29th July Koblenz to Neef.
We didn’t get away from Koblenz until after 11. I had hoped to be gone well before that, but by the time we had done some washing (and drying), been for a walk, emptied the rubbish and waste from the truck, refilled with water, and checked out, it was that time. Oh, and I made blackberry jam with the blackberries I had picked on our way to Linz, then I had to make toast for Hilary to sample the blackberry jam (which I must say is delicious).
Photo of blackberry jam cooking
Photo of Hilary eating blackberry jam toast.
Getting out of Koblenz onto the correct road was a breeze, finding “Burg Eltz” a castle we wanted to visit was not such a doddle. The road we wanted to take and which had sign posts pointing to “Burg Eltz” was closed, so there was a very long, winding and poorly signposted detour, it was another case of try every direction from a round-about until you find the right one. We had to drive for quite a while each wrong direction to ascertain it was in fact not the correct way. Once we got to the Burg, it was not obvious where or why the road was closed. The other disappointing thing about our visit was that due to cracks in the building, and weakened weight bearing walls due to ill thought out additions over the centuries, they are having to do massive reconstruction/strengthening work including re-roofing, and of course that involves a large unsightly (in the context) crane, and even more unsightly scaffolding and netting covering much of the Castle.
Photos of the castle from outside
It certainly detracted from the experience. We had a look around the treasury at some ghoulish weapons and heavy shiny armour, gold and silver work,
Photo of silver/gilt ware
Photo of cups and china
and beautiful china/ceramics before having a tour of the castle with a guide who spoke excellent but very dourly delivered English. Not at all like an English castle, much less flashy and showy, lots of small rooms and bathrooms, not as many ostentatious bits like huge numbers of paintings or chandeliers ….
We had a nice walk, (about one and a half kms only) back to the truck through pretty German woods.
We found our way back down to the Mosel River and followed its eastern bank down to Neef where we stopped at a nice wee spot beside the river, with all our needs catered for.
Photos of grapevines and villages
It was sunny and very picturesque by now, so we decided to stay for a few days amongst the grapevines. After dinner we all went for a walk up into the hills behind the camping spot. Sheer banks of a deep valley planted in wine making grapes.
Photos from walk
Just across the river is the Calmont wine farm (they call them here) which is the steepest vineyard in Europe, and the ones here in Neef aren’t much less so. We climbed to the top of the hill, only 300m up I believe, but wonderful views to be had from the top, and a pretty little church with very colourful and well-tended and loved graves. The Church dated from the 1100s though the earliest graves I could find were from the early 1900s, I think maybe the earlier ones were somewhere else??? I didn’t think of the German people as a particularly religious lot but all these vineyards, in fact everywhere, beside road sides on hills, in villages, are frequent statues, alcoves, altars, shelters, what’s the word??? You know, little brick or plaster caves with statues of Jesus inside (or Mary). There are also crosses (many of which light up at night) on all the high points along the way, so there was one behind our campsite and at least two others across the river in the immediate vicinity.
There was a train track which ran along up and behind our campsite, though quite noisy at times it wasn’t really a problem as they stopped running as it got dark, and didn’t seem to start again until about 8 in the morning. Lots of trains though, both passenger and freight. The passenger trains are only about 4 carriages long, but the freight ones 40 plus, carrying mostly containers, but sometimes they have tanker carriages and sometimes more like a coal carriage, but not sure what they would have in them. The barges carry lots of coal and scrap metal, and they too seem to be a constant stream of traffic, but usually very quiet and graceful.
Just behind our campsite, which I guess is municipal or town land, tucked down under the road and bridge is a huge, many sectioned orchard and vegetable garden, not at all fenced or protected. Our first night we saw a man tending his patch so Di went and struck up a conversation with him. He is now a part-time organic farmer, his specialty being old fashioned black fleshed peaches (very like a “black boy”, only much smaller. He said they have been around for years, they have even found stones in the old roman latrines in the area, so they know they are a heritage variety. He has a small business selling peach products, like juice, jams and chutneys. He said his juice is also used in schnapps and other liqueurs. He has over the years bought all the plots from local families to make an area big enough to meet his needs. Many of the plots (only small (a large family vegetable garden size) had been inherited by multiple people (a bit like a lot of Maori land in NZ), so he said tracing the owners (who often didn’t realize they had an inheritance) was often difficult, however over the years he has managed to find owners for most pieces of land. He was an interesting bloke, very passionate about his peaches and vegetables. He as well as having that business, “works in an office” part-time. I’m not sure what the office work is, or where, but he said he travels 200kms on the train each day he goes to the office. That he said, isn’t uncommon in Germany, that there is very low unemployment but people realise they may have to travel to have a job.
