2013 Mosel & Rhine

August 27 to September 27, 2013.

This trip unfolded as follows: fly to Paris, take train to Metz, bike down the Mosel to Koblenz, bike up the Rhine to Muhlhouse, then return to Paris.
The following table shows the trip day by day.

DATE	Distance	Total	City	Hotel

27-Aug-13	Fly		Toronto Airport
28-Aug-13	0	0	Metz	Kyriad
29-Aug-13	35	35	Thionville	Des Oliviers
30-Aug-13	43	78	Remich	Villa Belle Rive
31-Aug-13	44	122	Trier	Astoria
1-Sep-13	46	168	Neumagen	Osteria Romana
2-Sep-13	49	217	Traben	Central
3-Sep-13	56	273	Cochem	Am Markt
4-Sep-13	42	315	Winnigen	Adler
5-Sep-13	51	366	St Goar	Winzerhaus
6-Sep-13	29	395	Bingen	Café Koppel
7-Sep-13	0	395	Bingen	Café Koppel
8-Sep-13	29	424	Bingen	Café Koppel
9-Sep-13	0	424	Mainz	Advena Europa
10-Sep-13	15	439	Worms	Huettl
11-Sep-13	35	474	Speyer	Amadeus
12-Sep-13	25	499	Germersheim	Germersheim Hof
13-Sep-13	52	551	Karlsruhe	Am Karlstor
14-Sep-13	0	551	Karlsruhe	Am Karlstor
15-Sep-13	45	596	Seltz	Des Bois
16-Sep-13	33	629	Strasbourg	Citadines
17-Sep-13		629	Strasbourg	Citadines
18-Sep-13		629	Strasbourg	Citadines
19-Sep-13	58	687	Allmannsweier	Parkhotel
20-Sep-13	36	723	Marckolsheim	Loges du Reid
21-Sep-13	27	750	Colmar	Beau Sejour
22-Sep-13	7	757	Mulhouse	Residhotel
23-Sep-13		757	Mulhouse	Residhotel
24-Sep-13	41	798	Belfort	Boreal
25-Sep-13		798	Belfort	Boreal
26-Sep-13	9	807	Paris	Comfort
27-Sep-13		807	Toronto Airport

Wednesday August 28 – Paris airport to Metz

We flew Air Transat again. This time we got the Option Plus package. It was worth it, especially the priority check in and priority baggage. The bikes arrived in good shape. As we took the tape and bags off ourbikes, we talked to 2 men who were waiting for their bikes to show up. They were going to bike from Biarritz on the Atlantic over the Pyrenees to Barcelona! They were from Waterloo and knew friends of ours. Small world!

We walk about 1 km from terminal 3 to 1 to get the RER B train to Paris Nord. We use a special turnstile for bikes. We then get a lesson in how to take abike down an escalator from friendly security guard. He shows us where to stand on the platform to get the bike car. At the Gare Nord we take bikes up a long escalator. No problem. From Gare du Nord we walk 600m to Gare de l’est.

It only takes an hour and 25 minutes to get to Metz on the fast TGV train.
Metz is in Lorraine. Lorraine was taken over by the Germans in the 1870s. The train station in Metz was built by the Germans then.

It is a short ride to our hotel. We find the streets on the way to the center filled with vendors selling pretty much anything.

First drink of trip

After a drink we look for a restaurant. We end up back near hotel and eat there. Vege penne for Judy and duck for me. It was pretty good. Really tired.

Thursday August 29 – Metz to Thionville – 35km

Late start. We walk short distance to a patissiere. Cafe and ‘escargot’. No, not snails. A pastry with custard filling. Hotel was charging 9.50 euros each for breakfast.

We visit the cathedral which is large. It has largest area of stained glass of any Church in France.

Next is the market where we buy a baguette for lunch. We find the Mosel Bikeline map book at the tourist office. We are good to go. The Mosel valley is wide here. No towns on the river today. We pass an IKEA distribution center with 90 loading docks!

We eat baguette at a picnic table by the river – peaceful. After checking into our central hotel we have a drink in the nearby square. It is Thursday and the town is busy. Another beautiful day. Dinner is outside at a brochette restaurant.

