We enjoyed our last day in Dijon wandering the city area and simply mixing it with other holiday people and enjoying a slow lunch in the sun. Dijon has a good feel about it with a refined and unhurried city centre.
On Thursday 13th, we surrended the hire car to do battle with the French and German train systems. The systems had proposed that we move from Dijon to Kiel with some quite tight train changeover times nominated. No worries on the basis of both of their reputations for train punctuality. Our first transit at Mulhouse was planned for just 8 minutes. As the TGV from Paris was running 15 minutes late from the get go we were just a tad on the alert but not alarmed scale. But in the end we gained some time along the way and we had about 4 minutes to change trains.
The second changeover at Baden Baden was also under stress at minus 30 minute late into Baden. But we had planned for about 40 minutes at Hamburg for the last train into Kiel so at least we were in the black at that point and all in all we should get to our Kiel hotel around 10 pm which was when they would be locking doors and heading to bed. German efficiency at zero as we staggered into Hamburg at minus 50 minutes so missing our first ever changeover. So we had to jump onto another ICE train with just 3 minutes to do it and also ring the hotel and make arrangements to get in. In the end we were a couple of tired travellers but at least we had made it. Dinner with the late nighters at Kiel station was out of this world.
The next day it was warm and sunny as we searched out the 'Atlantis' tall ship, enjoyed a good lunch with our new best friends, the hotel owners and then spent a couple of hours just watching a wounded ship trying not to topple over with a load slip.
It was about 7 pm when we boarded the boat and met our fellow boat and bikers. Mostly German, two Swiss couples, one Austrian, 3 Americans and G1and G2 from Oz. We were about 30 in total. We knew our accommodation would be somewhat on the small side so we were not disappointed with our digs. And the first day's sailing was simply stunning with a flat sea and just enough wind to get a few sails into action. We had some good exchanges of travels with those we could communicate with and some spent the day enjoying the sun and relaxing. We had our ship and bike briefings and were set to go ashore in Denmark from around 9:30 next morning.
Uh oh, why is it cloudy with more than hint of rain today as we clambered over the side and into the dingy for the run ashore?. And it got worse as the day went on. The terrain was ok but it just did not stop raining all day. By mid afternoon we were fortunate enough to find an open cafe with plenty of room where we could recover a little.
At the same time as we were riding, the boat was doing it tough (as were the few non bikers who remained on board today). With two metre waves the captain decided he had to relocate the boat to the other side of the island if we were to have any chance of getting back on board today. The price for that was for us to ride an addional 15 kms to put the day's total up to around 60kms. So that is what we did and by around 7pm or so we were back in the boudoir and 'enjoying' a hot shower and then dinner.
And what about sex and power you ask? We cover that next blog.
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