Day 32: Moseying along the Moselle
Disclaimer: I spelled Moselle wrong in yesterday's blog post. It's "Moselle" and not "Mosel." Sorry!
First, a missed story from yesterday. We picked up a really cheap carton (yes carton, not bottle) of wine. However, having no wine glasses we had to get creative. We had some 1.5 liter plastic bottles, and the engineer/frat star in Nate flourished. Cutting the bottle in three parts, we had a two "wine" glasses. One from the bottom third of the bottle, and one from the top of the bottle flipped upside down in the center third for support. It's obvious that he's been out of the frat for awhile, because he was only able to make two and not three.
Today was the middle, and easiest day of our 5 day trek to Luxembourg. We turned west, away from our nice downhill on the Rhein, and began our trek up the Moselle. (To be fair, it's actually fairly flat, but you can think we're doing quite a bit of up.) We biked for 50km or so without stopping, and made it all the way to our planned stopped, Cochem, by noon. We stopped at a grocery store, picked up some dinner/breakfast, and then biked another 10km to a campsite just up the river.
The campsite turned out to be really nice. Just across the river is a small castle that looks like it hasn't been renovated at all. However, you can still pay to go up the tower, during which we all wondered if the integrity of the building had been tested in awhile, and saw some nice views from the top.
To get to the castle, we had to take a ferry, so we setup camp and walked over to the ferry to cross the river. The ferry dropped us off in a nice little town, the was reminiscent of medieval times, and we all moaned and groaned as we made are way to the top.
A nice Dutchman was on the top, and chatted with us for awhile. He was on "holiday" for four weeks, and spending his time looking up and down the Moselle. He was also an amateur photographer, and so was nice enough to take pictures of all of us.
After we explored the castle for awhile, we sat down at the restaurant for a local wine (apparently this valley is famous for its wine.) The wine was good, and expensive, so we didn't buy anything else and headed back down to the ferry and headed back to camp.
Luckily, at camp we had coupons for free wine at the camp restaurant, so we went their to get our glass of wine. While having the wine we met a Belgian man that was staying in the campsite for 9 months. He got talking to us about our trip, and told us about a week long party in Ghent that we should go to. We think we can make a day or two of the party, and will probably go check it out.
After drinks at the restaurant, we went to cook dinner. While cooking we ran into a guy from New Zealand that was biking down the Moselle. He was biking with his brothers family, and was a funny relaxing guy to talk with.
It's starting to cool now, and hopefully we can leave the fly off the tent tonight. Tomorrow we have an 80km or so day up the Moselle. Just 2 more days to Luxembourg City and a day of rest.