Today was a little bit of a wake-up call; arriving in Germany I expected the place to be full of campsites. Aachen certainly wasn’t. Although it does have a ‘camping platz’ just out of town, it’s not for tents, just motor homes. The woman in the tourist office (or Google) had no idea about camping sites to the east of Aachen in the direction of Cologne so I was left with the Booking.com option. The upshot is that here I am sitting on the bed in a tiny £40 hotel room near the centre. Contrast that with last night when I paid £6 to stay on an excellent campsite surrounded by fellow cycling tourists. Perhaps there is a campsite out there that the tourist office are not aware of and that is not picked up by Google when I search. Perhaps if I had spent a little more time planning, I might have found it…

So, this afternoon, having wandered around Aachen to see the main sites, I sat down to do some planning. Hopefully it will be time well spent if I am not left scrambing around for cheap hotel rooms over the next few weeks. So far, I have come up with the following;

• Wednesday 27th May: cycle to Cologne (75km). There is a campsite called Campingplatz Stadt Koln that does accept tents!
• Thursday 28th May: cycle to Dusseldorf along the Rhine (60km). There is a campsite called Rheincamping Meerbusch / Breitbach but I have also contacted a Warmshowers host nearby.
• Friday 29th May: cycle to Datteln (80km). There is a campsite called Haard Camping just to the north of the town.
• Saturday 30th May: cycle to Munster (50km). Campingplatz Munster is an option but I have also contacted two potential Warmshowers hosts (of which one has already emailed back to say it isn’t possible).
• Sunday 31st May: cycle to Osnabruck (60km). The campsite is called Camp Bullerby at Attersee.
• Monday 1st & Tuesday 2nd: cycle to Bremen (121km over two days).
• Wednesday 3rd & Thursday 4th: cycle to Hamburg (130km over two days)
• Friday 5th: rest day in Hamburg where I would like to get the bike serviced.

The distances shown here are rather conservative – I expect them to be a little further than as listed. If you have any information that might help me plan my route or stopovers over the next ten days – especially in those first few days of June – please do comment below. Remember that I’m aiming to average 75km per day. Advice is always welcome.

That leaves just the very north of Germany to think about, Denmark, Sweden and Norway…