Lamb brochette

Very pleasant.

Friday August 30 – Thionville to Remich, Lu – 43km

Bfast at a nearby bar. 3 euros for coffee, croissant and juice.

Nice day – 16C to start. Good paved bike trail. We see the 4 stacks of a nuclear station for quite a while outside of Thionville.

75% of France’s electricity from nuclear

There are few towns on the river here as the valley is wide.

Moselle

We leave France and enter Germany at Perl where we have lunch. We cross the Mosel into Luxembourg at Schengen. Here there is a “lock tower”. There is a bar for each EU country.

Lock Tower

We find our hotel just outside of Remich. Remich is quite a tourist town. We walk in and find a reasonably priced Italian restaurant.

Saturday August 31 – Remich to Trier – 44km

Good bfast included in price of hotel. Judy’s tire is flat. So we replace tube. There was small piece of wire stuck in tire. More paved bike trail. Made really good time as rain was forecast for the afternoon. Arrive Trier at 1:30. Check in, then go for walk. Trier is busy. The main square is nearby. We have currywurst. There is cocktail record breaking attempt being made in the square.

Trier has most well preserved Roman ruins north of the alps.

We walk a lot: Roman ruins (Porta Negra, baths, amphitheatre & walls) plus gardens and kms of pedestrian only streets. Tiring!

Porta Negra

After a rest, we head back to the center and eat at the Ratskeller – very good schnitzel!

The cocktail contest is still on so we watch it.

Cocktail mking

The main square is hopping. You could not do this in Ontario with our antiquated liquor laws!!!

Sunday Sept 1 – Trier to Neumagen – 46km

Exellent breakfast in a very pleasant sunroom.

Cooler this am. Trail is rough through North Trier.

We saw a lady biker injured on bridge. She was going fast down the bridge and had braked too hard and went over the handlebars. An ambulance arrived, followed soon by an ADAC helicopter. The helicopter landed on the bridge – most impressive. A man told us the helicopter had doctor on board and was called when someone had a serious injury. The lady was moved to stretcher and looked ok. The woman was wearing a helmet, but must have landed on her chin.

ADAC Medical Helicopter

We took our time after that. The bike path continues to be good. The Mosel offers continuous views as it winds back and forth. The last stretch into Neumagen is into the wind. Drinks are appreciated after hotel check in. We have excellent meals.

Monday September 2 – Neumagen to Traben – 49km

Hotel not recommended – shower ran hot then cold, sink too small, owner over-bearing.

Another sunny day – nice & cool to start. Trail paved.

Through the vineyards

We stop in Bernkastel-Kues for lunch. There is a wine festival on. We check out a wurst grill place. The half meter one is too long, so we split a shorter one. Judy gets a free brotchen to eat hers. An hour later we stop for coffee and talk ourselves into splitting an apple kuchen. With a dusting of icing sugar, it was so good.

In Traben we find a bîke store to buy bike tubes.

We had stayed in Traben in 2007, and decide to go back to a restaurant we had enjoyed. Mistake – not good now. But the view over the river was still good.

Tuesday September 3 – Traben -Trarbach to Cochem – 56 km-

Good bfast. Warm day and sunny – again! When we were here in 2007, it rained! Good paved bike trail. The Mosel continues to wind and provides lots of scenery. Lunch is in Eller – goulash for me, bean for Judy. Very good. Paved trail takes us into Cochem. Amazing to see all the land being used to grow grapes.

Terraced vineyards

Our hotel is in the center of the city. Our room is on the fourth floor – no elevator! Also, I had to carry the bikes up to the first floor. The room is small but modern. It only cost 49 euros. After shower we get drinks in square with a 1.50 euro discount from hotel. Boy that beer tasted good! The center of town is well preserved.

Cochem center

Walked around town then had good Italian meal.

Found eis on way back – bonus!

Wednesday September 4 – Cochem to Winnigen – 42km

Bought pedals as mine were clicking. Warm to start then hot. Good paved path next to the road. The wind from the south continues to help our ride north. Our lunch today was from our supplies plus a Snickers bar bought at gas station for me.

