Following our last visit to the Moselle we always said that we would go back to see the area in better weather. Accordingly, on Friday 8 Sep we set out for a couple of weeks, stopping for two nights at Abbey Wood Motorhome and Caravan club site in Sarf East Larndarn in order to visit mother and to watch Harlequins beat Gloucester at the Stoop Memorial Ground in Twickenham on Sat 9 Sep, managing to stay dry in the torrential rain storm. Abbey Wood may not be in the nicest of areas but access to and from London is excellent.
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| Abbey Wood |
On Sunday we made an early start in the sun to the Channel Tunnel. It was nice that one of the members of staff at the Tunnel recognised the Harlequins shirt and came over to say hello. After the usual speedy and effortless crossing we took on fuel at Carrefour at 1.17euro a litre (£1.08) then followed the French/Belgian border on the French side (trying to avoid the awful Belgian roads) to Tournai. Arriving in Tournai we found that a poxy funfair had set up on the aire, so we moved on to a delightful aire at Peruwelz, just over the Belgian border, at 2€ a
night and a wonderful bar and restaurant (Sam Suffit) on site. With our china and glass just about surviving the crap Belgian roads we had a meal and retired early, still knackered from the rugby on Saturday.
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| Peruwelz, Belgium |
On Monday we drove into Luxembourg across the Ardennes, stopping at a large shopping centre just over the border for provisions. We completed the short drive (everywhere is a short drive in Luxembourg) into Camping Gritt in Ingeldorf, walked around Ingeldorf (not much there), tried to walk
into Ettelbruck, but hit a dead end, so walked to Diekirch and enjoyed a well-earned beer from a local brewery.
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| Bastogne in the Ardennes |
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Camping Gritt
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| Nice statue in Diekirch |
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| Very odd statue in Diekirch |
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| Nice Bridge for the cycle path |
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| Our bus is at the end of the rainbow |
On Tuesday it rained again so we bought an exceptionally good value travel card for 4 euro and caught the bus into Luxembourg City. It rained, we got bored, so we saw a bus with what we thought was our changing stop on, but it wasn't and it took us on a delightful mystery tour to a very pretty town called Echternach, where the sun came out and we enjoyed a lovely walk around this quaint town, even venturing across the river to invade Germany for a few minutes. We got off the returning bus at Ettelbruck, bought some delicious cakes and beat the rain home by catching another bus back to Ingeldorf. Mistaking Ettelbruck and Echternach gave us a great day out.
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| Luxembourg City in the rain |
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| Luxembourg |
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| Echternach |
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| Water pressure in Luxembourg is VERY high. No need for a shower before filling the van up as you'll get one doing it. |
On Wednesday we filled up with fuel at 96cents a litre before heading into Germany, stopping at Netto for some real bargains. The sun was shining, but strong winds and rain were forecast so we headed to a Stellplatz in Mehring where the owner/warden parked us as close to his awning as possible, obviously to give him shelter from the oncoming storm! It rained. The wind blew. It was shite.
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| Vital Provisions |
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| In Germany you get a wine gut not a beer gut |
The next stop was the excellent Stellplatz at Brauneberg. There's not much in Brauneberg itself, so we walked into Mulheim in the hope of finding a nice bar or café for a spot of lunch. Everything was closed. Eventually we had a coffee and cake in Netto and very nice it was too, so there's two fingers up to the lazy cafe owners who cannot be bothered to open at lunchtime! Later, we unhitched the bikes and cycled along the excellent path into Bernkastel-Kues. Kues is a bit bland, but Bernkastel, on the opposite side of the river, very pretty.
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| Bernkastel-Kues |
On Friday we moved onto a Stellplatz in Traben-Trabech, walked into town and enjoyed an excellent glass of Riesling at a Weingut, headed back to the van and unhitched the bikes to cycle into Kröv via Wolf, where they were setting up for a wine festival. We had a quick glass in a nice café in Kröv and went on to discover why the wines are called "nacktarsch" (naked arse). Indeed, the word Nacktarsch is displayed in big white letters over the vineyard. Apparently, so the story goes, the local winemaker discovered some boys stealing his wine and dealt with them summarily the old fashioned way. Any story to hang a bit of marketing on, eh? We avoided the worst of the rain and cycled back into Wolf for the wine festival before heading home. The stellplatz is a noisy one though - doors slamming at 6am and the creaking exit barrier going at 6am. Top tip - park away from the barrier!
