Easter bike trip: Take 3

For the third year in a row, Joe and I did an Easter bike trip. With snow on Easter Sunday during both of our last trips, we'd discussed flying to Sicily or taking the train to the south of France for our Easter trip this year, but we were finally rewarded with good weather and we stayed in Germany. We biked down the Moselle River, one of the oldest wine-growing regions in Germany, to its confluence with the Rhine. Then we biked up the Rhine to the town of Mainz.

We took the slow train up to Trier on Good Friday ("Karfreitag"). It involved 6 different trains, but was a lot cheaper than paying for two adult tickets and bike transport on a fast train. Trier was a major Roman settlement, and the Black Gate ("Porta Nigra") is an obvious reminder of that heritage. We also encountered some Roman soldiers still defending their conquest near the old stadium. Following our late start, we biked about 30 km downriver and rented a room in a private home in a town called Detzem. We managed to scrounge up a schnitzel for dinner.

The next day we got into some of the beautiful scenery that the Moselle is known for: steep valley walls with every arable inch covered in vines. We got sidetracked in Neumagen, where an old Roman signpost gave us the mileage back to Trier. We made it to the tourist hotspot of Bernkastel-Kues, where we stopped for lunch, and saw what is possibly the world's thinnest half-timbered house ("Fachwerkhaus"). We stopped for the evening in the town of Zell, and took a walk above town through it's vineyards, and found views of the old towers that fortified the town wall. Unfortunately, Joe forgot to bring the camera on our walk. Zell is famous for it's "Black Cat" Riesling, which we'd never hear of, but tried anyway.

The next morning on Easter Sunday we pedaled out of Zell under sunny skies and great views of more vineyards. Apparently this bike route hits its peak in autumn when all of the vines are leafed out in vibrant colors, but we get Good Friday and the Monday after Easter off of work, so it's always a good time to get away. We got to Cochem and had a picnic with a view of the castle there, then off for more pedaling. We encountered lots of Easter Sunday festivities along the way - mostly small festivals with an oompah band and a few food stalls set up. We ended up getting all the way into Koblenz, the town where the Moselle and the Rhine meet. It was a big day - 100 km. We ended it with a hearty meal at a brewpub in Koblenz.

 

The next morning we rounded the Deutsche Eck in Koblenz, the corner of the confluence, complete with a gigantic statue of Emperor Wilhelm I. We then headed up the Rhine, where we raced the riverboat "Goethe" for a ways before we good and passed it. Two years ago we spent the day aboard the Goethe with my parents when they came to visit. After awhile, the Rhine gets pretty boring. It is just castle after castle, one about every 2 km, punctuated by famous rocks, which all Germans love to sing about.

We made an early day of it and spent the night in Bingen, where Hildegard from Bingen founded her convent sometime around 1100 AD. It was a great place to explore. Between the bustling riverfront parks, restored castle, historic Altstadt, and confluence with the Nahe river, we had great views of castle ruins across the river in Rüdesheim and Assmanshausen. Joe convinced me to stay the night in the youth hostel (Jugendherberge). I was very skeptical, but it turns out that some German youth hostels are more like conference centers, and this one was one of the nice ones. We could even take our meals there, and although it was a bit institutional, it was in a beautiful building high above Bingen with some great views.

The next morning we packed up our things, took the ferry across the river, and made our way to Mainz for a noon train back home. The weather had turned cloudy by that point, and we'd emerged from the steep-sided valley into flat, more industrial geography. We both agreed this was our favorite Easter bike trip so far, but it seems the weather plays a disproportionate role in determining the rankings!