We also met a local grape-grower who calls into the campsite each day trying to sell his wine. He gave us a sample, I must admit it didn’t do much for me, but we bought a bottle of his dry white just to support him (and for the bottle label) – only €3.50 so not enough to break the bank. The other nice event was each morning at 9am the local bakery comes around selling bread and pastries, it’s great because in actual fact I’m not sure which village they come from, but it would be a drive to get it ourselves so it suits us, and the baker who probably gets more business this way. I think it’s quite common for this, I notice in our camper-stop book it often says, “bakery service” beside “other facilities”.
30th July
The day before my birthday. We are in a tiny village on the southern I guess you’d say, though it twists and turns, banks of the Mosel River in Western Germany. It is a grey day again, take it as read, we haven’t been blessed by a hot and dry trip so far, but still it isn’t winter, so we have a lot to be grateful for. We have decided to stay here for a few days because it is so beautiful. We are at a camping spot which is run by the council equivalent I think. They are all over Germany and Belgium, and equivalent in a lot of other European cities I believe. Basically they are a spot where you can stay overnight, sometimes for free, sometimes for a fee. They range from a metalled flatish space with no services, to tar sealed spots with power hook-up, fresh water, toilet and grey water disposal. Some have washing machines and toilets/showers (often for a little extra). We are paying €8 a night for this place, a big grassed area, right on the river side, surrounded by vineyards, beautiful little villages, with power and water, waste disposal. Down the road are a number of cramped camp-sites, privately run, with hundreds of people staying who are probably paying close to €30 a night for roughly what we have got, maybe with a shower, certainly no more.
Today we stayed inside for the morning, working on our book of memories/ running diary of our adventure. This morning at 9 as I was cooking up bacon, tomatoes, crepes and tea/coffee a van arrived selling fresh bakery items, Di bought a raisin and cinnamon escargot, a strudel with whipped yoghurt in it, and 2 grainy bread rolls. I toasted the rolls and we had them with the rest of our cooked breakfast.
As we were organising lunch a different bakery came around in their van selling similar fare, Hilary bought some fresh bread rolls for lunch…. Talk about idyllic.
After lunch we went for a walk around the Mosel. There are hundreds of kilometres of bike tracks and walking tracks all along the Rhine and Mosel rivers, which are well utilised. The place we are staying is on the less habited side of the river, but there are numerous and frequent towns across the river (not that wide). The river makes a U turn here, with us pretty much on the peninsular formed by that U so we walked along the track/road from the camping spot to the other end of the U (and further), it is all on the flat, but as you will be able to see from the photos, directly behind the camping area and all around the peninsula the land rises very steeply to a high hill top. Hilary and Di and I walked about 8 kms on the flat and then returned about 3 kms at which point I walked back a track which went over the hill and dropped back down through the vineyards, to the Neef railway station and then back to the camper, while the others returned the way we had gone out on. On the way back I stopped and picked blackberries (we had already picked a kilo yoghurt container full but the size and taste of the ones on the hill made me transfer our walking snacks into an empty biscuit bag, so that I could use the containers for more blackberries. They are really plentiful, and fat and juicy. We also picked half a dozen cooking apples growing on old abandoned or wild trees on the river bank. The vegetation is interesting, I’m not sure if the apples grow here naturally or whether they have been planted, but the forest is full of them and walnuts and gorgeous purple (but not yet ready) plums. In fact I think we could live off the land once things are ripe, just foraging around. Not sure about protein, though today, once I had branched off from the others and gone up into the more forested area I did disturb a beautiful little red (like an Irish Setter) deer, which froze on the track about 20 metres in front of me, before gathering its senses and bounding off into the bushes.
I got back from my walk to find Hilary and Diana wrapping birthday presents for me, and was ushered back outside so they could finish what they were up to. So here I am sitting outside on a picnic chair, feet up on another, drinking shandy (I didn’t read the small print and thought it was ordinary beer) and eating a few salty chips, watching barges drift by almost silently and listening to the other campers chatting amiably. I’d like to say it was hot and sunny, but that would be a fib, it is actually quite cool, so I won’t be out here for long.
