than expected, there it was! It had been discovered while looking for mineral water, though I have to say it wasn’t to my taste!



Here's a short Youtube of the Cold Water Geyser

Motorway on stilts to avoid the old walled town of Andernach

Today, it’s raining, so we’ve stayed put, managed to get a smidge of free electricity, someone was leaving and encouraged me to plug in in their place, so Ted is charged, the laptop is charged and we are going to watch a movie, before nipping out for cake and WiFi!

We can’t believe it’s two weeks since we got the ferry, it seems like ages, perhaps it was time for a chilling day. We are thoroughly enjoying ourselves though and the people are all so friendly, and so very helpful. Everyone seems to speak some English from the cashier in Aldi who told me how to cook the cordon bleu I’d bought, to the lady recycling her water bottles in Aldi who hadn’t done it before either who came to find me to tell me what to do when she’d worked it out! Any bottle, plastic or glass, or can with the right symbol on and you get a voucher for money back, 25c on a 1.5l plastic water bottle! Got to be worth doing then!

Arriving by boat at the dock for the Cold Water Geyser

And it was just a pile of rocks when we got there. A man-made borehole but a natural phenomenon

But it soon started spouting and got bigger and bigger...

Until it was really quite high. There's a lot of CO2 in there and quite cool to touch (and drink!)

Jackie feeding the ducks outside Big Ted this morning