Bike path, railway and road

FYI: Gas prices are about 1.60 euros per liter in Germany. Luxemburg was only 1.39.

Winningen is a pleasant small city. Nice hotel in center. Drinks in Weinmarkt square. We walk around and go into a wine shop. The owner was a amateur wine maker and sold local wines. Winnigen has a large number of professional wine makers compared to other areas on the Mosel. A family can handle a maximum of 7.8 hectares of grapes. He said he owned 110 with his neighbour! He clarified that this was the number of vines, not hectares! They use Polish labourers to help. I bought a bottle of Spatburgunder red.

Dinner outside in square was very good.

Thursday, September 5 – Winningen to St Goar – 52km

Bacon and scrambled eggs – a treat! Warmer to start.

Near Winnigen

Our last day on the Mosel. The trail is rough for the first 5 km. Then we get into Koblenz. The Mosel ends at the Rhine. We head south up the Rhine. We find a book store and get 2 bikeline books for the Rhine. Just out of Koblenz the bike trail is under repair and we have to detour. The detour was in bad shape, fortunately only 2 km. Then a mix of dirt, rough asphalt and cobblestones. Good thing we don’t have false teeth! Then the trail changed to new asphalt.

The wind is strong from the SE. We are riding mostly into it. Very tiring and slow. But the Rhine makes it worth it. Our hotel is right by the Lorelei. We shower and go to hotel terrace for drinks where I am typing this.

Do I look tired!

Friday Sept 6, 2013 – St Goar – Bingen – 29km

Excellent bfast buffet – even tomato caprese. It is quite warm to start. We are going only 30km today, so we plan to take it easy. We ride past the Lorelei.

The Lorelei

We stop at a large sign which informs ships where other ships are in the channel. A man stops to take pictures of the boats. He says it is his hobby. He was a pilot on this stretch of the Rhine, back in the 1970s. When the river was cleared of rocks, pilots were no longer needed. He explains the sign. There are 3 radar units monitoring the river and turn the lights on to indicate where the boats are.

Where the boats are

We go into Oberwesel and ride around. Very pleasant town.

At Bacharach we stop for coffee.

Bacharach: A quiet town

Lots of vineyards along the river.

We have booked 3 nights in Bingen. We hope to get out to the area where Judy’s ancestors come from – about 50km away.

We have a nice hotel near the centre. There is wine festival on in Bingen and they are starting early on Friday afternoon. Every square has different wineries set up to sell their wines. You pay a 2 euro deposit on a wine glass, then go around buying whatever. You get 2 euros back upon returning the glass. I am not ready for wine, so we find an Italian restaurant run by an Indian family and get a German beer. By dinner time the town was partying. We found another Italian restaurant, run by Italians and had a good pizza. We wandered around the squares. Three of them had bands. One even played German music! 🙂

Bingen wine festival

Saturday Sept 7, 2013 – In Bingen
It rained overnight and this morning. The forecast is not good so we walk around town. Very pleasant. We walk a ways up the Nahe River which comes into the Rhine at Bingen. There is stone bridge over the river which was first built by the Romans.
We climb up to the burg Klopp for a view.

Commanding view over the Rhine

Dinner is greek tonight – quite good. The town is hopping again. This time I buy a bottle of red wine. We sit at a table and listen to a blues band. A real party in the streets.

Sunday, September 8, 2013 – around Bad Kreuznach – 29km

Thunderstorms overnight, but not raining in am. But it is cool, overcast with chance of showers. We decide to take bikes on train to Bad Kreuznach and ride out to Woellstein. Judy’s ancestors left this area in the early 1700’s. We ride 1.5km to Bingen’s main train station. It is only 20min train ride. We are riding light, knowing that going away from the rivers means hills. It spits a bit of rain as we head uphill out of Bad K. After first hill we head down into Hackenheim. Then up a long hill and down into Volxheim.

