The Mosel via Stellplatz's

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The Mosel via Stellplatz’s


We gave up on our plan to follow the Alsace wine route due to inclement weather patterns and predictions, but are now starting on the Mosel River route and enjoying the Reisling wine production areas along it. The Mosel River, running South to North, is a tributary of the Rhine River, that also runs South to North. it runs from Trier to Koblenz, where it again joins the Rhine to continue flowing North.

It is heavily traveled by both heavy commercial traffic and small and large tour boats, as well as small pleasure boats. We are sitting within 100 yards of the river in a Stellplatz parking areas for motor homes and are constantly aware of the different floating venues. Using the motor scooter to suss out the local villages and travel to nearby castles and ruins has enabled us to access remote areas with ease. We are in the middle of a prolific wine producing area and are learning about the seasonal procedures and the upcoming harvest time in the fall. Knowing that this river is not tidal, it is amazing when we look out and see the river apparently changing directions. The tortuous and winding route of the river and changeable wind directions seem to confuse the surface patterns of the river.

The Stellplatz’s are busy places, with people from all over coming in, staying for various amounts of time, and moving on to their next site. Setups and breakdowns of their specific area take very little time and acquaintances appear to develop quickly with much sharing of stories, information and fun.

We're also enjoying the local foods, restaurants, friendly and helpful people and wines. The bakeries and butcher shops have wonderful and inexpensive offerings and of course the restaurants that specialize in local cuisine also serve the delicious Reisling wines.

After the very busy city of Trier, we enjoyed the peaceful centers of Mehring, Ensch and then on to Trittenheim. We are meandering through Piesport, Neumagan-Dhron and Wintrich on the Mosel and will be visiting the castles and points of interest nearby.

Wintrich has a very long Stellplatz with the opportunity to get a river site view. Today, Monday 8/1/11 was the first day in some time where the sky was not overcast and completely unsuitable for photography. We retraced our path back to Trittenheim by scooter and caught up on some photography. The bend in the river (first of a few) is very dramatic and it really does look like that and is not some photographic trick. This platz has wi-fi (the first that we have come across in Germany) albeit very slow. We managed to upload the previous blog and hope to send this off before moving on.

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