Finally a completely dry day. Not that it’s been properly wet, but we’ve had a few brief showers every day on this Radweg. It was a fairly unmemorable ride – it was enough simply to be cycling in sunshine on very quiet roads. I heard buzzards several times. The oddest thing was intersecting with a cycle race; the roads were closed, but we were able to use them so long as we kept out of the way. Which I did – feeling like a laden donkey compared to the sleek thoroughbreds that whizzed past me at frightening speeds.

South of Bielefeld I finally saw a signpost for the Hellweg-Weser route. And then they ran out again.

It’s clear we’ve changed Länder from Lower Saxony to North Rhine Westphalia: not only are there roadside crucifixes, but every lamppost proclaims its allegiance for tomorrow’s local elections. In Lemgo there were stalls for the main parties at the marketplace: AfD (young), Greens (young and old, offering apples) and the Free Democrats (whom I didn’t see). The political billboards are interesting if one puts one’s own views on ice: lots of “vote for me” head-and-shoulders photos with three-word slogans and very locally focussed, sometimes only on show in one village. One placard, for example, referred to the one-street village we were riding through; another said that all villages need a meeting place. It was a bit like having posters of local councillors for town wards plastered up – a bizarre thought to someone used to only a third of voters turning out for British local elections. The word “strong” appeared regularly. Other posters referred to more national concerns: poverty, security, economic growth, re/migration. I saw one AfD poster that suggested that Hermann would have voted for them; we were close to the Teutoburger Wald after all. (I wondered who Boudicca would have voted for.) One CDU billboard against high parking charges appeared only in streets full of residential parking. In the countryside posters against wind turbines were noticeable. (There are a lot of wind turbines around here.) The Die Partei satirical posters are mildly amusing at first glance but hardly constructive. AfD posters faded away the closer we got to Bielefeld – just as I noticed in last year’s EU elections, when there was a big divide between Münster and the surrounding agricultural land. In the centre of Bielefeld there were rival demonstrations in Jahnplatz as we arrived.

The ride was pleasant enough and quite short. We are staying on the hillside above Bielefeld; it should be a great view, but trees obscure practically everything apart from the busy ring road. Once again, I haven’t had a chance to explore – but it’s a cycling holiday, so I can’t have everything.