The Mosel Valley

Europe » Germany » Rhineland-Palatinate
June 23rd 2006

Published: June 23rd 2006

Tuesday, the 20th of June

Our original plan when we walked the 2km down to the train station yesterday was purchasing tickets to Triere, and we’d ride from there to Köln. We looked at the map again before bed, and realized we’d blown our math again and couldn’t make it to Köln. Math is hard! So, when we got to the train station this morning we spent 20 minutes or so getting the tickets exchanged for Cochem, quite a bit further down the river. The Luxembourg train station has an AMAZING amount of traffic going through it! Luxembourg’s population basically doubles during the workday with all of the workers for the European Union government commuting in from surrounding countries, mostly by train. While we were on the train we met a 67 year old retired German man who still bikes all the time up and down the Mosel. He was shocked when we said we were getting off at Cochem, and said it was a mistake as the ride along the Mosel from Triere to Koblenz was the best riding in the area. We talked to him for 15 or 20 minutes, and the more we talked to him the more we were convinced that we should actually disembark at Triere and ride the river. We ended up promising him that we would get off the train at Triere, and that we did. And boy are we glad that we did! We had a lovely 32 mile ride through vineyards along the Mosel to a small down called Piesport. We stopped at the first Gasthaus we ran into, just as the light sprinkle that had started 15 or 20 minutes before had started turning harder. It turns out to have been an excellent choice. 71yr old Heinzie from Hamburg was our initial host, and he was a riot. Could barely speak a lick of English, so the Franklin translator and Margaret’s barely remembered high school German were highly exercised but we still occasionally got him flustered, which was kind of funny to watch. Almost like a sitcom. We had a lot of fun getting half plastered with Heinzie while watching Germany beat Ecuador in the World Cup. Also talked to the owner, whom Heinzie referred to as “Chef”. Not only was he the chef for the place, he also farmed the vines for the excellent Reisling wine we tried, and the smoothest grape juice we’ve ever had when we had breakfast the next morning. Found out something very interesting from him as well. We’d noticed as we were biking along the river, with the vines going up nearly vertical hillsides next to us, that the steeper sections of vineyard had shale for a top-soil! We found out from Chef that it helped retain the heat from the sun and helped the grapes grow better. Very interesting! We cleaned up after our mini World Cup party and went to dinner with two other guests from the hotel, two older German gentlemen that spoke some English and had initially helped us get checked in with Heinzie. The older of the two, at 73, had initially learned English from American G.I.’s in 1945, begging for food and chocolate. Had some GREAT wiener schnitzel for dinner, before retiring in the most neat, clean, modern, and CHEAPEST of our rooms that we’ve had for the whole trip.

Wednesday, the 21st of June

Longest day of the trip, at 44.3 miles as we pulled into Neef, but it was still a very nice ride through yet more vineyards. When I say through vineyards, I mean THROUGH vineyards. There are bike paths ALL over Germany, at least the parts we’ve seen, and along the Mosel a LOT of them go directly through the middle of farmer’s vineyards. Wouldn’t see that in the states! There are a lot of folks using the bike paths, too. We’ve seen ages from 4 through 80 or so enjoying the riding along the Mosel. We ran across several other groups today that were touring, too. They were mostly camping touring, too, meaning that they were packing sleeping bags, pads, and tents, and would stay at one of the many campgrounds along the river. Speaking of the campgrounds, half of Germany must be camping along the Mosel! There were campgrounds everywhere, and some of them had pretty permanent looking tenants. One site that I saw had latticework with fully grown grapevines around it. Fully one sixth of the trailers we saw looked like they were more permanent installations, even though they were smaller, 15 to 25 foot trailers. The building we’re sleeping in this evening is older than the United States! It dates back to 1589, though it’s been re-modeled with modern conveniences. The original beam work is highly prevalent though, so it lends a very unique charm to the accommodations. The one exception to the modernization is that of A/C. NOBODY in France, Luxembourg, or Germany has had A/C at the hotels, and we never noticed any installations at the houses along the road.

Thursday, the 22nd of June

We started out from Neef riding through more vineyard, on our way to see a 12th century convent that was in operation until the late 1700’s. What was left was a shell of walls still standing on three sides, with incredible views of the surrounding vineyard covered hillsides. It’s apparent that they still do some kinds of events there, as the ruins were surrounded by modern bars and padlocked gates, and there were two or three giant folding umbrellas mounted in the centerline of the building. It would be an absolutely stunning place to have a wedding or other such important event, as long as the helicopter crop-dusters weren’t working the hillsides opposite as they were during our visit. After our visit to the ruins we hopped back on our bikes and started a little bit of a climb. It was followed by a steep descent that had to have been ½ to ¾ of a mile, and ended in dirt road. Oops…Since this has happened before we continued on rather than going the ¾ of a mile back up that very steep hill. The road quickly degenerated, however, until we were essentially riding mountain bike single-track trail on our narrow-tired, heavily laden touring bikes. Not the most ideal of situations. We said to heck with it and soldiered on through approximately a mile of tight, rolling single-track. We were eventually rewarded as it widened back out to relatively smooth dirt and gravel road. While traveling the three miles we did on this road, we saw half a dozen old camping cabins along the bank of the river, anywhere from 15 to 35 feet below us on our left. None of them had been used anytime recently, though one had grass/weeds in it’s “yard” that had been cut within the last month, and it had a good cord of firewood next to it. Otherwise they all looked like they hadn’t been touched in decades. At the end of off-road excursion, we found a sign declaring that we’d just ridden through a nature preserve. What fun! Once back on our normal paved bike paths, we eventually arrived in Cochem, where we stopped for a larger than normal lunch and a little shopping. There was a gorgeous gothic castle perched over the town that was a delight to behold. The town also housed the first ATM we’ve seen since France, and boy did we need it! After walking around town sampling the wares for an hour or so, it was back on the bikes. We had two sections of nasty asphalt totaling 3 or 4 miles that were actually worse than most of the dirt road we’d been on earlier! We finally stopped after 41.5 miles in the town of Kobern-Gondorf. We stopped at the 2nd hotel we’d found, which had ~200 rooms, but was only open on the weekends! What the heck? We ended up staying the Hotel China Rest, which was owned by a German speaking Chinese family, with decorations and restaurant to match. Talk about an interesting mix. The place had a bathroom the size of most modern bedrooms, but the floors were the squeakiest any of us have ever heard.

Friday, the 23rd of June

Short ride of 11.1 miles today as we rode into Koblenz, where the Mosel meets the Rheine, and our final biking portion of the trip. From here we’ll take the train into Paris, and from Paris it’s back over The Pond to the United States. We rode directly to the train station to see what was available, and ended up with a departure of 10:22am tomorrow. So we checked into the hotel across the street, changed into our street duds, and headed into town for shopping and such. After lunch and some browsing, we made it back to the Mosel River and decided to hop on to a tour boat for a one hour ride on the Mosel and the Rheine. We walked through several kilometers of Koblenz and headed back to the hotel (or next door, anyways) for the obligatory “drei biere”, plus a few. We later had dinner at a Russian restaurant, playing American music, here in the heart of Germany. Definitely cross-cultural around here!

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