Rolling hills near Woellstein

We stop for coffee at a very nice restaurant. Then it is up another hill and down another really steep one to Woellstein. There are vinyards and mixed farming on the fertile soil. We find seating near a church to have last night’s leftovers for lunch. Judy takes lots of pictures as we ride around the town.

Quiet Sunday in Woellstein

The town cemetery does not have any really old stones. Interesting nevertheless. With a better understanding of the terrain, we decide on a less hilly route back. The route back is well marked.

It was a great day even though cool and a few showers.

Back in Bingen the wine fest is winding down.

We have an excellent meal at a German restaurant – Thai for Judy, Indian for me – go figure!

Monday Sept 9, 2013 – Bingen to Mainz – train

I get flu overnight – shivers first then sweats. Wake up really draggy. We decide to take train to Mainz. Nice hotel near center. I crash for a while. Not a great day.

Tuesday Sept 10, 2013 – Mainz to Worms – 15 km

I have recovered somewhat, but we decide to train most of the way to Worms. We bike from Osthofen into Worms. Another cool day with spits of rain. We walk into the city and have flammkucken for lunch. This is a thin flatbread, and very good. We walk until the rain starts. In the hotel, I crash for the afternoon.

Wednesday Sept 11, 2013 – Worms to Speyer – 35 km

Forecast not so good. I am feeling better so we decide to do more biking. We take train from Worms to Ludwigshafen. We bike about 10 km around and through dock & industrial areas. Not very interesting. It is raining. The Rhein has a lot of little lakes and lagoons following this so we don’t see much of the river.

Lunch is Doners in Altrip. Doners are gyros meat in a pita with vege stuff – good.
As we approach Speyer the rain stops and the rain gear comes off.

Sun comes out!

Speyer is very pleasant small city. We ride down the pedestrian only main street. The Speyer Cathedral (The Dom) was originally built in 1020, then rebuilt in the 1700s. It is the largest preserved Romanesque cathedral in Europe.

Speyer Dom

The old city gate is one of the largest and most architecturally significant gates in Germany. The bottom part is originally from 1250, built on the ruins of a previous tower. The middle part is from 1514 and the roof from 1710.

Speyer gate

Thursday Sept 12, 2013 – Speyer to Germersheim – 25km

We pick a smaller city that is not far for today. It is a 4 layer morning as it is very cool. The layers are – undershirt, T-shirt, sweatshirt and rain jacket. Very soon into ride the rain starts, so on go the rain pants and pannier cover. A bit of wind in our faces adds to the mix. Good paved trail, mostly below the dike along the lakes beside the river. We don’t see the river today. Rain stops, temp has risen, off comes the rain gear.
We go for a walk. There were many empty army barracks.

The center of town was picturesque with a small creek running through it. There were steps down to the creek which were people did their wash many years ago.

Germersheim creek

There was a water wheel which generated electricity – enough to power about 10-12 homes.

80,000 kwh per year

We had one of the best meals of the trip here – Greek.

Friday September 13, Germersheim to Karlsruhe – 52km

Hotel is large and has good bfast buffet. Sunny am but cool. Three layers with sweatshirt to start. We see the Rhine for about 3km, then we are riding below the dyke or around lagoons.

A brief glimpse of the Rhine

Good paved trails. There is a detour that takes us inland and adds 7km to the trip. We do get to see some smaller towns. Coffee in Leimersheim, lunch in Woerth. We have trouble finding route to bridge over Rhine to Karlsruhe. Finally a fellow on racing bike leads us there. Long bridge, separate lane for bikes.

Bike lanes on busy bridge

We get lost twice more going into Karlsruhe, but soon got straightened out. Busy city, but good bike lanes. Hotel is near center. Deceiving as it does not appear large from outside. Late arriving (5pm) so head out and find restaurant for drinks and food. Busy in the downtown on Friday night. Too cool to sit outside.

Saturday Sept 14, 2013 – In Karlsruhe

Forgot to set alarm so we slept in til 9am. Quite a treat after normal 7am wake ups. Large bfast buffet. We walk into town with rain off and on. Info center hard to find, but closed on Saturdays. We walk to the palace. It is now a museum. Interesting history of the rulers of the Baden state from 1700s until 1918 when Germany was formed. It was worth the visit.

