WEEK 5: Lahr to Lorelei. 321 miles
Saturday 7th July 2018 Lahr – Henridorff. 63 miles
Finally, the weather has changed, it’s lovely. So nice we shall have our typical German breakfast outside, just like everyone else. All the other vans, who are mostly German, are doing the same thing. A table with a tablecloth, a basket of bread, a plate of meat and cheese with a pot of coffee.
All the same, all very neat. We have only been in Germany for a few days and so far we really like it. Who’d have thought?
Back into France today though, and we will come back to Germany on another trip, maybe the next one, but for now, we have really had a nice time in Germany.
We are going to a campsite called Camping les Huttes, Wangenbourg however when we arrive the site is closed until 2pm, however we get told that the owner will not be back until tonight.
Odd, it’s a Saturday and the site is closed until tonight, We wait until 2pm but nobody turns up so we decide to move on, we are not getting in here today. Hayley is very good on the planning and finding places to stay and soon finds us another site, Camping-Piscine du Plan Incliné. It’s only 35 minutes away so off we go. We have washing that needs doing!
There is something very interesting here, only a 1km walk away. The Plan incliné de Saint-Louis/Arzviller. It was built to avoid 17 locks. It’s basically a lift for boats. A box 41m long travels up and down 45m high and is counter-weighted by 2 weights of 450 tonnes each!
We watch it going up and down a few times from a distance, it’s quite something. We check the opening times and decide to visit it tomorrow.
We are getting through the laundry which is helped along with a cold beer. We would like a BBQ so we make sure that it’s okay with the camp to go ahead.
We set up the bricks etc and light the BBQ tray and within seconds we have smoked out half of the campsite. We make our apologies to our neighbours who just tell us not to worry about it and to carry on. It soon settles down and we have a nice feed.
Sunday 8th July 2018 Henridorff – Pont a Mousson. 84 miles
It’s a lovely sunny, warm morning. we have a nice shady spot and have a full breakfast outside in the dappled sunlight. Nice. We take our time and clean up and pack up and do the short drive to the boat lift carpark.
We make our way up to the lift house and watch the whole thing, it’s much higher up here. Very impressive. A box full of water, with a boat sitting in it, is pulled up and down a hill. Amazing.
We visit the engine room and find the whole thing mind-boggling. We also find a toboggan up here, similar to the one in Todtnau, Germany, but it’s nowhere near as good. It was worth trying out though for 3.50 euros.
It’s getting hot, time for an ice-cream before we try another France Passion site, a chicken farm but en route we decide it’s far too hot to be just sitting in the van so we change our minds and find a campsite so we can get our chairs out and sit in some shade. Hayley finds us a paid for aire that is able to take up to 40 vans. We may not get in there but we try for it and we are lucky yo get the last spot right by the river in this very popular aire.
There is a lovely little town here with a massive imposing church. We walk around with another ice cream, before heading back and getting ourselves settled in, awning out and chairs.
Dinner tonight is Hayley’s paella, always a winner. It’s delicious.
Monday 9th July 2018 Pont a Mousson, France – Bon Accueil Alzingen, Luxembourg. 55 miles
We wake up to another nice, sunny morning this morning in the motorhome car park by the river. It’s nice really. Hayley goes off to the local bakery to grab some pastries for breakfast. She returns with rather more than she thought she had bought. 5 pastries in total, no idea how that happened.
Today we are setting off for another new country, Luxembourg. Neither of us has been there before so we are keen to see it. We plan to drive to a nice campsite just south of the city. Once we get settled in we get the bus to the centre of town and just wander around with no plan in mind.
We do get to see the important bits however, the impressive Notre Dame cathedral with its impressive stained glass windows. We just get the tail end of an organ recital, and of course there is the usual array of expensive shops. There is a fabulous view from the walled area of an unusual viaduct and all the houses below.
It’s time for lunch and we are now walking around looking for a menu of the day. All European cities have a menu of the day, but not here, we cant find one anywhere.
The normal menu is probably the most expensive we have ever seen so far. It’s very expensive. Down hearted and feeling poor, we make our way to the McDonalds in the hope that it will be cheaper there. Nope it’s just as expensive. We end up sharing a McDonalds meal. How sad is that? We are on a budget and even McDonalds is too expensive for us here. Now we feel even poorer!
We get back to the van and get the bikes off.
We are told that there is a very pretty route that goes into the town as well, so we thought that we would give that a try. We both consider ourselves as intelligent people, we have a van that we drive around Europe, good responsible jobs etc., but every 100m that we peddle we come across a sign telling us to go one way to the town only to find another sign saying the opposite. This goes on for quite a while. We could not find our way out of the campsite and onto the cycle track, so we just gave up!
We try a takeaway Flammkuchen or an Alsace pizza-style thing with cream and bacon. Not bad. We walk for a while and find a supermarket where we buy some beer and while there we manage to find a cheap bottle of Pastis that we take back and enjoy back at the van in the evening sun. We are visited by a grey tabby cat who gets a fuss while we are packing away for the night.
Tomorrow we are going back to Germany. Who’d have thought?
Tuesday 10th July 2018 Bon Accueil Alzingen, Luxembourg – Weinbau Otto, Schleich, Germany. 46 miles
We didn’t think it would be so soon, but today we are going back into Germany for a bit of a look around, so after a simple breakfast we get cracking. We want to go to the Mosel river and try some white German wine. Our first stop is a stellplatz belonging to a winery.