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| Walnuts from the tree behind the van |
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| Marketing |
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| Wolf wine festival |
More marketing featured on Saturday in Zell, where the Black Cat is prominently displayed (story about a black cat fiercely protecting the barrels of the best wine or some such tosh). We parked up in a Stellplatz we had visited on our last trip, walked into town in the bright sunshine, walked on to the next town, Merl, stopped on a boat for a glass of Riesling, walked back into Zell, ate a delicious Apfelstrudel, had a glass of sekt then decided to climb the fiercely steep and dangerous footpath to the viewpoint above the town. At the top, surprise surprise, there was a wine bar! We ambled back down and stopped for jaegerschnitzel and watched the rain come down once again.
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| The Black Cat |
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| Apfelstrudel |
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| Don't attempt this path unless you are stupid..... |
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| Stupid is as Stupid does... |
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| Wine Bar at the top |
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| More very steep vineyards. The owner told us he has one leg shorter than the other |
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| Scenic view ruined by a couple of Numpties |
Sunday was a busy morning. First the bread van arrived and then the winemaker with a delivery of 6 bottles of his finest that we had ordered from him the day before. We then watched a huge Concorde empty it's black waste tank down the drain at the Motorhome service point. It may be a big, expensive, flash motorhome but it didn't half pong! Finally we set off hoping to park on a stellplatz just outside Cochem, but the design of the parking, and the selfish way people had placed their vans, meant that it would have been uncomfortable to stop so we moved onto the campsite just outside town. We wandered into Cochem where there was a nice wine and peach festival going on, we then took the chairlift to the viewpoint, ignored the hideously expensive café at the top, wandered around a bit and then headed back for a splendid night's kip.
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| Cochem |
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| On the chair lift in Cochem |
On Monday we once again made the mistake of following the SatNav rather than the map to head to the remarkable suspension footbridge at Morsdorf. The road was narrow, steep and twisty and we did meet a tractor coming the other way, but it was fun. Arriving at Morsdorf we found the motorhome parking area (you can stop overnight, but daytime parking is quite expensive), wandered through the village stopping at the rather nice war memorial chapel before messing around on the suspension bridge for a while. It was great fun and a remarkable effort to put a footbridge on a walking trail, but I suppose it does drag the tourists in. In the afternoon we moved onto our final stop on the Moselle in Kobern-Gondorf. This is another very pretty little town, but the Stellplatz, which is next to a fast road and railway, is very noisy and we were pleased to leave.
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| Gondorf |
Once we eventually found our way out of Gondorf on the Tuesday we headed north past the Nurburgring
to the delightful little village of Monschal. However, the campsite we stopped
to look at appeared a deserted, damp, miserable place so we stopped for a
couple of hours on the expensive parking area, mooched around the tourist tat filled
village, then headed back to the very pretty stellplatz at Gudem. Gudem itself is pretty boring though, but the stellplatz makes a great stopping place for exploring the Eifel region, which is very pretty indeed and certainly worth revisiting.
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Monschal
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Having completed our provisioning in Germany where things appear to be generally cheaper, we took a deep breath and jumped across the border into Belgium, rattling our way around the Brussels ring road and comparing the almighty tailback to the massive car park that is the M25. Finally we arrived at a campsite called Kompas Camping Westende, near Nieuwpoort on the Belgian coast. Madame receptionist wasn't the jolliest or the most helpful person ever, but eventually she deigned to allow us onto a pitch for a couple of nights. The people we met in Monshal also turned up and experienced the wrath of the battleaxe receptionist and were allocated a less spacious pitch by the gate. We had a quick mooch around the local area before retiring to bed.
On Thursday the weather was perfect so we cycled along the excellent bike tracks to Nieuwport, had a beer in the beach bar, cycled back to Middelkerke for lunch then went back to the van to chill out.
On Saturday we caught the train across to Twickenham to watch Harlequins and on Sunday we were up early and home in time for the washing machine to get through 4 loads before it got dark.
