Journey: Cochen – Koblenz – Cologne (110 miles)
I’m going to provide an optional grumpy bit of reading at the end which you can choose to ignore if you prefer to believe everything is 100% hunky dory all the time in our van 😂
Up early we walked the pups and fueled by coffee walked up yet another steep hill to see Cochen Castle – if soldiers had been better equipped could they have put the castles lower down? Anyway our legs made it and it was immaculate (used as a popular wedding venue), found out the monks were allowed 5litres of wine a day! And the doors were specially designed to help drunk monks find the key hole 😂
We then went on to Koblenz, joined up with the Fridays for Future climate rally, had a speed walk around the sights, a doggy rest in the park and saw the meeting point of the Rhine and Moselle Rivers which was marked by the most striking monument – it was huge!
It was so warm we needed to get doggies out of the heat so opted to drive to Cologne. After an initial faff finding a suitable camp spot we had a wonderful walk around the city. Organised as ever we hadn’t brought a padlock for the love lock bridge but it’s an impressive sight. We were going to stop and have a beer by the river in the old part of the city but stumbled into a food and drink festival and got swallowed up by hundreds of people…it was heaving! Not the place to be trying to weave 3 dogs through, so that will have to wait for another time. Mark also confessed he’d been here before and had nice pizza. He even pointed out the restaurant..we had pasta and sauce in the van and some vimto…I felt cheated 😂 Still he made me hot chocolate and cheese and crackers when we got home and it was a lovely evening.
Ok the following is the optional grumpy bit you can ignore if you want to:
When you are living with someone 24/7 in a confined space there are bound to be arguments. Mark and I don’t really argue though, I get grumpy and he goes silent. Our trigger thing on this trip is Navigation and parking. We aren’t organised and so tend to decide on the day where we are going, what route and where staying. I’ve downloaded apps, joined forums, asked friends for recommendations, made notes and I use these a lot. Mark Google’s, then procrastinates over choosing. It’s just our different personalities. I’m happy doing all the driving but I don’t want to organise everything as well.
The problem to overcome is when I’m driving and entering a city I don’t know, following sat nav, still getting used to a different countries road structure and signs and despite having been driving for 40mins Mark starts suggesting parking options less than 5mins from our destination – I thought I was heading to a predecided parking spot…turns out I’m heading for Google’s centre of Koblenz, now in heavy traffic, with Mark still dithering asking me to pull over into a magical van sized spot thats suitable for contemplating parking options but not actually parking in…I pull into a cap park, realise there are no spaces big enough and I now have three options 1. Reverse onto a main road, 2. Block carpark entry while Mark contemplates parking or 3. Reverse into very tight parking slot in order to do a three point turn and exit safely. I opt for option 3 while Mark asks me to look at Google maps on his phone and wags his finger at the screen. We have been married a long time so when I politely said through pursed lips…”can I look after I’ve finished reversing, I’m having to concentrate this is very tight”. He correctly interpreted it as SHUT UP THIS IS YOUR FAULT! He got out of the van to look at a possible parking spot around the corner. Came back all pleased and said yes, you can fit….bless him he had found me a very snug parallel parking spot on a main road…thanks 🙈 Anyway I parked the van, and we walked 20 odd minutes into town before he confessed he didn’t know which way.
Again we differ, either we enjoy just pottering about aimlessly which works perfectly in small places or in big towns I typically Google the town’s name + sights (e.g.Koblenz sights) they all pop up on a map, you can see which you are closest to, click it and press directions. I’m crap at navigation… Google helps. Mark follows his nose, gets a bit lost, looks at Google…trusts it enough to look at but doesn’t press the directions button so instead looks at screen and ponders which way is up…all the while I’m standing with three dogs wondering why he can’t press the darn directions button and just get on with it.
Now add to this situation…the horrendous fact that I had not been fed. For a little person I eat a lot, and very regularly. I was thus angry and hungry, and basically a horrible person to be around. It was not alleviated until 7pm when I ate some pasta, so apologies Mark I know I’ve been an arse for most of the day but you should have fed me sooner 😂
Going forward: for cologne, I found a campsite, put it into sat nav, ignored Marks suggestion I was going wrong way (sat nav knew of road closures so took me an odd but amazing climb and long hills down route) only to find out I was driving in rush hour, the campsite was full, and as I wasn’t willing to be outside of the city centre (it doesn’t suit dogs), I was driving around randomly until I spied a camper van in a quiet street, and wormed my way over to join it. End result, although it was stressful we are in a much nicer, quieter, closer to the centre spot spot and we’ve enjoyed a lovely family walk. Marriage saved for another day lol.
Take home lesson – If you haven’t got a preplanned parking spot just go with the flow and the right space will appear.
SofaWolves 