Koblitzed It

Much against out better judgement we decided that we'd give the whole two cities in one day a try again today. We woke up in the old West German capital of Bonn then took our last drive down the Rhine for a few days to the city of Koblenz where we spent the evening before heading (only a little bit) on our journey down to Trier. 

Our first stop of the day was to cycle up the Rhine past the city of Bonn (although we did stop to look through the UN campus, the old Bundestag complex, and an unexpected scale model of the solar system) to a remanent of it's Roman origins: this Roman crane. Operated by teams of around 7 men, this would have been essential in building the Roman fortification and civil colony that were the foundations of the modern town. 

Not the most exciting picture but I'm sure the view of two very excited British tourists (or maybe one...) and their bikes taking a photo of a seemingly mundane street corner would have been amusing. This is in fact the centre of the Roman garrison town since the modern streets run along its lines. Not only did the echoes of ancient civil engineering impress me (as they tend to do) but the thought of thousands of men over hundreds of years from the whole of the Empire being stationed here brings forth thoughts of their experiences. Those young men would have stood in the centre of their home away from home and looked across the banks of the Rhine into the seemingly endless dense woodland beyond. The stories, factual and imagined, of horrors in those woods that those soldiers must have shared gave this place a rich history that surrounds all of Bonn. 

Cool schloss: potential colour for a repainted Moira?

Quick break from the learning to grab some snacks 

Another Stadt museum artwork killing it again, we'll absolutely have to visit some of these in eastern and southern Germany later in the trip.

After a hectic visit around Bonn we hightailed it down to Koblenz to get to the Moselle museum before it closed. This little gem (and a rare STEM museum on our journey) gave lots of cool context to tomorrows drive down the Moselle to Trier. Who knew the Moselle had 28 dams??

We decided to pop into a board game shop, as we have tended to do in every city, but boy oh boy did we get more than we bargained for. This is only a small excerpt from the joy that I had picking through literally thousands of rare board games, niche wargaming sets, and performing acrobatics around the piles of boardgames!

Our day finished with a cycle along the Rhine to the confluence (incidentally where Koblenz gets it's name) of the Rhine and the Moselle and saying Tschuss to the Rhine for a few days. There also just happened to be an enormous and well-illuminated fortification on the other side: the joys of spontaneously going places! Quick pop to the swimming pool in the evening then we drove down the Moselle a little bit to have a better view in the morning.

Rob's favourite fact of the day: Apparently all Western European eels are born in the middle of the Atlantic ocean and swim over to Europe for their life them swim back to procreate, crazy!

Danni's favourite fact of the day: The 'Bo' in Haribo is because it was founded in Bonn!