Day Twenty Eight: Neumagen to Konz: (Year 28: 1995)

October 18, 2017

Flash Back to 1995:

Another year of small farming. We have noticed that we often take on an interest and really get into it, for spans of 10 years or more. Intense farming would actually last at least 15 years.

Back at the bagel bakery. Making bagels is of course (or should be) always a hand craft.

At the farmers'market making apple juice with Lee Herrin. We used a home made grinder and a press crafted from a fallen oak tree at the farm. Later there was an Italian stainless steel grinder that could process 1000 pounds an hour, and an all metal press. Progress marches on, even on the small farm.

Although nominally a nurse and a statistician, Steve and Dodie are shown here at their favourite activities.

Our land overlooks the salt water. On clear days, looking east, Mount Baker makes a scenic appearance.

Gardening can be time consuming and demands a lot of patience. This song gave us encouragement:

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Fast Forward to 2017, Germany:

The wonderful Mosel route did a last gasp or two and then died, insofar as unbeatable beauty, cliffs covered in vines, fachwerk houses, castles, and etc. goes. Yes, from Neumagen we did get led up into the vines a couple of times more, and we came to a sign reminding us that we were on the Roman Wine Route. The sign talked glowingly of the surrounding villages, and finally mentioned the "Shopping City, Schweich". Schweich provided some fun right off the bat, as I challenged ourselves to say "Shopping City, Schweich" seven times quickly.

The poster made this section of the route look interesting, but we just didn't see it.

Also the thought of a shopping city brought to mind the kind of thing we respond to - narrow streets full of tourist stuff. So I had my heart set on sitting in a café on a narrow street in the "shopping city", and this kept me going all the way in. Schweich turned out to be Plain Jane. We stopped in to the tourist information to locate the post office, and were told that it was run out of a carpet store. As to a pedestrian street - nope.

Well we did find the carpet store, and about 40 euros lightened our load by 6 kgs. We put our down jackets in the mailback, so we are gambling on the weather. And we put the usual pile of accumulated papers. We should not find that we miss any of it.

Downtown Schweich. "Where's the coffee, Steve?"

I felt a lack of gorgeous houses to photograph. But I know David Alston has sometimes praised designs something like this. Is this "Bauhaus"?

From Schweich to Trier it was certainly not ugly, but as we say the magic is no longer in the valley. Trier itself, once you get into the old town, does have a lot to recommend it. There is of course the Porta Nigra, the Roman city gate from about 200 a.d. The gate was one of four at each side of the roughly rectangular city. It is the only one still standing.

Beyond the Porta Nigra, within the old city, there is a church, rathaus, fountains, decorated buildings - the altstadt stuff we love to look at. This love was shared today by zillions of other people. However there were not so many zillions that we could not have found a seat at a café. The only thing, after another cold and misty start the sun had come out and made the café seating too warm and bright. So we just pushed on to our other Trier objective (other than the Porta Nigra) which was the birth house of Karl Marx.

There is a museum in the house, but it seemed to be closed. In any event there did not seem to be a good place to even begin to gamble on locking the bikes, so we contented ourselves with "Yeah, Karl Marx's birth house", took our picture (along with several other people) of the plaque, and shuffled on.

The Grasshopper fountain. The nearby sign seemed to think this was a significant item. I looked it up. (You can too.) The grasshopper is the symbol of the Trier festival society and the figures around are early members.

The Karl Marx birth house. Not sure why we or others come here. Is it a pilgrimage? Will we absorb some economics insight here? Can any more be added to my brain after years of university?

What we were shuffling on to was Konz. Konz had the cachet of being at the confluence of the Mosel and the Saar, and was also the place where we had booked a seemingly pricey 86 euro (includes breakfast) room in the Park Hotel. The hotel has a sauna, making us think of the British comedy "Keeping Up Appearances", where Hyacinth brags that her sister's house has a sauna and room for a pony. With all this to recommend it, Konz would also surely have a walking street, with our café seat just waiting for us!

Well Konz certainly did have the confluence of the Mosel and the Saar - which looks like one river and another river with a little wooded point between. No Deutches Eck production here.

The Mosel near the Saar - nice, but the zip is gone.

This shows Konz and the first few towns we will be hitting tomorrow on the Saar.

The Park Hotel had a rather nice leafy terrace, which no doubt constitutes the "park" part. There was also a large garage with lots of room for a pony, such as Dodie's bike, which she has named Caydance, after one of the "My Little Ponies".

But Konz had - basically nothing. It's strange to see a market square with - basically nothing, and a pedestrian zone with - basically nothing. On the side of a busy street we did spot an eis place, with just a bench in front. I went over on my own, determined to get something after a day of thinking about it. There was nothing like those giant lurid menus showing elaborate concoctions in large glass containers, but outside there was an illustrated poster showing moderate concoctions in large waffle cones. I spotted one called "Schokososse", which showed gelato, whipped cream, and chocolate sauce in a waffle cone. So I went in and asked the girl for "schokososse". No sign of recognition. I repeated. Nothing. But this caught the ear of the apparent owner, who asked me in English what I wanted. I said (or thought I said) "schokososse". "This is an ice cream shop, you know, he said a trifle aggrievedly. So I went outside and pounded on the picture on the sign. No it was more like "Oh, why didn't you say so?" "But you will have to choose the flavours of three scoops, so tell the girl". Whew, hard work.

Ok, what would you have called this thing?

Today's ride: 60 km (37 miles)
Total: 795 km (494 miles)

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