Postscript: some post-ride fun and games, part 1

Transitioning off a trip like this is always a bit of a challenge for me.  We develop such a consistent routine: breakfast, ride, clean up and wash clothes, dinner, and then repeat that it's a bit jarring to stop the routine and switch to something else.

Thursday we said goodbye to Mainz and, with our backpacks but no bike, took the train an hour or so to Frankfurt.  I had an appointment 8 am Friday at the consulate to replace my passport so we'd booked a hotel just a short walk away.  Dealing with the bureaucracy there was straightforward but tedious (lots of waiting around between steps) but by 10 I was back at the hotel with a new temporary passport. 

We have to be in Dublin in a bit less than a week for our niece's wedding, so we had a few days for something different.  After spending a lot of time looking at maps and schedules for trains and ferries, and discussing the pros and cons of various areas, we decided to head for the Snowdonia National Park area in Wales.

In anticipation of passport success we'd already booked tickets on the Eurostar (high speed train) from Brussels for Saturday, so all we had to do was get to Brussels on Friday.  That was a bit of an ordeal. First, light rail to the Frankfurt station, then a train back to Mainz (which was running behind), then another train to Cologne (also delayed), and finally one more to Brussels.  Unfortunately the delays on the first two brought us to Cologne after our next train had departed.  We were able to get on one an hour later, without reserved seats, but we were able to find a couple of open seats and were in Brussels in time for a late dinner.  It was only a 20 minute walk from the train station to our hotel in the pedestrian-only city center.

Brussels on a Friday night was jumping.  The area around our hotel was packed with restaurants and bars, and it seemed everyone was out.  We found a nice place outside for mussels, and a waiter who smiled indulgently at my attempts at French.  First picture is a sign outside a pub, for my friends who like double IPAs (you know who you are).

Saturday morning we walked another 20 minutes to a different train station for the Eurostar: two comfortable hours from Brussels to London's St. Pancras station, with passage under the Channel.  A short walk to Euston station and we were on another train west to the small town of Crewe: nothing remarkable but it allowed us to break up the long trip to Wales.

And yesterday (Sunday) we had just a couple of hours on a train to Bangor, then a 30 minute bus ride to Llanberis at the foot of the mountains.  We had some time to walk around the village a bit, and stop for a beer at a nice pub: outdoor seating with the Formula 1 race on the big screen.  And no, that's not Guinness.

Most of the terrain we explored on the bike was pretty flat (a good thing on a tandem) but we are mountain people and it's good to be back in terrain with some vertical relief.  We'll stay here for a few days before the ferry to Dublin for our niece's wedding.