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May 6 Saturday sunny hot 30º C Bicycle touring France Belgium Luxembourg Germany What a glorious day for a bicycle tour in France! Cycled in four countries in a single day! And we did it in just over 100 kilometres. We started our bicycling adventure this morning with breakfast in France. We cycled along, following a little river for a comfortable morning ride. The sun was already shining warmly. Pulled our touring bikes to a halt to shop for groceries at a Mammouth grocery store in Longwy -- the wrong thing to do on a Saturday morning before a long weekend. There were twenty cashiers on duty and each line had a minimum of five people -- mainly with overflowing buggies. The prices are good though. We cycled into Belgium. The architecture is different. They use pastel colours on the outside of their buildings. Pink, orange, powder blue. Around noon, we cycled into Luxembourg. In Rondange we found a small town park with grass, flowers, and benches. But no water. I walked across the street to a house with an open front gate and pushed the door bell. The lady of the house and her daughter appeared. Holding out my two cycle water jugs, I asked for water. They went and got glass bottles of Evian water. Against my protests, they proceeded to pour the water into my jugs. They said normal water was no good. So, Sharon and I are enjoying Evian water mixed with grapefruit concentrate. The woman was originally from Portugal. She told us she had moved to Luxembourg twenty years ago to find work. Her daughter was born in Luxembourg. Sharon and I found a quiet bench at the rear of the park and ate lunch. A dog behind the fence kept a watchful eye on our progression. A girl sat on a bench across from us, reading a text book (another thing we never saw in America). A few school kids cut through the park on a path. Two people walking dogs came along. Other than that, that was the extent of Saturday noon traffic through the park. We pushed our bikes out of the rear of the park and went past a stadium (soccer, of course -- I haven't seen a ball diamond since we left America). We soon cycled back into France. There aren't any guards at any of the border buildings. There is just an empty building with a sign across the road with the gold European union stars in a circle with "France" in the middle. We cycled along an exciting myriad of rural roads which had us constantly checking the map to make sure we didn't stray. We cycled beside lots of farmland. Some roads turned out to be narrow one-lane with tractors trying to overtake us on uphills (downhill though, we go supremely faster). One road was barricaded after a kilometre. A sign advised the way to go, so we cycled off on a detour and ended up on a rocky, bumpy, little cart track. This is a different part of France than normal bicycle tourists see, all right. Two young guys on mountain bikes passed us going up a long hill. We passed them going downhill -- ha ha. But neither Sharon nor I have our large chainrings, so on the flat they caught us -- we aren't too hard -- we block a lot of wind. It is pretty hard to fall out of our slipstream. One of the mountain bike riders held out his arms to air out his pits and then began weaving back and forth across the road while swinging his legs to and fro. We decided not to follow too closely. At the next town they turned left and we kept heading straight over another big hill. We finished our cycle tour today with over 3000 feet climbed. There are a surprising number of slumy-looking areas in these French towns close to the Luxembourg and Belgium borders. Clothes are hanging from balconies. I had never seen that in France before. And there is an atypical amount of garbage along the roadside. Usually the France roadside rivals Canada for cleanliness. By Berg sur Moselle, we found a bike path. At first it was nice cycling along the river, but soon it went into an old industrial area that wasn't too scenic. I don't know why they put a bike path there when it would be far nicer along the river. We cycled into Germany following another bike path along the Moselle. Lots of vineyards. They look different that France's. Sharon thinks they are white wine grapes. We are already too far north for red grapes to mature. We spotted a gravel road off the bike path and checked it out for free bicycle camping. The gravel road led to a swampy lake. While I was scouting out a grassy lane, Sharon was being feasted upon by blackflies. Too many people are around to try free camping. We cycled farther on the gravel road. We checked out a farmer's field for a possible free bicycle camping spot, but it was no good -- there was water and a crop. We got back on our touring bikes and promptly got lost in a maze of trout swamp ponds and one-lane roads linking "No Fishing" signs together. Finally, somehow, we got back on a bike path. We cycled past numerous campers facing the river. It looks like the railway, or whoever owns that strip of land between the railway and river, rents it out to summer campers. The campers cut the grass, have a picnic table, and have a tent that is like a huge plastic house with plastic windows. They are as large as an old-time summer home at the lake. It didn't look as though we were going to find a free bicycle camping spot by the populated river bank, so we cut inland at Palzen and soon cycled upon a quiet forest. Or at least it was quiet until a carload of teenagers showed up with their rock music. Sometimes these wild bicycle camping spots can be interesting. |