1.8.11 Saarberg
We had a cruisey day of driving today. We left Neef at about 9.30, drove down to Zell where we went to the supermarket before heading down the Western side of the Mosel through little village after little village with beautiful buildings, surrounded by grapevines and quite a few people. We swopped sides of the river periodically, some because we had no choice, the road took us that way, other times we wanted a closer look at something or a nice spot for lunch. We didn’t stop much, once for photos, once at a campsite where we sat in the brilliant sunshine in our deck-chairs, plugged the truck in to the electric supply to boil the jug, and had a lovely lunch while watching wasps terrorise Hilary and her food. They are the same sort of problem here as flies are at home in summer. They hang out in all the bakeries, sniffing at the sugary things. Today they were after ham. Which they got, by chewing through it and zooming off with quite large chunks, often it seemed they wouldn’t manage to get airborne with such a load they were carrying, but they always did.
We continued along the Mosel until we crossed at Konz and followed instead, the Saar which headed south rather than west as the Mosel did.
After a bit of hunting and a degree of frustration, we found this spot, which we had earmarked in our book. Another well serviced, but cheap spot with other motor-home inhabitants on the outskirts of Saarberg. It is just a spot to stop really, though the town looks very quaint, as we say, “more of the same”… that’s a bit harsh but there are only so many chocolate box covers of half-timbered houses, geraniums bedecked stone houses and grapevines that one can stand, and we have had our fill over the past week or so. Just as we became tired of castles and ruins in the UK, so we are tired of Rhine/Mosel villages, it’s time to move on.
Tomorrow we plan to head to France briefly, to see some chateaux on the German/French border, before heading the next day down to Strasbourg.
2.8.11 Saarberg to Kehl (Town across the river from Strasbourg)
It was an absolutely gorgeous day, hot and sunny, it made us contemplate staying where we were rather than driving on such a wonderful day, especially as we hadn’t seen weather like that since we were in Calais, however we decided we should move on as there wasn’t a lot to do where we were, and we thought wandering amongst chateaux would be pleasant in that weather too. I had thought it would only be a couple of hours drive down to Strasbourg but we took the scenic route down the Saar rather than the motorway so that extended it somewhat. After not too much driving we came to a little town which had a sign pointing to the Villoroy and Boch outlet shop, so we decided to stop and have a browse. There was some interesting stuff, and I’m sure at really good prices especially compared to at home at Ballantynes (and all their stock is probably chipped at least) but nothing appealed enough for us to spend our euro, especially at the thought of travelling with it and then getting it home. This little village really, Metalich I think it was, had a number of outlet stores including a Laura Ashley, Birkenstock (with wonderful work clogs, which had I bought, would have made me the envy of the operating suite at Burwood (but I didn’t see them, Diana just showed me the catalogue later) and another few which I can’t remember. We browsed around here for an hour plus, eating ice-cream before heading south again.
We were heading across to the west as well towards a few chateau I had seen on the map, unfortunately it wasn’t until much later that Diana had the good sense to look more closely at the legend on the map and notice that they were all ruins, “notable ruins” mind, but the thought of more piles of old rocks, instead of fairy tale castles with splendid gardens didn’t appeal, so I mentally kicked myself and we diverted to Strasbourg straight away. It did mean a significantly longer journey than was necessary and a waste of the beautiful sunshine, so by the time we actually found Kehl (that took some doing) and parked up in our camping spot it was four o’clock. It was still stinky hot, probably 30 degrees, bright blue sky and wonderful for putting out our chairs and picnic table and sitting drinking beer and cider before dinner.
I had a quick walk to get orientated while Di cooked dinner, and came back telling tales of what I had seen and what Hilary might like about this area. So then Hilary and I ventured out for a quick sneaky look on the premise of getting coins for the power meter. There is a swimming pool complex just down the road (100 metres), play areas by the acre, with climbing frames, adventure playgrounds, sandpits, man-made rivers with water spouts and other interesting and fun water experiences, a huge tower to climb for views over the Rhine to Strasbourg and Kehl, pretty gardens and sculptures, the promenade beside the Rhine …… it really is a wonderful spot for kids and pleasant enough for us too. Hilary decided she would like to stay a week…... we’ll see.
We decided to stay a few days at least (weather permitting)… but of course the next morning when we awoke the cloud was closing in, and by the time we were ready for action instead of being blue sky with no clouds of the evening before, it was now grey sky with no blue!!!! And the vague threat of rain. We decided that as it was very warm still we would curtail our plans slightly but not completely. We had been going to spend the day at the pool complex, swimming, playing, reading picnic-ing but instead we went down to the play areas and spent a few hours there before returning to the truck for a late lunch.
