Next stop was a Fred stop, the Bridge at Remagen. The bridge was built during the First World War to speed supplies to the Western Front. The war ended before the bridge could make a difference. During the Second World War it was famously captured intact by the US Ninth Armored Division. There is an excellent fictionalized film about the capture, The Bridge at Remagen.  (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bridge_at_Remagen) Much less reported is the tremendous efforts by the Germans to destroy the bridge after the US captured it – V2 rockets, Arado jet bombers, frogmen, etc. and the successful effort by the US forces to protect it. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Remagen)

Fred had tried to visit the bridge ruins once before, in the 1980’s while on temporary duty in Bonn. He got off the train in Remagen, but unfortunately ran out of time and did not actually find the ruins because of the need to make a flight from Frankfurt. He did manage a great lunch in Remagen. This time around, we were not rushed; we found a Stellplatz right beside the bridge and settled in. The Stellplatz is on the site of a huge POW camp to hold German soldiers at the end of the war.

Once on our bikes, we went to admire the bridge.  We then cycled along the banks to the restaurants and enjoyed an ice cream as we watched the odd barge going by.

The following day we visited the Bridge museum.

After Remagen, we traveled back into the Netherlands and stayed at a Stellplatz in Maastricht.