Fini
I slept great, even though our window faced railroad tracks (with frequent trains) and a moderately busy road on the other side of the tracks. The house we were in was built prior to 1900 and had super thick walls and great windows, both of which muffled the sound. We’ve also found that these bike rides exhaust us such that we sleep well. (Natalie didn’t sleep particularly well, but she was grateful to be comfortable.)
We had a nice breakfast provided by our host. We both agree that the bread was better in France (maybe because we’d get it fresh in the morning). We said goodbye to our host and were on the road by 8:30am, even though we didn’t have far to go (55 miles).
It was a bittersweet ride. It was mostly beautiful river trails, with some city navigation. The weather was sunny and beautiful but not crazy hot. We had a short ferry ride to get us across the Rhine. We wondered if our experience at this airport (Frankfurt) would be similar to Paris. Gratefully we were on dedicated bike paths until we were within 2 miles of the main terminal, at which point we switched to small roads. We rolled up to the terminal unflustered by traffic.
I have a colleague who works in Frankfurt. He was at the airport for other business and found where we could buy bike boxes and confirmed that they had plenty. Once we heard that, we were able to stop worrying about shipping our bike.
We took apart our bike in the airport and boxed it up. It took us about 1.5 hours. We are staying at a hotel at the airport for the next two nights (we had built one day into our schedule in case we were going to need to find bike boxes at bike shops in Frankfurt), so now we have a day to see Frankfurt on foot.
We are so grateful for how everything worked out. Bike angels helped us along the way, the weather was almost perfect, and we stayed safe. The vast majority of our time this trip we were on dedicated bike paths or lanes separate from traffic. And it was wonderful to be able to spend time with Matt and Jessica and family! We don’t know what trips the future holds for us, but this one is in the books as one of our best.