We had left the beds down for the first time during the day, with the thought that a bit of lounging may be nice. Hilary read for a few hours, I started reading but then an hour or so later woke up to a patch of dribble on the sheet with my face firmly planted in the mattress, Di wrote letters and postcards.
Just after 4 we headed out for a walk into the town to get some change for the power meter, to post some cards and letters, and to go to the information centre. I left first because the others were still busy and I was worried I’d miss the information centre before it closed. It was a very pleasant walk into town, along beside a lake with fountains and river into the town. I spent ages at the information centre trying to find something I could read (it was all in German) so by the time I got to talk to the young woman behind the counter I had been joined by Hilary and Diana. The young woman was lovely, and of course spoke beautiful English ( and German and French and possible others too) and was able to give me lots of information and brochures, many of which were either in English, or had English bits in them. We had a chat with her as well, she asked us where we were from, it turned out she had spent 7 months travelling in NZ a few years ago and had thought that was where our accent was from.
We had a browse around a little bit of the town before returning along the river side to our truck.
We cooked dinner which we ate outside in the warm but thunderstorm threatening evening at our picnic table, before retreating inside just as the heavens opened.
We spent the rest of the evening browsing pretty brochures and making plans for the next day (today) and reading, before retiring for the night listening to the pitter patter of rain on the truck roof.
4th August
Today we took the bus and tram into Strasbourg, the stop we disembarked at was near the Cathedral (of Notre dame of course, aren’t they all), a huge imposing building in the middle of one of many squares, surrounded by small shops, ancient buildings and quite a few people. We had a browse amongst the shops before heading towards the mini-tram. We intended taking it then but it was booked so we booked for an hour later and had a look around the Cathedral at the Astrolological Clock which we spent 30 minutes or more queuing to see. The Cathedral was beautiful in a minimalistic sort of way. A huge cavern inside with the typical arches, and great ceiling features, a few statues inside (but not grossly overdone), many stunning stained glass windows, including an immense rose window, a golden organ, but otherwise empty enough to appreciate the building itself. Outside it is fantastically ornate with stonework, carvings, lacy spires and a green roof.
The astrological clock was amazing too, but it was quite a crush trying to view it. People in some of these countries do not have the same rules and manners that we do, queuing seems to be an abstract concept (well non-existent actually, I mean I queue, so do many others but others think it is their right to just push in where it suits, when they arrive saving many minutes of standing on aching feet, and getting me riled.) I must admit, many of them seem to be from Asian countries rather than the locals or European so I must not condemn the German’s or French, though their manners too lack in many ways from those I was taught to obey.
But back to the clock. It was first created hundreds of years ago, it is all there to signify the passing of time and making the most of our time. It had different statues on it, a baby, a youth, a man and an elderly man and a skeleton (who beat the time with a femur on a bell) all signifying our aging and the passing of time, the disciples all filed past Jesus, a couple of angels one with an hour glass which she turned upside down, and one who rang a bell. I’m not giving it a very good write up, basically it was a huge clock with all sorts of mechanised bits on it, which at each 15 minutes did something, sometimes a little, sometimes a bit more. I’m not sure why it creates such a stir, maybe because it is so big, maybe because you can only get in to see it between 1145 and1245 each day, maybe because the work in it is still seen as amazing (engineering/mechanically wise, today, and particularly impressive for the time it was created), and maybe good publicity. I mean it was interesting, but the crush of people, and the waiting in the sun on sore legs detracted from the experience a little. I did find a 10 euro note on the floor amongst the throng of people though, so that was a plus.
Once we had finished here it was time for our mini tram tour, it was a 40 minute ride on a little tractor with carriage contraption which took us on a circuit around Strasbourg with a commentary in English (for us), or any one of 12 languages I think it was. It was a good way to see the town and get our bearings, it took us down by the canal, through Petit France, and around giving a history of many of the buildings and city areas. We had bought a three day pass for Strasbourg which we have found is quite a good way to go if you are spending time in a big city, it gives quite a good idea of what to see, and if you push yourselves can provide a good saving on entrance fees. The mini -tram was half price with the pass, the astronomical clock free. Another thing which was free with the pass was a climb to the top of the Cathedral spire, which Hilary and I did while Di went to the post office and had a quick browse around some more little boutiques. The climb was an effort, I had a heavy back pack on, it was really hot by now, and there were well over three hundred steps again, a dark spiral stair case. We went straight up, had a look out over the city, before going down again. The good thing about this system compared to many of the other spires/towers we have climbed is that there was one way up and another down so there wasn’t a crush of people waiting (or not, depending on the manners thing again) for people going the other way. These steeples do provide good views out over the city they stand over, and this one provided interesting views of the cathedral itself as well.