Karlsruhe Palace – now a museum

Lunch was apple and granola bar on palace grounds. Bought toothpaste at Woolworths. Yes there are still Woolworths in Germany. Bought beer and nibbles and crashed in room. Had trouble finding restaurant, but eventually lucked out with a Greek one. Ate light. Free ouzo before dinner and free kir after – good!

Sunday September 15, 2013 – Karlsruhe to Seltz – 45km

Cool and rainy – this is getting repetitious. It is quiet ride through and out of Karlsruhe on a Sunday morning. We don’t get lost and cross the Rhine without problem. We head south on the west side of the river. The Bikeline book shows unpaved trail on the east side. Not a lot of wind today. We cross into France without even noticing a sign. Lunch at upscale restaurant which nearly full of people eating a main meal lunch. We have soup! In Seltz we do not have a reservation – first of trip. Our first choice of hotel is closed. We find one on edge of town. Excellent dinner of pizza and salad.

Monday September 16, 2013 – Seltz to Strasbourg – 32km

Breakfast not included, so we are up early and get packed & away before bfast. Cool and rainy again. At boulangerie we have coffee and escargot.

Escargot (Sweet bun) & cafe

Then buy baguette for lunch. Good paved trail but only a couple of km by river. It is windy and mostly in our face. Rain gets stronger.

The rain stops briefly

Decide to take train at Drusenheim. Buy tickets at machine – took a few tries to figure out right slot to use for a credit card!

Ate baguette on train – good.

We get to hotel easily. We have booked 3 nights in Strasbourg. We have a room with kitchenette. Good sized room. Again as is typical France bfast not included. So we head out and get supplies for 3 days.

Tuesday & Wednesday September 17 & 18 – in Strasbourg

Strasbourg has a metro population of 750,000. It is the second seat of the European parliament, which meets here for only a few days each month. It was a great city to spend 2 full days exploring.

The city installed their “Tramway” in 1997. It has been expanded several times and now extends to 40km.

Modern tram cars

Homme de Fer

Our hotel was a block away from the “Homme de fer” terminus. It made it easy to get around the city.

The Strasbourg Cathedral was the tallest building in the world from 1674 until 1847. It is a gothic masterpiece with thousands of carved figures. The organ was beautiful. The astronomical clock was built in 1843 and replaced one from 1574 which replaced the original from 1354. The latest took 1 year to design and 5 years to build. Besides the clock, there is a perpetual calendar, shows the position of the sun, moon and planets.

Strasbourg Cathedral	Thousands of carved figures
Magnificent Organ	Astronomical Clock

From the cathedral you can walk to the well restored medieval buildings in the “Petit France” area. The river Ill flows through this part of Strasbourg There are canals going off the river in many places. We took a boat cruise which gave a good view of the whole city. Then we walked around the very interesting buildings.

Petit France medieval buildings

Lots of flowers

We took a tram out to the European Parliament building. It was built in 1999. It has a unique circular design. It was difficult to determine where the entrance was. We tried to latch onto a group going into the building, but we were curtly told to leave. We later found out that to get into the building you have to book online months ahead. Also, you have to be an EU citizen to get in! At least the tram ride was interesting.

Circular EU Parliament

Inside the circle looking up

We really enjoyed our 2 days in Strasbourg.

Thursday September 19, 2013 – Strasbourg to Allmansweir -58km

Cool but no rain. After bfast in room, we get away by 9:30. We buy a baguette and donut for lunch later. We get out of Strasbourg with no problem. We ride south still in France along a paved path beside the Rhone/Rhine canal. More interesting than the last few days. We see French teenagers learning to canoe – one pair of boys capsized.

Tippy canoe

There are no boats moving on canal, but a few tied up. Some look like live-aboards.

