Wandering around Thionville the night before we finally found the one and only French patriarchal altar left standing from the Revolution apparently every French town had one. Hubby also tried out a French hairdresser, he now has no hair, trimmed eyebrows and a perfect line for his beard; every stray hair was removed.We also checked out various old towers but the town museum was closed where the town gaol used to be from the 1200s. There was also a good museum across the river on the Jewish deportations but there was a limit to how much walking around in the heat an icecream could carry you.

 

After a very hot night the weather has finally cooled down but just in case we were off cycling by 8am. We were glad we hadn’t pushed on the following day as there was no shade at all for the first 30kms so that might have finished us off yesterday!

Our first sights of the day was one of Frances huge nuclear reactors dominating the skyline for kilometres, impressive. We later crossed the huge barrage over the Moselle used to prevent floods, and there was an extra lagoon for waste water from the reactor. Apparently  the reactor used to pour hot waste water into the Moselle which increased the water temp by 1.5C enough to cause algal blooms and kill fish hence the new lagoon.

It was then we discovered we were cycling the route of this years Tour de France, this area is all closed off on July 2nd.We’d also cycled a part of this years tour near Dusseldorf, next year the whole lot….

 

On to the historic town of Sierck les Bains with well preserved ramparts and town walls for our coffee break. Within a few kms we were in  Germany again and this is when we should have crossed the Moselle into Schengen, Luxembourg but we were so busy following the new signs of the Mosel Fahradweg that we didnt realise our guide book wanted us to go another way.Schengen is where the historic agreement occured to rid Europe of borders in the middle of the Moselle.

There was little in the way of cafes on the german side so lunchtime we crossed over into Wintrange, Luxembourg and discovered it was Luxembourgs National Day a public holiday!!So hardly anything was open but we did find a very nice Asian restaurant open so a no lunch disaster was averted.Knowing it was Luxembourgs public holiday we cycled back over the bridge to return to Germany.At this point hubbys cycle chain came off again ,are those cogs going to last the trip they are looking very worn!!

 

Cycling after lunch we encountered our first snake of the trip an adder right on my side of the path.

We started looking for accommodation at this point as we’d cycled over 55kms and needed a bit of rest and recovery from the previous 2 days of heat. Found a very reasonable hotel overlooking the Rhine with a balcony and spacious room very nice.We are located in a village full of wine outlets and restaurants; totally wasted on us although I was tempted by the champagne from Luxembourg apparently very famous. Hubby was encouraging me to have a taste but I struggle to stay upright without the alcohol as you can see on the photo when my bike just wanted to have a lie down…

Hotel-Restaurant zum Muhlengarten

Uferstrasse

NITTEL

we didnt look around Nittel but this small village has about 7 other guest houses and 1 other hotel so plenty of choice and a few holiday appartments

Good spot to explore this area another tributary Saur comes off here with good cyclepaths