Day Twenty Seven: Zell to Neumagen, Planet of the Grapes: (Year 27: 1994)

October 17, 2017

Flash Back to 1994:

Cows, pigs, chickens, garden were our focus, though Steve continued his "day job". Dodie however preferred spinning and milking to Nursing.

Even little pigs are very strong, so this is how to move them. Sara, an olympic level athlete, used to come to the farm for such relaxing activities.

Dodie often says she was born in the wrong century, since she hates modern technology. Hand spinning is more like it! Many people agree, and she drew a lot of interest while demonstrating at markets.

Katie the Cow was queen of our place for many years. Only Dodie could milk her. She would kick anyone else!

Passing on a love for hand crafts - to Laurie. Laurie became more of a sewer.

Handcrafting and farming fit into an image of a simple life, expressed by "Simple Gifts" here sung by Judy Collins:

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Fast Forward to 2017, Germany:

At the south end of Zell we paused and turned around, and there saw the black cat of Zell set to welcome us back in. I guess they expect most tourists to arrive from this end. The Zell area really did look interesting, with lots of possible excursions up into the hills. But of course, we have places to go..

It was only with my wine lesson yesterday that I learned the white wine here is usually made with Riesling grapes. That was reinforced by a sign seen trailside:

Riesling rocks, but it only holds a bare majority of grapes used here.

Google contributes that Riesling is dominant, but is not the only variety: Riesling (56.8%), Müller-Thurgau (16.1%), Elbling (7.2%) . That anyway only adds up to 80%, so there must be a number of other varieties about, incuding red ones.

That may be a clue to another question we have had. Here in Fall the vines are turning colours. But the colours vary, while seeming more uniform within a block of vines than from block to block. So do the colours denote varieties? How about those ones that all have turned bright red? Wine/grape experts out there, what do you think?

Patchwork colours of the grapes in Fall.

Another little mystery is about the work of tending the vines. There are clearly acres and acres of them, all very tidy and precise. As we cycle we see little sporadic pairs or groups of people, tying up or maybe pruning a bit. There are not a lot of people out, and we can hear them speaking - they are German, probably family groups. So, no big teams of immigrants or guest workers. How can the little families keep everything so perfect? And if not busy, can they come to our house?

As we cycled along I started whining about the low number of bakeries we were passing, probably threatening collapse, since we were out two whole hours or so after our German breakfast. Dodie patiently (yes, patiently) explained that since this was an official bikeway it was skirting the towns and we would have to go in to find any services. The next town up was Trarbach, so in we went. And yes we scored a bakery right away. They were having a special on "plunder", which is "danish" as far as I am concerned. We got two cherry, one poppyseed, and one nut (kirsch, mohn, und nuss!). At last, I am happy.

On the way out of town there was a bike shop, and we stopped in just to look at stuff. 80% of the bikes on offer were e-bikes. That makes sense, because we have noticed that 80% of the cycle tourists here are using e-bikes. It is sort of a biased figure, though, because maybe 70% of the people on the trail are "older". That of course makes sense because in this season kids need to be in school, so families are unlikely to be here, and not-retired people are also probably on the job. But anyway, clearly, retired people on longer distance rides in Germany use e-bikes. The bike shop, naturally, will simply be responding to this basic fact of their business life.

Of course e-bikes here must be pedalled, so these retirees are out there getting exercise, to the best of their ability. In no case have we seen anyone zooming along the trail, they are all just sedately pedalling. This is in contrast to Netherlands, where real motor scooters are permitted on the paths, and are a real menace.

The other thing at the exit to town, other than the great bridge to Traben, was a place selling potted grape vines. What a great souvenir, except that you would have to live in Europe, and the vines would probably die away from this special environment where they thrive.

How about this cute little folding number?

Each morning now seems to start with temperature between 10 and 12, and significantly, with a lot of heavy fog or mist. The fog obscures the views, but is of course atmospheric in its own way. I ws counting on it being gone, though, for our arrival at Bernkastel. Bernkastel-Kues is clearly the heart of the Mosel, even given how great Cochem and Zell may be. Bernkastel features the most fachwerk (half timbered) houses, the narrowest narrow streets, and the most tourists. There is one shooting angle for all this that three years ago I decided was really the most evocative. That time I was frustrated by a big truck that decided to park in front of the view. This time, if the fog would clear, I was ready to get that shot. (Of course, I am not the first to notice this photo op - it is already on a post card, that we just sent to someone.)

When we got to Bernkastel we scouted around for a couple of minutes, to remember the spot, and when we came upon it it was clearly the one. Also clear was the fact that another darn truck was parked in front of it! Oh well, we can always buy another post card.

Here is that shot I was after, with the darn truck in the foreground.

How about this powerful toy - it's a tracked digger controlled by remote.

Near Erden, this little town or hamlet is really snuggled into the vines.

There are many sundials on hills of the Mosel. Most cyclists photograph at least one. Here's mine.

We had booked a place in Neumagen, treating the town as just a random name on the map. In the hallway of our guesthouse there was a miniature statue of a Roman boat. "Oh yeah", we casually remarked, "that's that boat from a town around her somewhere". It wasn't long after going out for a quick walk that we stumbled on the full sized statue.
"D'oh, Neumagen is that town!".

Neumagen (or "Noviomagus" in Ronam times) has been a spot on the Trier-Bingen-Mainz road since before 275. In 275 it was destroyed by "Germans". But emperor Constantine had it rebuilt and walled. A lot of archeological excavations have been done in the vicinity, with many impressive finds. I may be making this up, but I seem to recall that the Roman boat statue was found as part of the grave of a wine merchant. When we were here three years ago, we also thought we read that there was a boat reproduction in wood somewhere, but we never found it. Well this time we did. They were cleverly hiding it in the water, docked in front of a hotel. They call it the Stella Noviomagi and it was produced about 2007 by the Trier Chamber of Crafts to be an authentic reproduction. The cost was about 250,000 euros. The thing can hold about 40 people. It has gas power but can also be rowed.

We found a restaurant and ordered our second pizza in Germany. So now that we are experts we can say that the German toppings are flavourful (espeially the cheese) bit the crusts are poor - thin and lacking in character. On the other hand, they are cheaper by far per square inch than pizza in Canada!

Tomorrow, if we can get up early enough we will hit Konz, and be ready to leave the Mosel and take on the Saar!

On this map you can see Zell, where we were, Neumagen where we are, and Konz where we are going.

Our Weingut in Neumagen. Actually "weingut" means "winery" but we see that word on places that do not seem to produce wine. Most places we see sell wine and offer wine tasting. There seems to be several German words that describe wine operations. Our place is really a restaurant/guesthouse, but maybe just its name is "the Old Winery".

Today's ride: 70 km (43 miles)
Total: 735 km (456 miles)

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