From the Moselle to the Meuse…Nancy to Pagny sur Meuse

May 22, 2024

We will be sorry to leave the Moselle River. It has been a great adventure, beautiful…and it is not everyday that you get to experience a flood nor ride in one. Nonetheless, we are excited to start riding the Meuse River Cycle Route, also known as Eurovelo 19, the most recent addition to the Eurovelo routes.

We have really enjoyed our two days in Nancy. The Adagio Aparthotel gave us the luxury of cooking our own meals and being minutes walk from the historical section of Nancy.

A poster sized photo of the Stanislas Square and his statue in our room.

We would recommend the Adagio Aparthotel…very well organized and mellow place to stay.

Following the canal on a bike path out of Nancy.

A joy of cycling in Europe in the late spring is seeing the storks who have returned to their nests for the breeding season.

We like following the Meuse river as well as the canal, as the locks are interesting and busy with boaters.

This couple from Sweden are having an adventure having come from Sweden to follow the river.

There are many locks along this section. Boaters must love the process as there is not a lot of distance between some of the locks.

It is so beautiful riding along the canal with interesting trees and a good surface for riding.

Our destination for today…Pagny-sur -Meuse

This was a bit bizarre. We had not seen any possibilities for food along the trail, so we detoured into a town that had a huge supermarket with a gymnasium sized cafeteria. When we went in we were told there were closed for the day. As we left, a young woman working there insisted that she would get us food and boy, did she ever. Barry didn’t understand her, so he said yes to everything! We each had a bowl of the various salads remaining, the meal of the day….ham, pasta and fries and coffee.. It was a lot, but we took leftovers for dinner in a ziplock bag.

River on one side and marsh on the other.

The Meuse River is very high and has breached the river bank . Luckily the bike route is ok but we can see on the opposite side of the river, that the trees are in deep water.

Toul is our first good sized town we have seen today. It looks lovely, but we need to move on. We liked the multi coloured cobbles.

We have been pushing hard to make our destination. The skies have been threatening to bring a storm and we had hoped to miss it. We made a run for an awning on the other side of the road. Unfortunately we first stood under the small awning near the bike before we realize that most of the glass was broken and offered no protection.

It was not rideable and it happened so fast. Within a few minutes the road was rushing with water.

Barry “took one for,the team” and raced across to get our rain gear.

The rain stopped and then we had a bit of a challenging ride. The options were a busy highway or finding secondary roads. The bike route gave the option of riding on a bike path alongside the highway, but it was a rocky path and not rideable. The problem we are finding in this part of France is that the roads don’t have a grid system…many just curve and end. We needed to find a way to reach our hotel and this involved some steep hills. Last night we had been unable to fully charge our bike battery and we were getting close to empty…so Mary Ellen walked to ease the load on the hills and Barry rode. It all worked out in the end as we were able to reach our hotel with a steep downhill and one bar left!

We were relieved to reach our motel. It is a humble place with the start of some renovations. Our room was so small that the bed almost touched the walls on both sides and the bathroom was even smaller. Nonetheless, we are fine.It has been a long day and we only want to sleep.

Today's ride: 68 km (42 miles)
Total: 648 km (402 miles)

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