It’s another grey day but that doesn’t stop us enjoy the drive through the beautiful Mosel valley with its steep hills of vineyards. Some are very steep, 65 degrees. It would be interesting to see how they harvest the grapes in those conditions.
We are near a large dam and a hydroelectric power plant and there is good cycling to be had here, so again the bikes are released form the back of Jess and we are off on a 5km bike ride to the town of Mehring, where we have a drink before heading back. At a nearby winery we try three wines and buy a bottle of dry white wine. The wineries here are different to France. They are either very modern and new or traditionally beautiful, in this one the two owners are having a sausage BBQ in Hawaiian shirts.
The weather has turned a little cool now, so we stay in the van for the evening and watch some ‘telly’ on the iPad. France are in the World Cup final.
Wednesday 11th July 2018 Schleich – Ellenz Poltersdorf. 43 miles
Good sleep last night. So good we are up quite late, 9am. Today we will stay at our first German campsite, so far all of our stops in Germany have been paid for aires, which has been very nice, but we are due a good campsite. We are heading to Beilstein, ‘The sleeping beauty of the Mosel‘. The drive is spectacular again, better than yesterday as the sun is now out and the steep Mosel valley vineyards just look amazing!
We arrive at the riverside campsite and the description is not wrong. As you look across the river towards Beilstein the scene is just as they say, The sleeping beauty of the Mosel. It looks unreal.
We are given a pitch right at the river’s edge, the whole place is a bit rustic in parts, not quite what we expected, full of potholes. If it rains it might be tricky. We have to pay extra for electricity, which is quite expensive. No matter we are only here for one night and we have the budget.
We take the tethered ferry across the Mosel and into the steep quaint town of Beilstein.
After walking around for a while and getting an ice cream we slog up the hill to the castle where we are rewarded with spectacular views of the Mosel Valley winding through the steep vineyards.
Back at the campsite we visit the on-site restaurant for a couple of giant schnitzels and beer – delicious.
Thursday 12th July 2018 Ellenz Poltersdorf – Burgen. 13 miles
Normally not much happens on a Thursday but this Thursday is different, we need to empty our grey tank as the one here is not usable so after we do a rather chaotic supermarket stop we drive around looking for somewhere to service the van. There are lots of pretty towns and we find two aires but non of them have the facilities that we need.
Today we are going to the town of Burgen and to a hotel called Hotel Schmause Muhle where they offer overnight parking for a small fee. It is located next to a small stream, you can use the hotel facilities, they have fresh water and hopefully a place to empty the grey water. Oh, and they have a shower.
It’s very nice here, we get a nice spot right next to the stream after we empty the grey water tank and fill up with fresh.
We are now all set for a comfortable overnight stay. The local town is very nice and we stop at a coffee shop for coffee and cake, and apple pie. A big piece of apple pie, but very big…
Across the road from Jess is the local restaurant which offers an all you can eat buffet or menu. It’s a very strange place. It’s the usual dark wood, red & white check table cloths and the heavy wooden chairs with a heart cut out of the back! While eating you are being stared at by an enormous collection of owls, from large wooden carvings to tiny ceramic figurines.
Very odd but charming all the same. We’ve never seen so many owls in one place before. We have a nice dinner there before heading back to Jess, hopefully for a good night’s sleep.
We are not alone, there is a very nice dutch couple staying in the carpark with us.
Friday 13th July 2018 Burgen – Lorelei – 24 miles
Del works on occasion for a band and this weekend they are in concert at the Lorelei Festival they are appearing on Saturday night as a headline act and Del is going to stop by, do the lights for them, paid of course, and then move on to our next stop on Sunday. So today we are not in a rush as we have a space reserved for us backstage, with power with all the other tour buses. Should be good.
As we are in no rush today, are we ever, we do a 38km detour to the longest suspended pedestrian bridge. No doubt that will be broken in the future. It’s the called the The Geierlay Suspension Bridge is 360m long and spans right across a valley. It’s high. We park up and it’s a short walk to the bridge, we pay the fee and off we go. Yes it’s long and yes it’s high and when you get to the middle it bounces quite a lot.
We liked the bridge. German engineering at its finest. We get back to the van and make the short drive to Lorelei and the Night of Prog 2018 festival. To get there we have to cross the Rhine which means a ferry, a very expensive ferry, but that’s the way we have to go.
On the way to the ferry we must have taken a wrong turn because we end up on a steep 18%, incline, downhill, we are warned at the top not to go down if you are over 2.8 tonne, but we did, and we survived! We are 3 and two bottles of wine tonnes!
Finally we arrive at the festival and we are shown where to go for the next two nights. It’s a nice spot amongst the trees to our door side so it’s very private, the tour buses and trucks are on the other side.
Once we introduce ourselves we are given a handful of beer and food tokens. We enter the festival and the afternoon music has already started so we use our tokens to get a beer and sit and have a listen in the glorious sunshine before having a walk around the site. The view from the perimeter fence at the other end of the park is amazing. Our location is very high up, and the view is of the Rhine twisting and turning through the valley with spectacular vineyards each side.
What a view, what a place to have a show! Hayley likes the band Antimatter from Liverpool.
We have dinner at the catering tent, it’s all very simple but nice. Back at the van Hayley settles in for the night while Del has to go to work at midnight to program up the show for his band who are headlining tomorrow night.
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