We both woke beautifully refreshed at around about 8:30 which is unheard of for Leon! It helps not having a little grey dictator scratching and meowing at the crack of dawn! After having a fairly nice shower (slightly ruined by the fact that I bought conditioner instead of shampoo from Lidl -Spülung means conditioner everyone!), we went down to see what the breakfast consisted of, not expecting much, as our host had explained yesterday that the chef is on holiday until Sunday. There was an array of German meats and cheeses alongside bread, salad items, and warm hard-boiled eggs.
After brushing our teeth, we headed out to the car to decide where we would go today. We settled for a place called Cochem, about a 40 minute drive up the Mosel river. As we gained altitude up the mountains, he has popped and mist came down, showering us in a fine rain. Of course we were in the car so we didn’t complain although the visibility was somewhat reduced in increasing anxiety.
Cochem was worth the drive though and was another beautiful little town upon the river with a much more appropriate bridge, and similar cute German architecture akin to gingerbread houses. We had a walk around the little shops and found Leon on a new beanie hat, has his old stripe he one had walked out of shape leaving his ears very cold. It is also clashing with his new tartan scarf of which I found on the floor in a car park. But it is merino wool and Burberry so you can’t sniff at that!
We enjoyed a lovely pastry which we had procured yesterday from Lidl; it was mahoosive! Not that I am complaining, but we only wanted an an 11 o’clock snack. It tasted of marzipan and cinnamon swirl. We walked around some more for another hour or two taking in the sights and smells. One very bizarre thing that I saw in a shop was the iconic image of Mexican bushy browed artist, Frida Kahlo with the colourful flower crown, but with a generic model woman’s face super imposed, who was of much more melanin-free European heritage! It seemed really inappropriate to white wash her like that…anyway!
As lunchtime descended upon us about 1pm, we happened upon a mustard museum which had bratwurst (a German sausage) and a huge helping of a wide selection of mustard (senf). Only 3.50 euro! It was a perfect snack for lunch considering we have just had the cake which was the size of the Titanic, not so long ago. At about 1.30pm, a wave of tiredness hit me as I was trying to decide where we should go next. We had considered going to Koblenz or Mayen , but now I’ve decided to pop back to the apartment to have a little rest and Leon will probably go and bake himself again in the sauna. Oh, I forgot. I also picked up a German book from a red telephone box that was a free library. Everything was in German, so it might be a bit of a challenge to read as I don’t think my fluency is quite there to read a book on Julian Assange and wikileaks yet! But it seems interesting.
