July 4, 2022
made it to Metz, France
what a gem!
We left Koblenz by train, and travelled to Saarbrucken via 7,652 stops first. Okay, maybe not quite that many. Then a train to Forbach (only one car, no engine- two other people). However, in Forbach we had a 7 minute connection to our train to Metz, and damn! elevator did not respond. Lights went on, nobody home.
So shleppin' was in order, we started dismantling the panniers etc and made it down the stairs just as the train on the other platform started moving. Damn squared. Now we are not sure if we should shlep up or not, because we need to catch another train and we don't know its platform yet.
So we wait until it is finally posted, and thank goodness we didn't schlep to the wrong platform - it is leaving from the one we just schlepped down from. So, up we go and its a one hour ride to Metz. Short ride to the hotel, and holy smoke! Amazing place. We had a long discussion about who gets the credit for picking it out. The place is awesome, the room is awesome, dinner was fantastic, and the building is very impressive. One surprise at dinner, I asked for a local wine - Riesling or Gewurtztraminer - and he sniffs - those wines are from Alsace. Here we grow Pinot Gris, Pinot Blanc, Pinot Noir....so I tried one, and not great. They had a bottle of Alsace Riesling open, and it was very good. Hmmm, maybe when we get back into Germany?
Anyway, it turns out that one of the top things to do in Metz is come see the building, built by the Knights of Templar in 1183, that appears...outside our hotel room window!
After a wonderful dinner we go for a stroll because I picked Metz as our Mosel starting point for one reason - an image on Bing images. We start walking out of our hotel and there is an enormous park - the Metz Jardin - just beside our hotel.
A must see (tomorrow) is the Metz cathedral. A lot of the buildings seem to be made of this yellow sandstone, and this cathedral, in the waning sunshine today, reflects it beautifully.
And then...we see it. The Temple Neuf. You will laugh, but when I was planning this trip, and deciding which towns along the river in which to stay, I took several factors into account, primarily was that we wanted to only bike about 50 km per day (more or less). When that didn't decide, I used Bing images to see which towns looked cool. Metz had an image of this temple at night, with coloured lights on it that looked amazing. Metz it is, I thought. So you can imagine how happy I was to see that it is just as charming in the flesh so to speak.
Tomorrow we have a full day in Metz, so will start in the Old Town and visit the Metz Cathedral - some windows apparently painted by Chagall. Next day its back on the bikes!
Today's ride: 9 km (6 miles)
Total: 1,062 km (660 miles)
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