Wednesday August 16th St Aldegund

It has been another very good day, weather very warm and pleasant. Did quite a few chores this morning, even defrosted the fridge. Then we got a bucket and some rags and gave Ruakiwi a “sponge bath”, she really was looking a bit sad.

Back on our bikes late morning and headed in the other direction, to Zell. It was about 8 kms along our side of the river before crossing over on the only combined road/rail bridge in Germany. The footpath was very narrow and Ian only just managed to get his bike across. The bridge appeared to be only one lane and surprised that it had no lights on it, then after we crossed noticed two trucks meeting in the middle, obviously was two lanes. I was thinking one was going to have to go back, but somehow they very slowly inched their way past each other. Very glad we weren’t taking Ruakiwi over it!

View from the railway bridge.

Continued on along the other side to Zell, passing many small beautiful villages on the way and more of those vine covered hills. Zell is a very pretty village, found a nice place to eat overlooking the river, and of course we had to sample the local Riesling. Decided we deserved it after our working bee this morning! We were very interested to see that the bottle had a screw cap, one of the first we have seen in Europe, we have got so used to using a cork screw to open bottles. The guy said they have been using them for about four years and they believe the wine lasts much longer, although he did admit it didn’t have the same mystic as pulling a cork.

Had a look through the village which really is delightful, lots of very old half-timbered houses and many wineries, and lots of quaint shops. Took the foot bridge across the river from town and found another bike path on the other side of the river that went through the middle of a vineyard, it was a bit rough in places but managed fine.

Zell, a lively little town.

The cycle track through the vineyard.

This years riesling grapes, ready for picking soon.

Have really enjoyed our four days on the Moselle, this year exploring on our bikes and seeing so much that we missed out on last year. Tomorrow we are off to Dusseldorf to stay with friends Conny and Hitten who we met last year in Norway. They visited New Zealand at the beginning of this year and stayed with us, so looking forward to catching up again especially as they have just returned from a 30,000km road trip in the 4WD camper that took them across many countries to Beijing and returning through Russia, an epic journey and sure they will have so many stories to share. Might not be as many blogs while we are there!

How about I bring one of these home!!!