Tag 32: Making progress

The night was a bit noisy. The ibis is located on a main road, and we like to sleep with the window open, just not on this night. We therefore leave early for breakfast and make a good start. We get a short, pleasant impression of Paderborn. Everything I knew about Paderborn before was related to the life's work of Heinz Nixdorf, who briefly represented a size in the field of data processing, then merged with Siemens and disappeared from the scene. Once again, we are amazed at how road design for cyclists can be done - simply by looking at the cars.

Since today is Sunday and the trucks have a break, we leave the route choice to komoot without too much correction. I had selected some long-distance cycle paths, but they hardly appear on the signage in reality. So we progress relatively quickly, passing through villages, often along small and sometimes larger roads. First break in Lippstadt, second one in Soest. Soest must be mentioned, not because it has a nice old town, but because of Otto, the East Frisian messenger of the gods (young readers: please google). His character was actually called Karl Soost, but for me, he was always Karl Soest as a teenager... Anyway, there was a dispute because I feared an impending thunderstorm looking at the sky, and therefore my wife urges for a quick break. That means: drinking coffee in the self-service cafe, so no iced coffee today, they simply don't have any.

Continuing to Werl - no thunderstorm, but the clouds are building up, renewed discussions about 'how much further'. Shall we dare to go to Unna? After all, we have already traveled over 70 km. Well then... The weather holds, the emerging headwind disperses the thunderclouds. But does Unna even have hotels? Booking says yes - 2 of them. Just before the city, we ask a cycling couple. Definitely Katharinenhof, right by the train station. It shall be so - a room is available, the price is acceptable, no comparison to the cramped room in Paderborn.

After showering, we take a walk through the old town, a pretty place. For dinner, we go to Meisterhaus, a very old house that houses an Italian restaurant, which also has a beer garden across the street. Also a tip from the two locals. Because of the loud music there, we sit in front of the house, right next to the ordering counter where the 'to-go area' is. We rarely have so much entertainment in a restaurant!

Today we made progress and got about 90 km closer to Cologne.