Quiet canal

We stop for coffee and a plum tarte in Eschau. Good tarte, especially with the whipped cream! At Kraft we head east and cross into Germany. We cross over a hydro dam which is on the French side. There are about 10 dams along this stretch of the Rhine. In Germany we stop at a bench and eat our French baguette. As it is still early, we decide to ride to Lahr. We saw sign which indicated it was 7km. That was for cars. There was a separate path for bikes which was 10km. Nice ride through farm land. Back in the 1960s Canada had air force base here. Nice city with long pedestrian only street. By the time we got back to hotel we had clocked 58km! Had huge schnitzel for supper.

Friday September 20, 2013 – Allmannsweir(D) to Marckolsheim (Fr) – 32km

Hotel not great – it had Spanish theme, but they over did it.

Cool again with rain threatening. We ride south down the Rhine on the German side for 6km. Crushed stone making it slow going. It starts raining as we stop to catch ferry across Rhine to France. It is free! Not many boats this far south. We ride SW and get back on the Rhone/Rhine canal again. The canal is no longer usable here. The paved bike path along side is great.

Paved path along quiet canal

Lunch in Marckolsheim

The rain is very light and off and on. Finally the sun comes out as we arrive at our destination. We make schnitzel (last nights leftovers) buns and eat on bench in square.

Marcklsheim is a very pleasant looking town. The lady in the tourist office was very helpful. Got some maps for biking inland on canals.

There is supermarket right next to hotel so we stock up on breakfast & snack things. Our room is large with a kitchenette.

Saturday September 21, 2013 – Marckolsheim to Colmar – 27km

We get the sun back for a very pleasant although short ride. I had developed a cold so we had picked a shorter route. We get back on the canal trail. A sign indicates that the next 6km is an experiment in bike trail surfaces. The first 2km were just gravel. The next 2km was finer gravel mixed with inert industrial product. This had mixed in with soil to make a decent surface. The final stretch was bitumen from vegetables. It looked like asphalt. A little googling showed that a French company has developed a sunflower oil based bitumen solvent which is eco friendly.

We stop for coffee at a cafe that is a renovated lock house. They do special dinners on weekends for 65 euros – 7 or 8 exotic courses! Down the trail we are stopped by a tourist office lady doing a survey of trail users. Fortunately she had one in English. We turn west onto the Colmar canal. It was built in 1871. Horses used to pull barges. Canal stopped being used in 1997. Good paved trail.

Colmar canal

We buy baguette and escargot, check into hotel and eat lunch in room. We walk into town. Very busy pedestrian area. Have a Fischer amber beer – good spicy hoppy flavour.

Have a lighter supper omelette and quiche. Cheapest dinner of trip at 23.70 euros.

Sunday September 22, 2013 – Colmar to Mulhouse – train

We are wanting to get to Mulhouse. It is too far to bike with my cold, so we take the train. Another cool sunny day. 7 bikes vie for 6 bike hooks on the one car that takes bikes. This was after running down platform to front of train! A big Brit lifts Judy’s bike onto the ceiling rack. Mine is odd one out – just as well, I still had panniers & backpack on mine and it all weighs a lot.

Train is direct to Mulhouse. The Brit helps us get bikes off as this train has 3 steps down to platform. Elevators available to take bikes down and up to get to exit. We book train to Paris from Belfort for Thursday. Our hotel is closed til 4pm so we head to the main square and find the ‘Citie biere tour’. Seven breweries were selling beer around the square. Two euros for 250ml. A duo were singing on the church stairs. The French Fischer pils went down well. A switch to the flavourful Belgian Grimbergen was next. Finally Belgian Affligem blonde was called for. After the singers finished, they started the races. Volunteer servers had to run around to each of the 7 beer stations and pick up a glass of water from each. With 6 servers at a time a lot of water was spilled. Lots of fun.

Beer Festival – city hall in background

At hotel we met a Canadian from London Ont area. After chatting he invited us up for a beer. After checking in to our large kitchenette room, we join Rod & Rosemary for a few beers. They were doing a one month train tour of Europe on their own. We had a great time comparing stories. We gave them our website address and got their email address then parted.

After all the drinking I had done Judy & I decided on supermarket take outs. It was ok. Later, checking emails there was a comment on our website from Rosemary wondering if we had mistakenly picked up Rod’s glasses. I checked and found that I had 2 pairs of glasses! Sure enough, I had picked up Rod’s glasses when we left. Sometimes technology is great.

