Fog on the Rhine (is all mine all mine...)

From Gent to Cologne. Today's mileage 180. Total mileage 360.

After a breakfast of beans on toast (courtesy of our new 4 berth camping toaster!) we packed up and headed out on the road to Germany and more specifically Cologne (or Koln).

Dermott once again came up trumps leading us without hesitation or question. Is it wrong to develop a crush on an Irish satellite navigation system whilst on one's honeymoon? I fear it's happening.

We entered Germany with minimal fanfare. Having only travelled Europe by plane before, we're both used to all the customary borders, security and customs that entails. As such, the road borders between countries are a surprising non-event. Leaving Belgium and entering Germany was simply a question of passing a sign welcoming us to Deutschland. No passport check, no customs, nothing. In fact Jojo and I are yet to have our passports looked at since leaving the UK. Even Dover - Dunkirk was accomplished with nothing more than a cursory glance at the front covers of our passports.

We got to our campsite in Cologne and were greeted by a stern german man who looked at Jojo's tattoos and asked her if she was a sailor. Which was, at least, original. He booked us in, directed us to our pitch by the river & informed us that all other questions could be answered by his (frankly useless) noticeboard.

We headed from the campsite into Cologne. As our van did not yet have a Low Emissions Zone sticker it was banned from the city centre. So we took a tram (my first tram ever!). Things didn't get off to an auspicious start in Cologne. As we crossed our first road junction I looked down to see the road was strewn with at least a dozen used needles. This was made worse when I looked across to see Jojo's flip-flopped feet. Not nice. Luckily, more by chance than anything else, we avoided any needle-stick injuries and continued on our way. Jojo decided to look on the brightside & chose to blame the whole thing on a "clumsy diabetic". I decided not to allow myself to descend into a paranoid spiral of feet-checking, ignore it and hope for better sights and experiences ahead!

We checked out the Dom (cathedral) & some other Cologne landmarks before moving on to the inevitable vegan eateries. In this instance this entailed an ice-cream serving cafe and a vegan shop where we stocked up on loads of fake soya meats for the miles ahead.

As we left the vegan store, the skies darkened and the wind started picking up. Within 5 minutes it was almost dark (think Independence Day all you bad film lovers) and blowing a gale. The wind whipped up sand from the base of the trees lining the streets straight into our eyes and before long the city was inhabited by zombies - everyone eyes shut, moving slowly, arms out feeling their way ahead. It was a bizarre experience, but not totally unexpected after the humidity of the day. As the rain started pouring the darkness was joined by a wet fog, which fortunately coincided with us reaching our tram stop for the journey back to our campsite. The tram was not straightforward however, as the sudden change in weather meant our line was closed, and our shocking lack of any german meant we didn't understand the announcement telling us this and happily sat on the tram going in totally the wrong direction. A few phrase book searches and tram changes later we made it back to the campsite to find several branches had fallen from the trees and we had been lucky to be out and thus avoid any branch/windscreen dramas.

Our final task was to get some food for our dinner. A mundane trip to Aldi was made more entertaining by the checkout lady randomly heckling us as we wandered round. It was only as the lights went out that we realised this was because they were closing. Unfortunately our bemused shrugs & continued slow reading of bread ingredients (the joys of veganism) hadn't done much to endear us to this lady. She recommenced her shouting with more hostility as we finally reached the checkout. Even letting her know we were English and had not understood her earlier shouting did not appease her. She simply shouted some more. She was great. I named her Hilda. Jojo named her Aldi-Bitch.

Tomorrow we start our two day trip to Berlin.