Zwaan

September 24, 2023

First shake down ride

After a leisurely morning and a fortifying breakfast at our hotel zur Traube we hiked with our luggage to the Löf train station.

We rode the train along the Mosel to Cochem where we are to meet the Zwaan our hotel boat.

The Cochem train station was a very interesting building

Another hike and we made it to the boat, a few minutes early. Loaded our luggage on board and met up with our guide. Our guide is Albert the same guide that we had four years ago when we did the tulip tour on the Zwaan. Then it was off to find some lunch, and hang out until 3:00 when we could board the boat.

Our boat the Zwaan with the Cochem castle in the background

At 3:00 we met the other passengers, two Canadian couples and tested out our bikes, adjusted seats etc. then we took a short shakedown ride along the river down 8 km crossed the river and rode back. The trail along the river is flat and the only hills we had were getting up to the bridges crossing the river. The bikes are nice, not terribly heavy and we can back pedal them! No coaster brakes! Yahoo!!! Nice bikes.

We only have eight people on this trip all with cycling experience.

On our ride this afternoon we saw lots of vineyards and our guide told us that most of the small vineyards along the steep sides of the Mosel are family farms. They are subsidized by the government so they will continue to farm the land. It is very costly to grow grapes on the steep slopes because it is very expensive to grow and harvest on the steep slopes in comparison to the flat land. They have to have special equipment. Even with the subsidy it is difficult to make a living unless they also open their vineyards for tours and tastings and promote their wines in other ways.

The Zwaan is docked across the river from the main part of Cochem with a great view of a castle and the riverside medieval buildings. We enjoyed sitting on the deck enjoying the view.

Great view from the boat even with the sun setting and low light

Blog posts may be a little sporadic this week. In order to conserve power they turned off the Wi-Fi when the generators went off and they were running on battery power.

Looking forward to the ride tomorrow!

Today's ride: 10 miles (16 km)
Total: 162 miles (261 km)

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Lynn WalkerThanks for the heads up on blogs! Enjoying your tour through your blogs and pictures.
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7 months ago