PROLOG: Here are two extracts from my Moselle map, showing where we went today. There is a very short disconnect between the two parts, but basically you can see all the towns from our start at Neumagen to our finish at Zell. No doubt you will need to call up the larger image and/or use the zoom feature of your browser to have a really good look, but it's all there.
Until this morning, our main understanding of Neumagen was that it had a campground, and our main assessment was that the camping was ok. That was before we actually cycled into the town. As is usual for us, understanding comes slowly, as things scroll by in front of our bikes. The first thing to scroll by was a Roman artifact, a carving depicting men in a wine boat. It is called "the jolly steersman". Ok, cute. But then we came to more and more artifacts, placed by the trailside and with explanatory panels.
It turns out that Neumagen was a major Roman fort, and a major destination along the Mosel. The remains of the fort, with its many round towers can still be found. Also famous here is a Roman wine boat, which we think is stashed somewhere in town, though we did not spot it. What we did spot was a wine ship depicted as a carved headstone that was from a wine merchant's tomb. This was neat and we enjoyed looking at it, but we did not realize how much this was part of the town's identity. That realization came as we bought some pastries at the Roman Wine Ship Cafe, including cookie representations of the wine ship.
Suitably reinforced with wine ship cookies, we headed off down the valley. Now we passed continually by vineyards heading up the steep valley sides, with the most amazingly colourful and inspiring villages around most turns in the river. These two features were a continual sources of amazement: How do they manage to cultivate and harvest those vines? How can these impossibly beautiful buildings and their villages exist? It seemed plausible that the whole thing was thrown up by Disney, though of course Disney was the one copying the type of things found here.
The many photos below will help tell the story of what we saw.
All over the valley they are spraying the vines now. Not sure if this is fungicide or pesticide. With my recent lung problems, I was not too thrilled about this.
There are perhaps a dozen sundials like this in the valley. Each seems to have a plaque explaining who made it. No idea how accurate they are, neither we not they have seen the full sun since we got here.
We are not sure if these are day trippers or longer term credit card tourists. We have talked to both varieties while here, but so far we have not encountered real CGOAB style long distance self supported travellers.
One of the other big features of the ride was the profusion of wine tasting houses, guest houses, hotels, and cafés. Passing one that advertised coffee and kuchen, Dodie suddenly thought it would be fun to give it a try. The place we turned in to, one of dozens we could have randomly chosen, was called Petrushof, and it was mainly a guesthouse and wine estate. All their wines were on display and for sale. I was amazed that the typical price of a 1 litre bottle was just €6.50. As far as coffee and kuchen goes, though, they had to admit that all the goodies are baked by grandma. Grandma just came back from a trip last night, and had yet to get in gear and bake stuff. So, no joy for us.
We carried on, but the idea of wine and local cooking had somehow been planted in our heads. When it became clear that no grocery stores were going to appear on the path, we randomly chose a town to turn into. It was Graach, and there we found a guesthouse restaurant that was open for lunch. We don't drink, but felt we really needed to try some Mosel wine if we were going to be cycling through these millions and millions of vines. We got a glass of semi-dry Riesling that came from -- Graach. Dodie liked it a lot and drank almost the whole thing. I took several sips, remembering the documentary I had seen on the plane about people studying for the master sommellier exam. I tried to find all the subtle flavours they talked about. Dunno. I liked my orange juice better.
Our waitress at the restaurant was a bit of a hoot, though also a bit sad. After our dumb questions about which wine to try I suggested that people who do not drink or like wine must be a rarity here. She replied that she too does not like wine. The sad part is that she does not like any part of it here. And she especially does not like this town, which she said has "nothing". We also could not get her to specify a better place where she would like to be.
Later, when I asked her where a bakery might be, she replied "I told you, this town has nothing". Hopefully this was just a depressed young woman and not representative of what locals are feeling.
The wine estate where grandma had not yet done the baking today.
Through the day the weather alternated from dry to sprinkles to quite heavy rain. We kept putting jackets on and off, but generally formed the idea that camping was off for this evening. I think maybe we felt it would be interesting to try out one of the many hotels and guesthouses, just as it was interesting to try the wine. So when we reached Zell, we stopped into the first one we saw. The price was €75, but including breakfast. OK, we went for it.
Now this place being on the bike path is also right on the Mosel. In fact, Mosel tour boats dock just down the way. Our room has a balcony overlooking the waterfront, and across the way (across the river) is the picturesque town of Kaimt. Periodically, the long river freighters cruise seemingly right by our window. The room is on the third floor, a good thing since on the second floor is a marker for the 1973 high water mark!
We have giant thick feather duvets and pillows, good towels, and since this is Germany - CNN on the TV in English.
This is a close as we can come to the feeling of living in this dream place. With the river and beautiful buildings just outside, and the thick duvets etc. inside, this is a world class wonderful spot. OK, so we are over budget for today (make that mega-ly over budget). Tomorrow maybe we can go sleep in a ditch. Actually, tomorrow we will be in Cochem. Who knows what extravagance we will dream up there!
We stopped into one of many wine tasting places, this one outside Zell. Our reason was not to sample one of these bottles but rather that they happened to also have some local strawberries for sale.
Flash - now at 9:30 in the evening, what sounded like a ship going by was actually heavy winds and pelting rain. We accidentally called it right - this is no night to be out in a tent!
Today's ride: 68 km (42 miles) Total: 673 km (418 miles)
