Blue skys, nice cool morning, we rode across the border into France to have a coffee and croissant breakfast at Sierck les Bains, then on to Thionville, passing a nuclear power station on the way.
A Swiss couple who were riding the other way down the Mosel told us the route was changed in our next section and was not as shown on the maps we both had. They advised us it was well designed and followed canals.
We had a different experience, following signs that led to dead ends, and canal paths without signs that led to impassable construction sites. Approaching Metz we rode for a while with an old French fellow who kept up with us after we overtook him.
The ride into Metz itself was pretty unpleasant with very heavy traffic.
We had booked into Hotel Foch, which is old and cheap but overlooks a lovely square and is only a short walk from the station.
We walked in to the city centre for a look, and also to see if we could find somewhere to buy a big roll of bubblewrap and some tape. The next day we were to travel by train to Cholet, changing trains and stations in Paris. On the train from Paris we had been unable to book spaces for our bikes, and we we going to have to turn them into luggage.
After spending some time at the tourist info office enquiring about where to get bubblewrap, without any promise of success, we started to walk back towards our hotel and found that all the shops were putting bags of rubbish out on the street, including some very useful looking heavy duty blue plastic that we thought would be perfect for wrapping up couple of bikes. Voila! And the book shop next door had a big roll of tape.
We celebrated the end of the Rhine/Mosel cycle touring part of our trip by paying too much for meal at a restaurant near our hotel.
A Swiss couple who were riding the other way down the Mosel told us the route was changed in our next section and was not as shown on the maps we both had. They advised us it was well designed and followed canals.
We had a different experience, following signs that led to dead ends, and canal paths without signs that led to impassable construction sites. Approaching Metz we rode for a while with an old French fellow who kept up with us after we overtook him.
The ride into Metz itself was pretty unpleasant with very heavy traffic.
We had booked into Hotel Foch, which is old and cheap but overlooks a lovely square and is only a short walk from the station.
We walked in to the city centre for a look, and also to see if we could find somewhere to buy a big roll of bubblewrap and some tape. The next day we were to travel by train to Cholet, changing trains and stations in Paris. On the train from Paris we had been unable to book spaces for our bikes, and we we going to have to turn them into luggage.
After spending some time at the tourist info office enquiring about where to get bubblewrap, without any promise of success, we started to walk back towards our hotel and found that all the shops were putting bags of rubbish out on the street, including some very useful looking heavy duty blue plastic that we thought would be perfect for wrapping up couple of bikes. Voila! And the book shop next door had a big roll of tape.
We celebrated the end of the Rhine/Mosel cycle touring part of our trip by paying too much for meal at a restaurant near our hotel.
Ducks cute! Tracey - you are looking very trim!! Looks like the parkas have come in handy :):) You'd need them here at present I can tell you! And its FREEZING!!!
ReplyDeletepam