Day 3 – Groesbeek to Aachen

So this blog is a day late.. That’s because what was supposed to be a 135km ride (our longest day of the tour) ended up being a 152km ride! We came accross so many roadworks, took so many wrong turns that we ended up running really late. 

We started off the day leaving the campsite at 8 o clock. 

Getting supplies at the first supermarket we came accross

We decided to break the ride down into smaller distances, not stopping until we’d cycled a certain amount of kilometers because we were worried that we otherwise wouldn’t really get anywhere.

On a boat crossing the river

After 40km we arrived at our first break spot: Venray. Here we had cappuccinos (with soya milk!) and ate our sandwiches.

Venray

Venray

After that we carried on cycling, planning our next stop at Kessel. This inbetween part was very flat, windy and boring. Once we got to Kessel, everything started to look a lot prettier!

Break time

Break time in Kessel

After that we had to cross the river again with the boat, which gave us a great view of the castles and pretty buildings!

On the boat between Kessel and Beesel

After this the landscape really changed. As soon as we got off the boat it was a lot hillier.. We carried on at a good pace, past Roermond and Sint Odilienberg, seeing all sorts of pretty old buildings as we were cycling.

In Sint Odilienberg

We then hit 100km, still feeling great! We only had 35km to go, so we wanted to carry on and meet my old friend Josephine in Aachen for dinner. Unfortunately, this is where everything started to go wrong. Road works after road works and wrong turn after wrong turn we ended up in Koningsbosch, much later than expected, with 30km still to go. Here we decided we should cycle to Heerlen and find something to eat there. Heerlen was a lovely city but very very hilly! It took us ages to get through it, and when we finally arrived in the city center most restaurants were closed..

New York Pizza on the streets of Heerlen

Street art in Heerlen

Leaving Heerlen, with only 16km to go, we took another wrong turn. Thinking it would be easier to just take a couple of left turns to get back on track, we decided not to back track. This led to a very steep climb up a bumpy path through the forest, which t0ok us ages! Finally we were back on track and heading to Germany. Everything was going fine until we got very close to Josephine’s house. Yet another wrong turn meant we were lost again, in a country where neither of us speak the language and where neither of us had internet access! Finally after the help of a couple of kind strangers we made it to Josephine’s house at 9pm, exhausted and sunburnt. Josephine looked after us though so we’re feeling a lot better today!

Sunburn