We woke up this morning with a lovely note on the guestbook page from Cannelle (Cinnamon), yesterday's Hund of the Day. For those of you who may not look at the guestbook page we thought it worthwhile to share Cannelle's note that he sent to us. He says "Hi Kathleen and Keith! My humans and I just read your blog. It's amazing the way you are traveling. Thanks for sharing a pic of me. I feel so proud and happy! Regards from my humans Christelle and David". With such a nice note we thought we would post another photo of Cannelle. This one shows him in a little bag that his humans carry him in when he is a little tired. I am sure Cannelle appreciates how lucky he is to have humans such as Christelle and David to care for him. For those of you who speak French be sure to check out Cannelle's blog.
Breakfast at Astoria this morning, like all the others, was included in the room rate. We rated it as a "Ten Jammer" despite the fact that only 3 jams were offered. This one provided Champagne, a large assortment of fruit, cheese, meats, yogurt, juice, cereal, eggs, fresh buns along with great personal service.
We had a quick stop at the the Cathedral this morning before we got on the road. A dirty lens yesterday did not do it justice so I took more photos. It was a good excuse to have another look. Wow!
We rode along the Mosel for 10 or so kilometres to Konz where the Saar flows into the Mosel. We will follow the Saar radweg to Strasburg. As expected the Saar was not as interesting as the Mosel. We will let the pictures with captions tell the story. Our ride today ended in Saarlouis.
Cannelle doing his best to get curled up in his carry bag.
This is where the Saar flows into the Mosel just a few miles east of Trier and a few miles west of the Luxembourg border. My great grandfather on the Classen side was from Metzdorf , a small village about 10 kms north of here as the crow flies. He emigrated to the US and then made his way north to Saskatchewan to homestead. We visited the village when we were last here in 1999.
This large quarry or mining operation caught my interest as we (as it turns out only I) was motoring along. I rounded the corner about 1/2 a kilometre before I realized that my co-navigator was not in the rear view mirrow. I stopped for a minute or so then turned around to see if Kathleen had met disaster. We met and she advised that her voice and bike bell were not loud enough to alert me to the fact that we had to cross the river to stay on the bike route. At this point the bike route became an unpaved surface for about 15 k. Very pleasant through the forest up a bit to the small church. But not as fast as the highway bike path, however we didn't know where that path led and while it looked shorter it also looked like it left the valley and headed for the hills.
The Saar radweg was reminding us a bit of the Galloping Goose at this point, although the Goose does not have a river running parallel to it or red soil.
Up a hill, and at the top a surprise. A tiny ancient chapel overlooking the river. A nearby statue had a well worn date on it from the 1700's, but we have no idea how old the chapel is.
This is Ben, Hund of the Day walking the Saar. Ben asked if we knew the famous Blue, a distant relative, who lived with his human Don Cherry. We never met Blue but certainly saw him many times on Hockey Night in Canada where his human unabashedly promotes himself.
I (Kathleen) was feeling more than a little hungry when we found this spot for a German sausage and a beer. We had passed up a previous beer garden because they did not have apple strudel for the chief navigator. Turned out to be a mistake as it was a long way to the next spot and I ate my way through everything in my handlebar bag. German sausage has never tasted so good. We also discovered a new taste sensation, a butter pretzel, which is just what it sounds like, a pretzel stuffed with butter. Chef Mark, are you rolling your eyes?
