After a busy morning at the dentist and hygienist on the Monday, it was off down to the Chunnel on Tuesday for a quiet and leisurely trip to our usual overnight spot at Cite Europe. After arrival we did a spot of shopping, noting how much prices have risen in France. We don't know what's happened over there, but everything seems to have become ridiculously expensive.
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| A bit lonely at Cite Europe |
Wednesday dawned windy but sunny. We met a few Motorhome Fun members, had a quick chat, bought some fresh bread and continued our journey down through Belgium to our overnight parking by the canal at Thieu. It was a warm and sunny day so we sat outside and basked in the sun.
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| Tea for Thieu |
On Thursday morning a fisherman arrived and decided to announce his arrival (at 0645hrs) by tooting his horn and parking up right in front of the van. With our early alarm call, we decided to drive straight through to the Mosel, stopping at Luxembourg to fill up with fuel at just over £1 a litre. Our intended stopping spot, the stellplatz at Piesport, was full, so we stopped just over the river at Minheim. Having parked up we set off in search of a nice cool bottle of wine, but the place was like a ghost town. Finally we tracked down somebody who was willing to flog us a few bottles and we sat outside the van and tried to ignore the mullet-haired Belgian parked opposite with a voice like a foghorn. We actually met more funsters on the stellplatz. They get everywhere!
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| Vineyards in Minheim |
On Friday morning the bread van arrived and we joined the long queue for our daily rolls. We'll miss having decent bread delivered when we get home. Then it was on to the stellplatz at Zell where we wanted to collect some more of the very nice wine we bought on our last visit. We did the long walk dodging the rain. Why does it always rain in Zell?
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| New bridge over the Mosel is nearing completion |
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| Zell |
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| Always a queue for the bread van |
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| Big boats chugging past the windscreen |
The following day we drove from Zell to Mainz, parking in the Stellplatz next to the football stadium. Mainz is quite a big city so, accordingly, we walked for miles. We stopped at a stall for bratwurst just so we could squeeze the teats on the hanging sauce bottles. What a great idea they are! We noticed that the crowds gathered around the various wine stalls dotted around the city were drinking what appeared to be pints of wine. This we had to try. Apparently called Weinschorle, it is a sort of spritzer, but ours was a pint of wine with a dash of soda on top. Suitably refreshed, if not pie-eyed, we bimbled around the cathedral and the old town then, not very far from the Mainz Cathedral, is St. Stefan's Church. It has beautiful stained glass windows created by the Frenchman Marc Chagall. The original windows of the church were destroyed during the second world war so the Pastor contacted the Jewish artist Chagall who promised to design the new windows. Finally, knackered, we staggered back to the van to beat the rain.
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| Saucy Teats |
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| Mainz |
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| Mainz Cathedral |
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| Weinschorle |
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| Chagall windows |
Woke up on Sunday morning to heavy rain. We drove to Lohr am Main as the rain stopped, so we had a walk around a very pleasant town famous for being the birthplace of Snow White:
"Once upon a time, a kind and beautiful princess lived in a handsome castle in Germany. Her mother died when she was still a girl, and her father remarried shortly afterwards. But the stepmother was a vain and manipulative woman, favouring her own children over her adopted stepdaughter. Inevitably, the relationship snapped; the princess fled away from her family, over great hills and through deep forests. Eventually she settled and lived in exile in a community of dwarfs working in the local mines. The princess (well, Baroness, technically…) was Maria Sophia Margaretha Catherina von Erthal. Quite a mouthful, isn’t it? But you have almost certainly recognised her already as “Schneewittchen” from the classic Brothers Grimm fairy tale: or, in English Snow White.".
The small town does make much of this connection, but it isn't too tacky and, with the surrounding forests, mining communities, apple orchards and tradition for glassmaking is quite easy to imagine how the fairy-tale came about.
We bought some rolls and cakes from the bakery, then drove on to Hymer world just outside Wertheim, where we parked up for the night.
