Down by the River(Neil Young) - Moselle River Here We Come for a Five Night Stay - 16th June 2016

---

---

We have a reasonable distance to cover today down to the Moselle River today and so we were on the ball for a 10am departure.

We hadn’t seen our hosts since we arrived too early yesterday afternoon and they gave us a key to let ourselves in after we did some shopping. We did hear a open and close a couple of times and with no cars in their car parks we guess they have gone off to work or wherever. So we will just leave the key on the table in the apartment and head off on our way.

We have had enough of motorway driving at 120kph which results in the countryside flashing by, at least close up. So today we will zigzag our way using more provincial roads at least as far as we are able and still with a view to arrive in Saint Aldegund by mid afternoon.

The B3 looked a good option and with the sun breaking through we joined the road outside of Fritzlar heading southwest.

We made Marburg quite quickly and we probably should have taken a stop to have a short explore through the old city which was located up on the hill above the river. But finding a car park in this compact city looked to be a problem without seeking out some parking outside of the downtown area.

Anyway we kept going and got ourselves onto a dual laned section of the B3 until a diversion for the road ahead being closed ahead took us off onto a more rural road which of course suited our desire to take a more leisurely drive.

The B255 was taking us further west than we really wanted to be but there were no other obvious options and the directional signs that popped up at roundabouts or intersections still indicated that we would end up in Koblenz where we had decided to do our shopping to top up the grocery box again.

The countryside was still very much agricultural with seeming every bit of cultivatable bit of land that wasn’t in forest sown in crops of some type. We are sure that there is more here in Germany than what they need to feed their population!

Near the small town of Herborn we saw what probably to us was the more obvious indication that Muslim’s stood out in what essentially is a western society.

Walking along the road just on the outskirts of town was a man dressed in usual Muslim garb escorting a woman in the full black burqa with hardly a gap at eye level for her to see where she was going.

Just how this increase of nearly a million immigrants from the’ refugee trail’ in recent times is going to play out in the long term will be interesting to follow. There appears to be some suspicion in Western European countries that this immigration is also bringing in people who want to enact terrorism and now that they are here there will be no way to control the effects as time goes on.

The diversion earlier in the day was starting to take effect as our progress towards Koblenz was taking too long to get us to our final destination when we wanted to be there so we changed the GPS to take us by the fastest route and our pace picked up quickly.

The GPS redirected us to the A49 and before we knew it at 110kph again we were heading down towards a bridge to take us across the Rhine River.

It is just as well we have the GPS or we would never have made it to the Rewe supermarket we had targeted to do our shopping. The GPS took us over the Rhine and then via an off ramp, under the bridge and up onto the other side of the bridge we had just crossed over on! While we were trying to get this right in our heads we were directed by the GPS to take an off ramp and shortly thereafter we got to the supermarket.

Stunned and dazed as to how we got there we looked around us as we got out of the car and looking back at the road and the bridge which was still nearby we realised that there was no way down to the supermarket from the direction we had come other than doing what the GPS had directed us to do! In the end we got to where we needed to be.

It had been dry all day until we got out of the car to do the shopping and for reason the GPS took us to a car park at the rear of the Rewe supermarket so we had to make a scamper for it not to get too wet.

Shopping done it was back across the bridge again (third time) and off on the A48 heading west to where we would leave the highway and travel south towards the Moselle River.

It is a steep and sharp decline from the plateau that runs back a fair way from the river valley.

We arrived in the river valley just short of the small village of Saint Aldegund which will be home for the next 5 nights.

We had booked an apartment further up the river and closer to Trier, a town we didn’t get to during a previous stay we had in the area. But Gretchen thought that there might be a better deal with even better views of the river from a balcony and we changed our booking several weeks ago.

You can’t get lost in Saint Aldegund as there is just the main road close to the river and then another main street about 50 metres up the steep hillside that runs parallel to the river and it was here that our apartment was situated.

Our host was there to greet us with a piece of paper translated to English saying that he didn’t speak English but anything we needed we could communicate by email and he would translate.

By now we have got used to a few German words and we picked up the gist of everything as he showed us around the spacious apartment which is located above where they live downstairs.

We have not just one but 3 balconies, two with river views and the other out to the street and hillside behind.

It was all action on the river with barges going in both directions and trains running back and forth on the other side of the river. It is going to be a very relaxing time for the next 4 full days.

Just before we were ready for bed we picked up some noise that sounded like people partying across the road. Sure enough they were watching a huge screen in their garage which appeared to be from a projector. We hadn’t remembered Germany were playing a game at Euro 2016 and kickoff was 9pm and it was now the second half.

However we lowered the shutters and the sound of the party became muffled and we had drifted off to sleep before the game had finished.

Tomorrow we need to seek out an ATM as the cash supplies are low and we will need to pay our hosts in cash for our stay.

PS:enjoy the classic Neil Young song on Youtube as you join us 'Down by the River',Moselle that is.

---