Amsterdam to Budapest by Bike page 3

Not all of the Rhine bikepaths are nicely paved . You can run into miles of this sort of rutted, muddy path along the Rhine.

About a half an hour later I was on this nicely paved path again following the Rhine. That evening I got to the campground along the Rhine outside of Oppenheim.

The next morning I followed the Rhine as far as the town of Worms. This is one of those cases where I'm sure I'm on the bike path but it seems to be deteriorating slowly. It was a nicely packed dirt trail which is common. And then there are more and more potholes. The dirt turns into gravel and the potholes become craters and I haven't see a sign for miles. Next thing I knew I was sandwiched with the river ten feet to my left and railroad tracks left over from before the war on my right in some horrible looking industrial area of Worms. So I backtracked until I could cut inland and there it was ...a 4-story high Ronald McDonald Statue. So I had breakfast.

Then within a km I was back on the bikepath and in the middle of a festival on the downtown waterfront. I crossed the Rhine and headed SE towards Heidelberg where I stayed with my friend Kaija and her husband Christian a couple days.

The previous photo is when I just arrived in Heidelberg.
The photo to the right is the view from the north side of the Neckar River in Heidelberg.

The old university prison in Heidelberg. Until World War I, this prison was used for University students. They fell under the law of the university which had its own prison. Most prisoners were only held for a short time here and it became a desireable thing to be placed here like an initiation. They would hoist up alchohol through the windows and have parties. They left a lot of their artwork and photos all over the walls of the prison.