Distance: 47.6 kilometres
Time: 2 hours 34 minutes
Speed: 18.5 km/h
Ascent: 159 metres
Total distance: 103.5 kilometres
Total time: 15 hours 12 minutes
Word of the day: Hochwasserschutzanlage: flood gates
The Stoker writes:
It had been a proper day out on Tuesday, the big hill, the amazing treetop walk, waving goodbye to the Saar and hello to the Mosel. And popping over the bridge into Luxembourg, just for the two-wheeled country-bagging! The Captain produced a delicious dinner of spaetzli with mushrooms and a parmesan sauce, after an unexpected and very welcome aperitivo of prosecco from the fridge in our apartment, taken on our little balcony. And so to bed.
Our rest day was spent entirely resting in front of the Tour de France (in German!) in the afternoon. We had thought perhaps to ride out a few kilometres to a nearby excavated Roman villa, but we both had pretty stiff legs when we woke up after the exertions of the day before. We decided to save them by spending the day on the sofa instead, getting up only to make cups of tea, and to swat at annoying flies with the kitchen’s fish slice.
Besch had been a very tranquil place to spend the rest day, and after a dinner of rösti, frankfurters and mushrooms and a bottle of (don’t tell anyone) French red wine, we turned in.
Today we had programmed nearly fifty flat kilometres along the Mosel to Trier. We packed up, delighting in having been able to use the apartment’s washing machine to render our cycling kits fragrant once more, checked everywhere several times to make sure we weren’t leaving anything behind, and pedalled off…
… only to stop just one kilometre in for breakfast at the Louis bakery! Delicious.
We were quickly back to the Mosel cycle-path, cruising serenely along admiring the vines on both sides of the river. Weirdly, this part of the Mosel is owned jointly by Germany (the side we were on) and Luxembourg (the opposite side), with each country’s actual land border being the bank of the river. So we could see Luxembourgoise vineyards on the other side of the river, mirroring our German ones, different flags on either side, signs in different languages. And all of our devices had connected to Luxembourg’s mobile network for some reason!
After the traditional first hour was up we stopped for a drink.
A train went past, hauling many, many shiny round containers. We mused that they might be full of wine?!
We passed and were passed by lots of cyclists. We still seem to be firmly in taciturn nod territory, although sometimes you will get a half nod, or sometimes just a stern look. Maybe German cyclists just have Stern Resting Face, I don’t know. We did get a “Wow! Cool!” as we passed one couple, which was nice, and later a group of three identically clad young men whizzed past us with a “Gute Fahrt” – cue sniggering đź¤
Which might be a good point at which to consider the hilarity of the German language for a moment. If you think French is bad, with its masculine and feminine, German goes one further, adding the neuter gender, which means you have only a one in three chance of guessing it correctly. There are at least four ‘cases’ that I can remember (nominative, accusative, dative, genitive) for different verb usages. And the word ordering is bewildering at best. “I have yesterday with my friend in the park a walk gone for”, for example.
But my favourite thing is the compound nouns. When German doesn’t have a word for something, they just string together all the words which describe whatever it is they need a word for into one humongous long word. Today’s word of the day, for example, translates literally as ‘high water protection equipment’. We stopped next to one of these at Oberbillig, a very impressive set of floodgates next to a levee to protect the town should a flood be imminent.
The best compound noun so far though has to be one we encountered on riding through an area of wind turbines up on the ridge between the Saar and Mosel valleys. There were signs warning of the danger of ice falling from the turbines. The word for this is (wait for it):
Windenergieanlageeisabfallgefähr (vint en er ghee er an lager ice ab fall geh fair)
Wind energy equipment ice falling danger
Brilliant!
Anyway, I digress…
We motored on, really enjoying the traffic-free cycle path and views of the river, less meandering than the Saar, but very pretty with its vineyards on either side. There were loads of cyclists and joggers, an occasional boat, lots of geese and some swans, all very idyllic.
At Konz we crossed over the Saar river at its confluence with the Mosel. It’s taken a different route to get here than we have after we turned away from it at Mettlach and climbed over into the Mosel valley, but it was nice to see its end. The Mosel became noticeably wider after having absorbed it.
In no time we were leaving the cycle-path and coming into Trier on lovely little Fahradstrassen, small roads designed for cyclists, a very safe way to get into the town. Our hotel let us in in good time to see the Tour de France cyclists struggle up Alpe d’Huez. And we have a bath in our room, hurrah!
Off for dinner in a brewery tonight, which looks promising, and then tomorrow to Wintrich, a lovely little village where we stayed in the motorhome in March.
Here’s today’s route:
…and a short video