September 8, 2012
To Enkirch - the oldest wine town on the Moselle: Tractors
It was another day of perfect cycling today. The weather is glorious and our route absolutely amazing as we dodge through vineyards and every few km come to yet another little wine town, each has its own different charm. All along the river are beautifully situated camping sites almost completely full of camping cars some of which are absolutely enormous. Our little orange tent must have looked pathetically small amongst them last night. It was indeed a long night! We finished eating our meager fare about 7pm. Managed to moch around by the river till 8pm as it was getting dark,no TV or enough light to read our kindles. One French man arrived just after 7pm, he was from Le Mans and doing a big trip on his bike alone. Someone shone a light on the tent at 1am and I thought it was morning but then it went out and I mainly slept till the church bells went at 6am and 7am. Then up all packed and pastries eaten by 8am and away. The tent was almost dry, there was no dew. We had a reasonable night’s sleep but were looking for a hotel tonight so I could with any luck get an internet connection.
Ken is delighted because this area seems to be a resevoir of ancient tractors so we make slow progress as we stop to admire and photograph every one. “All along the route I have spotted well looked after old tractors from the 1950 to 60 era. They nearly all have a cable winding mechanism for wire rope to pull things up near vertical grape slopes. They are 15 to 25hp and all diesel. They are either single or twin cylinder and are air or water cooled,
Just today I have seen and photographed a single cylinder Kramer, a two cylinder Hamonag going down the road , a two cylinder Guldner, a single cylinder Fendt, a two cylinder Eicher, several two cylinder Deutz and yesterday a single cylinder Hela.This village is alive with them they have obviously decided to look after them and use them.”
We decided to stop at Traben which looked a reasonably sized place. It was absolutely packed with tourists. I confidently went to the Tourist information to find somewhere to stay. Ken had wanted to stop earlier as Saturday is often a bit of a problem and on a beautiful weekend like this in a touristy place like Traben he was sure we would have problems. He was of course right. Oh dear what to do now. We could go back as I had seen a place with ‘zimmer frei’ about 10km back. The lady in the tourist information said go on and take the first place you see with the ’zimmer frei’ sign. I think she rather hoped we wouldn’t find anything. We could of course squeeze in with the camping cars as camp sites come up regularly but I fancied a bed (very soft of me). The first little village we came to was Enkirch, we passed one place saying it was full then came to a house with the ‘zimmer frei’ sign so I knocked on the door and here we are very comfortably settled. No wifi of course. Our hostess in Gastehaus Romer is charming and extremely excited as she has never had anyone staying here from so far away, she has got me to write in her guest book so she has memories of these aliens that have landed here.
Enkirch is a village with impressive town houses many of which are half timbered. We have explored its steep streets, had a beer and will soon go out to eat.
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Today's ride: 54 km (34 miles)
Total: 2,178 km (1,353 miles)
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