Day 14 Mainz Germany Grape, Grapes and more Grapes, then Wine

Tony's View

We started out and wouldn't you know it, a couple of roads were closed. These were tough to get around. The one in the picture below was under a bridge in heavy truck traffic. We got off the bicycle on the other side and I sprinted with the bicycle under the bridge in traffic. I think the truck drivers thought it was funny, so they were patient. Joan was able to jog and walk tucking in between the barriers. Oh well, we made it.

Had to make some more adjustments to the fairing to keep Joan's knees from hitting. It was something that needed to be fixed immediately so that Joan could drag me (according to my brother-in-law, Tom). Notice the barge in the background. The Rhine is getting wider with many barges and a few Viking cruise liners. 

We did find one Viking dock and I emailed Holly Fannon from Choice One who was just on a Rhine River Cruise on Viking. She was pretty sure this was one of her docks for her trip. She reads the blog, so I thought I it would be a good idea to verify it instead of making it up. 🤣

We found this cool ice cream vending machine. How cool is it that two different sizes (like pint and quart, only in metrics) of ice cream in many exciting flavors?

Then we got to go into our first Aldi's, and it was a happy day for Joan. I love their breads and pretzels. So good and super fresh.

I would say that we were riding through more than 20 miles of grape vines on both sides of road and bike path. The first picture shows grape vines on the side, but on a very busy road with trucks flying by. Good thing for wide shoulders.

Then grape vines in the hilly bike paths through the vineyards

We got off the bicycle and took a picture of the grapes. Many are getting close to be picked. We saw purple, white and red in this picture. Miles and miles of grapes.

Went through a village and saw a beautiful church. However, it was on a big hill so you can enjoy it from a distance from the outside. 😁

We got into Mainz, our destination, about 2.5 miles from the Airbnb. There was a place to buy wine. We decided to stop, but no one was there. When we were getting ready to leave, the owner asked us what we needed. He took us inside and he gave us some suggestions. We asked if they had tastings. He said sure, went into the warehouse and got some bottles. He opened a Reisling, and it was awesome. We said we would take it. This way he didn't have to open any more for us to taste. Joan asked how much, and he said 3.5 Euros. That is cheap, so we asked for another one. He was going to open it for us to taste and we just said that we would take it too. He was so nice, so we got a picture with him. His last name, Emig, is on every bottle, pretty cool.

After that we needed to place the bottles on the bicycle. One went in Joan's bag, and I strapped the other valuable merchandise to the back bag. 

We headed to the Airbnb, and it is another jackpot. We got everything in, and it started to rain. Great timing again to stay dry. We opened the other wine and, yes, it is delicious.

Joan's Extras

Riding through all the grape fields there were quite a few swarms of gnats. I had to keep my mouth closed otherwise I got some in my mouth. I could hear when Tony spat out a few of them.

Dagmar and her husband Peter are our hosts. We were out in the street trying to find the place when they greeted us and waved us over. That was the easiest check in yet. 

Dagmar showed me her beautiful garden. The picture with Dagmar is what she called a Holzapfel plant which I'm pretty sure is a crabapple. 

This flower she called a passionflower. I told her my friend, Mary, will love this one. Her garden looks very full, like Mary's, only smaller. 

Dagmar said that we could help ourselves to her garden so we each tasted a tomato. They were delicious.

For dinner we ate at the Gasthaus Goldene Ente which means guest house golden duck. I thought duck might be on the menu, but none there even though the food was great including the creme brulee.