The efficient Deutsche Bahn train system took us from Mainz to Aachen. See this page for more info on how to travel by train with your bike.
We stayed in Kornelimunster which is a lovely 10km bike ride through the country side to the village, just southeast of Aachen - very refreshing after spending hours on the train.
Like many bike routes in Germany and Belgium, it is built along a the route of a decommissioned railway, with the added bonus that the train status on the edge of Kornelimunster has been turned into a fun pub: "Bahnhofvision".
Kornelimunster started with an Abbey in 814 by an advisor to Louis the Pious who was a successor to Charlemagne. The name was derived from the supposed possession of some reliquaries of a certain Cornelius, bishop of Rome until his martyrdom in 253.
It is a cute little town, and it is worth taking a walk up the steps towards St Stephanus Bergkirche. wonderful bird sounds, shaded alleys, and many mossed cobble stones.
We stayed at the hotel "Zur Abtei". We had to ring an intercom and navigate check-in by means of my rusty German, after which we were buzzed in and instructed to retrieve our room key from behind the Audrey Hepburn photo frame in the empty reception desk. Rooms did not have numbers. Instead, each hotel room was themed for a famous piece of art - ours was the Mondrian room, decorated with geometrical shapes and primary colours - and the key label showed a Mondrian painting to help find the room by matching the painting to the image on the hotel room door.
We were given access to a small one-car garage just down the street, to store our bikes. The garage was full of old furniture and an odd stack of frying pans, but had room for the bikes. Very cool - though be aware that like most European hotels, the rooms are very small..
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