Stephan

The most beautiful part of the tour is in the middle, along the Urft and at the Rur reservoirs. The route leads up and down along the bank, mostly through the forest and without traffic.The first section of the tour is exciting once through the detour to the southernmost point of North Rhine-Westphalia. And then through the tank locks on the wayside, which I - as a former civilian - find quite disturbing. We have to make sure that Germany's borders are never sealed off again.The third part of the tour often follows roads until the Ruruferradweg begins and leads to Düren. In Düren I made a detour to the green belt settlement - I got the tip from Dido's tour komoot.de/tour/160884540. Thank you so much!

A bike "tour" was too far for my daughter, but a bike "round" with ice on the Rhine was ok to give me great joy on Father's Day. And my wife was also allowed to join - you will never be a father alone :-)

I made the tax return online with MyElster, but I had to submit another form to the tax office. With the tour I combined the useful with the pleasant ;-)

The Heltorf Palace Park shines in multicolored rhododendrons - wonderful!

The river, bike / footpath, railroad and road wind through the Rheingraben, accompanied by numerous castles on the left and right, and even in the middle of the river. The Upper Middle Rhine Valley (between Bingen and Koblenz) was included in the UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2002 for its long-term importance as a place of transport, trade and communication: unesco.de/kultur-und-natur/welterbe world heritage germany / upper middle rhine valleyFor the ride by bike, the views of the Rhine, the hills to the sides, and the partially well-preserved old towns are an experience. The only drawback is that the bike path is mostly directly on the main road. There is simply not enough space for better traffic management ...

No, I have not seen any Mainzelmännchen. And the mouse tower almost not up close. The "Park am Mäuseturm" is currently closed due to the corona. Fortunately, I found an entrance a bit downstream, where you can see quite well.Long stretches of the tour run behind the Rhine dike. So you only see the Rhine in places, but you are in the green most of the time.

Admittedly, this is a somewhat nerdy tour for tech fans. Between Walsum in the north and Hüttenheim in the south, I visited all the basins of the largest inland port in the world. You can get amazingly close to many facilities. You can even explore two former harbor basins with dry tires.In between there were also longer sections in the green, e.g. on the banks of the Rhine and Emscher or in parks.A few more tips:
- To look at the Schwelgern works harbor, I walked a bit along the banks of the Rhine. It's sandy here, you better leave the bike there for a short time.
- The streets in the parallel port are full of warehouses and factory premises. You can see nothing of the harbor basin here.
- You can easily divide the tour in Ruhrort into a northern and a southern section.
- If you want, you can also include the marinas on the Sechs-Seen-Platte and Lohheider See ;-)

On my way up to one of the two Anger sources, I was pleasantly surprised at how pretty the old towns of Mettmann and Wülfrath are. The church squares in the center seem to be still well preserved with historic buildings.I then accompanied the Angerbach or Anger down to the mouth of the Rhine. I already knew long stretches and is always beautiful.The trails included everything from trails to bike paths and roads ... If you want to avoid the trails:
- Take the Dorper Weg instead of Stinderalweg and Maria im Tal.
- Dispenses with the limestone quarry / Wülfrather See.
- Drive from the paper mill via the paper mill path, Auf der Aue and In der Brück.
- In Poensgenpark (after Cromford Park) I carried the bike down a few steps by the tie tree. A little further to the right the path runs without steps.
Everything else is easily accessible even with narrow tires. You need some stamina on some of the climbs.

For the home office closing time, I rewarded myself with a short tour to Rheinhausen and the Rockelsberg dump.

The Margarethenhöhe settlement is the first German garden city. It was completed in 29 construction phases from 1909 to 1938.