Once we had done our climb we met up with Di again, and purchased a glace each. Hilary chose lime and mint (which didn’t go down well at all (the first ice-cream in her life she hasn’t eaten), I chose caramel and mais, now I thought I have no idea what mais is, but you can’t really ruin an ice-cream (I hadn’t tried Hilary’s at that stage. I was wrong, it had weird little lumps in it, it took me a wee moment to work out what they were, but then something clicked and I realised, “of course I know what mais is, it’s “Maize”- who would put hunks of cooked maize in an ice cream and expect me to eat it????” it rivalled the durian ice-cream from Kuala Lumpur for unpalatable. Di had gone for the old faithful frais (raspberry) it never fails, so Hilary was the lucky benefactor there, Di ended up having the lime and mint.
Once that was done we went over to the canal and booked our trip on the river, it wasn’t ready (we wanted to go on an open boat, for about 45 minutes so we sat in the sun drinking coke/Fanta/beer. We had a very pleasant hour plus trip on the canal in the uncovered boat in the sun, again, a great commentary about the architecture and history (this was free with our pass) too. Hilary had a kids commentary which I listened too occasionally, it was great, told you gorey things like, the bridge that was called “crow’s bridge” was done so because in the past when they used to do such gross things, they used to put people in cages and drown them under the bridge and so the crows all hung out there waiting for the putrid bits to rise to the surface so they could feast. Gosh humans can be unpleasant.
Oh I forgot, somewhere in there we went to the Decorative Arts Museum as well. There were some beautiful and some very odd ceramics, and the building itself had been one of the Louis’s palaces, and there were still about 6 rooms done up lavishly as they would have been, to admire.
There were also a collection of old toys, wind-up and mechanical mostly, and some exhibits from the original astrological clock (it has been reworked 3 times I think over the centuries).
We found a McDonalds (Strasbourg is in France of course, so very straight forward with free wifi and just turn on the computer, however it is very slow with uploading pictures) and by the time I had checked my 163 emails there wasn’t a lot of time to write to anyone, or put any posts onto my blog. I’m finding it hard to keep up with my blog, partly because I am having trouble getting internet access and partly because our days are so full and there is some relaxing in the evenings that needs to be done.
The McDonald’s was down by the canal, on the other side from the town centre, and the reason we had gone in that direction was that we had read about a music and light show that was to take place on the canal at 10pm. So at 9ish we left McDonald’s to find a spot to watch the show from. We stood on a bridge, watching the sky fade, and the lights start to come on over the town. It was really warm still, late 20’s even that late at night, and though there had been a quick thunder storm while we were at McDs that had gone by.
The show was 26 minutes of oooh ahhing. Lasers, fountains, music and fireworks combined to provide a wonderful spectacle reminiscent for me of the first time I experienced a full on outdoor public fireworks display. It was superb, a real variety of music, colour and effects. Rainbows spreading across the fountains, umbrellas drifting to earth (lights only), dragons, space-craft shooting bright green laser beams ……… They have the show each night for nearly 2 months over the summer….it really is a great spirits lifter, we wondered about writing to the mayor and asking if she could organise something for Christchurch to lift their spirits.
As if that wasn’t enough for a day, (it was 1030 and we had been on the go for well over 12 hours of action packed adventure) we had a date with another music and light show at the Cathedral, a continuous 17 minute show which repeated itself after a five minute break from 10pm until 1230am. The lights were accompanied by music until 11pm, I guess there was some ordinance about noise after that. We made it in time to see a complete show accompanied by music, and even though we had just been awed by the water/lights/music show this was still amazing too. A series of lighting displays illuminating the Cathedral from top to bottom to show off the splendid carvings, alcoves and statues erupted, all colours, some lights quite deep inside so the shadows showed the contours, others really bright like a sunset. The photos don’t give the real story, but I have got a wee bit of video of both shows which gives a hint of the delight they provided to us.
Of course by now we were knackered, so we caught a taxi back to Kehl (Germany) as the buses stop running at 10pm. Can you believe that? In a huge city public transport stops that early in mid- summer.