Monday September 23, 2013 – In Mulhouse

We continue to luck out with the weather. Following Rod & Rosemary’s advice, we go to the tourist office and buy 3 day passes for the trams and the car museum. We are only here for another day, but the pass is still worth it because of the car museum. We take a very modern tram out to the car museum. Mulhouse constructed their tram network in 2006, and bought new equipment. They are electric and very comfortable. The car museum was amazing. They claim it is the largest in the world with 400 cars. The majority are French. The rest being from other parts of Europe. There must be 75 Bugattis there including the new Veyron. Well worth visiting.

Have a Bugatti

We got more information on the bike route to Belfort from tourist info, so the plan is bike tomorrow.

Tuesday September 24, 2013 – Mulhouse to Belfort – 41 km

Another beautiful sunny day. We will be following Eurovelo route 6 along the Rhone Rhine canal. We join the paved trail near the main train station. We get pictures of a crew cutting the grass between the tram tracks. We had seen the grass in Strasbourg as well, but had not seen how they cut it. The grass really makes the tracks blend into the scenery.

Greening of tram tracks

The canal here is still in use, albeit only by pleasure craft.

Beauty day – beauty trail.

The bike path is excellent. There are 41 locks up to Montreux-Vieux where we catch the train to Belfort. We finally see a sailboat (no mast) going through a lock heading downstream to Basel. It was an interesting trip for our final day of biking.

We have 2 nights in Belfort, then take the train to Paris.

Wednesday September 25, 2013 – In Belfort

Our choice of Belfort for the last 2 days of the trip was because we could get a direct train to Paris that took bikes. Yesterday’s bike trip up the Rhone/Rhine canal was a bonus getting to Belfort.

Today we walked around the city. The historic center has many beautiful buildings. But the most interesting part was the towering citadel with the Belfort lion and the adjoining battlements. The long walk up was worth it. The citadel was designed in 1648 and built over a long time. In 1870-1 Belfort held off the Prussians for 103 days and remained French thereafter.

The Belfort Lion

Belfort Citadel battlements

Thursday September 26, 2013 – Belfort to Paris

We take the train from Belfort direct to Paris. We arrive in time to have coffee near the Gare de L’est, keeping a close eye on our bikes. Waitress told us not to leave them out on sidewalk, as they could get ripped off!
We ride through central Paris, buy baguettes and go to the Notre Dame to eat them. We run into a couple we knew from home. Small world.
We rode some more with a brief stop at the Louvre. Judy was nervous in the busy traffic. I found it to be an interesting challenge. We end up at the Gare du Nord to get a train to the airport and our hotel – The Comfort. We are able to store our bikes in their luggage room. Wi-Fi was not good.

Coffee near Paris's Gare de L'est

Riding in central Paris

Friday September 27, 2013 – Paris To Toronto
We take hotel shuttle to airport. We get into the priority checkin line and get the bikes wrapped up with little problem.
Good flight home. Everything made it back in one piece!
Another great trip.

Back home

4 Responses to 2013 Mosel & Rhine

Don Minchin says:

September 2, 2013 at 1:30 pm

Sounds like you are off to a good start. Don
Craig Wilker says:

September 2, 2013 at 7:49 pm

Sound gud soph har. Hows the tab working? Do not adjust your set… This email is just ‘on trial’ and to try and keep up with tony
Craig
Ken Rae says:

September 10, 2013 at 1:49 pm

Sounds like a fun time. Got your note about you being in Paris when we play our next Bridge Night In Canada. Oh well some people have to take holidays in Europe. Cheers Ken and Norah
Rod & Rose Bartlett says:

September 22, 2013 at 3:29 pm

Buy any chance did you pick up Rod’s glasses by accident. He can’t find them and just wondering when you were looking at the computer you put them on

Rod & Rose

Comments are closed.

August 27 to September 27, 2013.

Wednesday August 28 – Paris airport to Metz

4 Responses to 2013 Mosel & Rhine

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