Bett und Bike

It is not good cycling weather at the moment. It is wet and cold, so we are in progress of updating the Romantic Road book. I am hopeful it will be out in ten days time.
I am glad to announce that the ADFC (the German cycling club) have finally, at long last brought out an English version of their excellent Bett und Bike (Bed and Bike) website: www.bettundbike.de. The idea behind the Bett und Bike website is that it lists accommodation where cyclists are welcomed as guests: They need only stay for  one night. The accommodation offers secure bike storage. (This is true in the main, though we have found two participants in the scheme in the last 20 years where our bikes were locked up in the open. It pays to take a lock with you.) There are drying facilities available. Simple tools are available for minor  repairs. For more major problems, your hosts know where the nearest bike shop is. Your hosts will have background information on the area on offer. Breakfasts are excellent and filling to give the cyclist a good start to the day.
The web site is much improved since it was necessary to search in German. However you do need to use German spellings of town and city names: Köln not Cologne, Hannover not Hanover and München not Munich. The federal states are given German names, so it's Bayern not Bavaria and Niedersachsen not Lower Saxony, for example.If you are searching a route then jot down the names of the towns you wish to stop in and extract the information that way, rather than using the route maps provided. The information you receive using the routes is in German.