Dougie, I'm the first to admit that I might be just a
wee bit biased when it comes to this area of Germany but IMHO it is an often ignored jewel for scenery, roads and hospitality. Here are some links that you may find useful and of interest to you.
The run along the banks of the Rhein as you're heading south (or when you're heading back northwards to the ferry) is well worth doing and is much better than dragging yourself down boring autobahns. As John Armstrong has rightly said, Bacharach is a really cracking village and there are many more on this route. There are ferries to take you back and forth across the river and they're really cheap. I tend to jump on 2 or 3 so as to get the best of both sides of the Rhein.
Rüdesheim am Rhein is a good place to stop and the
Niederwaldenkmal is worth the cable car ride up to. Their website is a bit bland but click on the side panels and you'll get an idea of it's appeal from the pics. The Trosselgasse is very touristy but worth a wee look as you walk up to the cable car.
The city of
Trier is a great day out/run and some of the villages along the Mossel are equal to anything on the Rhein. You could easily visit
Bernkastel-Keus on this same day trip (if you've enough time to see both Trier and B-K
and enjoy some of the great twisties here.
) The pic on my signature is taken on the Mosel near Lorsch.
North Schwarzwald has some great roads for biking, not forgetting some of the fantastic scenery. The B500/Schwarzwald Hochstrasse is as good as anything I've ridden anywhere for fast, smooth bends on really great surfaced roads. A lot of folk slag off
Mummelsee as a stop off due to it's blatant tourism but it's a cracking road and the bread baked at the side of the road in smoke ovens is worth stopping for alone. A bit of this with the local smoked ham wi' a dod o' mustard is right up your strasse Big Man
The 500 goes into
Freudenstadt, one of my favourite places for a stop off in Schwarzwald. They have a cracking outdoor swimming pool at Panorama Bad (details in the above link).
There's a brilliant twisty/hairpinned road descending from Freudenstadt over towards the A5 Autobahn (direction of Strasbourg). It's well worth leaving the 500 for as it's a totally different ride than the fast run you'll have had. I'll post up details of this road when I get home tonight.
You could easily head down the B500 to
Titisee/Neustadt and really get the best of this road.
If you're basing yourself in the Jockgrim area, you must have a run up into the
Pfalzerwald, which is on your doorstep. The run from Annweiller up into Johanneskruez is a
must do but it's often (if not always) closed to bikes at weekends.
The
Technik Museum in Speyer (28 kms from Jockgrim) is a great day out and one that most of the Hintertstadtelfest Tossers went to last September.
Speyer itself is also well worth a look and a simple walk over to the "Domes" from the museum will see you in the heart of the town. There's even a private brauhaus
(Domhof Bier) with a cracking bier garten only a very slight stagger from the Dom cathedral.
There are lots of nice wine villages in the area of Landau (again, near Jockgrim) such as St Martins and Rhodt. Really nice for a wee wander and some great wee back roads from here up into the Pfalzerwald.
Map
Here's a calender of
wine festivals for the area too. They're well worth a visit
The
Deutscher Weinstrasse is a good day out (it's only about 60 kms but takes all day due to the amount of places that you'll stop at). I've ridden the entire route both ways and it's well worth doing but some of the SS rode part of it when we were over last year and we stopped for lunch at St Martins. I'm sure everyone really enjoyed the run.
I hope some of this will be of interest to you, Dougie. I'll post up some more links as I think of them.
)
Best top up before getting onto the ferry. As I will when I go out in June.
