Looking out of the hotel window this morning, we noticed a discreet needle exchange point opposite the church – which explained the mix of people in the little square and perhaps some of the noise at night.
Squalls of heavy rain today interspersed with warm sunshine, so we came to Coesfeld on as short a route as I could navigate. Thanks to a handy rural bus shelter, we hardly got wet at all. It was quite a hilly route in comparison to what we have done so far, and it felt good to look out over undulating countryside as we gained height.
Even just 12 miles out of Münster we were in a different land. It wasn’t just that it was agricultural, with farms the size of small complexes, but that the political placards were for right-wing parties again and some of the farms had “no farmers, no food, no future” slogans. Welcome to the secular Kulturkampf.