Posted on Jul 4, 2013 in Mainz | 1 comment

In the Gutenberg Museum 2, Mainz, Germany

Sketches I made while visiting the Gutenberg Museum in Mainz, Germany on the first day of our bike tour.

In the Gutenberg Museum 3, Mainz, Germany

The museum was excellent, it made us late for the start of our bike tour but since we were travelling by ourselves, it didn’t matter. We got to our first hotel by 7 pm.

After pretty much living the life of an alcoholic beach bum in Mykonos for 8 days and thoroughly enjoying that, it was time to become a culturally interested bike jock in central Germany. Which was also not unpleasant.

I had been a bit worried about the cool, rainy weather predicted for the duration of our bike trip, but we were seriously lucky and only experienced one downpour where we had to huddle under a tree with four other random people. It was a big tree, and being part of a random huddling group led to friendly conversations. During the first two days, we also had intermittent drizzle of the sort that a Vancouverite just ignores. After that it cleared up and got sunny and warm.

We had booked the bike trip with a company I found online, velociped.de. The tour itself is described on their website in detail here, so I won’t go into it. They describe it as a 7-day tour, but it’s really 5 days of riding, 6 nights, plus arrival and departure days. They book the hotels, supply the bikes, and transport your luggage to your next hotel every day, so you only have to pack a day bag which makes it easy to hop on and off the bike all day.

We were happy with everything, there were no glitches, and I hope we can cycle in France in the future — the Loire Valley or the Bordeaux region, as well as other countries. Pretty much wherever wine grows, works for me. OK, so the bike jock I turned into still retains the alcoholic tendencies of the beach bum.

It was good to be on a bike again after two weeks of not riding. I am from Cologne, so it was a ride through familiar countryside while experiencing it more intimately than racing through in a car or on a train.

My cousin and his wife who live just outside of Cologne, rode one full 60-km day with us. Spending that time with them was another highlight of this great trip.

In the Gutenberg Museum 1, Mainz, Germany

As a graphic designer, I was pretty much in heaven surrounded by both modern and historic typography and print technology exhibits. Background zebra pattern courtesy of one of the hotels we were staying at. There was some wild 80s decor going on.

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