Day 22: Return to Vancouver (Sunday, September 11th)

 Just to let everyone know that we are now back in Vancouver.

We were scheduled to depart from Frankfurt Flughafen on our Air Canada flight for 10:15 am, but we departed about 90 minutes later. We were starting to pull from the gate and in fact a few minutes early when the plane stopped. The pilot came on to announce there was a medical emergency with a passenger and they needed to return to the gate. Medics and emergency personnel boarded the plane and apparently the passenger was taken off the plane. This all took a lot of time and then our plane missed its window to taxi to the runway.

We landed 90 minutes late. On getting close to customs there was a long queue of fellow passengers from our flight and other international flights as I guess downstairs was too busy to take us. Eventually we got downstairs and in front of a Nexus machine. Problems with the machine! Then on queuing up for customs with our declaration we kept on getting bumped from priority and waited a long time to see the officer. More questions about what we purchased in terms of wine and then told to go to the cashier.

Yup, we must have got a young guy as he was pretty much clueless. He needed his manager to help him and that was no improvement. It took a long time for them to figure out how many bottles, what size and then how much to charge us. Ridiculous! We repeated ourselves many times. These two made it way more complicated than it needed to be. We paid around $200CDN for our wine over and above the four bottles we are allowed to return with. That is a lot of money, but basically it is $12CDN extra for each of the 14 bottles over our limit. We cannot buy any of this wine in BC or Canada for that matter.

All is good as we are safely at home and none of our wine suffered any damage. All our checked in luggage showed up and we took the Canada Line back to our apartment. It is a warm day here, but super smoky. According to Google it is due to wildfires, woodlot blaze and a temperature inversion.

I took this photo (not a good one) of our eighteen (18) bottles of German Riesling. We will hold this wine in our wine fridge and drink sometime in a few years. 

DAy 21: Bundesliga! (Saturday, September 10th)

Last night our friend Markus was trying to transfer the Bundesliga tickets to my Eintracht Frankfurt iPhone app that I loaded before I left Canada. Markus' friend is a season ticket holder and wanted to sell his tickets so we lucked out. Apparently, the tickets (75Euro total) can only be transferred virtually and Markus had sent them to the 'wallet' of my app. Before we left Markus the tickets were 'loading' and no email notification indicating the tickets had been transferred. Hoping when we woke up this morning everything was in order and we could confidently go to the game. 

                                                           Eintracht Frankfurt team logo. 

The tickets were transferred successfully! I received two emails from Eintracht Frankfurt that needed my confirmation and voila we have the two tickets in my app "wallet". This is a screen shot of one of our tickets for the big match this afternoon. Pretty exciting! We have been to the stadium before a number of years ago and saw the home team play Borussia Dortmund which they lost. The game is not until 15:30, but we want to get there early and enjoy the atmosphere and see the players warm up. 

Pretty lazy morning. Lana did some German grocery shopping (REWE) with food items we will bring home and eat at sometime in the future. German food is not fancy, but it is comforting. We watch some tv as the big news is the death of Queen Elizabeth II and the signing in of Charles as the new king. Boring to me, but much of the world adores royalty. Lana notes that this a pretty significant event for our lifetime having grown up with the Queen as our monarch.  Her primary school in Moose Jaw was named Queen Elizabeth School. 

Lana bought a wurst croissant in the morning. Basically a weiner inside a croissant. Pretty good.

               Lana found a pineapple peeling and coring machine at REWE for customer who buy a whole pineapple! No, she did not buy it not did she buy a pineapple to try it out but she thought it looked pretty cool. 

I do some word and number puzzles and slowly get ready. The only real activity today will be attending the Bundesliga game. We finally get moving and can't really find anything in the airport for lunch. We do know that outside of the stadium and on the way to the stadium there are many food and beverage vendors.

The weather is very unpredictable today. For certain it is no longer shorts weather and there are forecasts of rain and clouds. We are in our seats in the beautiful stadium by 14:30 and in Row 10 and around the 18 yard line. We took the S9 train from the Flughafen and it was packed with Eintracht Frankfurt fans. Train kept stopping on the tracks at various places so what should have been about five minutes was up to twenty minutes. Lots of people drinking beer. Our first stop is at a hot dog stand and a bratwurst for me and a spiesbraten (roast pork) on a bun for Lana. Got a glass of water as well. Lots of police once you get off the train and all the way to the stadium. Plus, there are police in full riot gear.

One of many police vans around the stadium and the train station. 

Our shot inside the stadium and not too far from our seats. This stadium was built for the 2006 World Cup in Deutschland.

Long walk to the stadium through a forest for some of the walk. When we arrive to the stadium, Security checks our bag and pats Lana down. We scan both tickets through an electronic card reader machine and we are officially inside. It is more of a walk around the stadium towards Gate 2. There is a sign indicating 14 so we enter this narrow section and confirm this is correct. A father and his adult son are beside us and the son speaks English. Shortly after sitting we see ourselves on the giant Jumbotron hanging from high in the middle of the stadium. We are famous for a few seconds. Lana obtains a screenshot of the young guy's phone as he took a picture. 

Our brief moment of fame!

They are playing Nirvana on the stadium speakers and other great rock music. All the music they play is American rock. When the visiting team (Wolfsburg) two goalies come on the field the crowd boos. At this point it is sunny and warm and Lana is using her umbrella like a hat due to the heat. After a while it becomes cloudy and dark and then some moments of rain. Temperature is 19 degrees Celsius. When Eintracht Frankfurt comes out with their players the stadium erupts in cheers. Their colours are black and white. We are partly under cover. If the wind is blowing our way we will get some rain on our heads, but Lana shares her umbrella with me. About five minutes into the game two young fans come running onto the field and are immediately grabbed and thrown to the ground by Security. The game is stopped and they are placed in handcuffs and carried away. 

We are seated on the lower tier and Lana is standing beside the green jacketed steward. Individual seats with lots of leg room. All concrete. 

             Before the game started and before most of the fans arrived we had our picture taken.

                       Cool idea to have the backs of seats painted to match the Eintracht Frankfurt crest. 

                                          The home team warming up before the game. 

These are the standings in the Bundesliga before the game started. Neither team has made a very good start to the season. 

Most of the fans had their team scarves and before the game started they waved them as they sang their team anthem. 

Picture of the north end of the stadium where the rabid Eintracht Frankfurt supporters all stand for the entire game. Huge flags waving, chanting and in some cases bobbing up and down in unison. Quite the sight. 

Eintracht Frankfurt fans singing their anthem prior to the start of the game. Very moving...Check out his link on YouTube courtesy of Lana's iPhone. 

At the end of the first half it is a 0-0 draw. Eintracht Frankfurt had most of the ball possession and hit the goal post on a shot. The most famous player on the pitch is Mario Götze who scored a winning World Cup goal for Deutschland a few years ago. Interesting that they water the field before the game and at half time. The home fans are fantastic. The north end of the stadium is the super fans zone and they are constantly waving flags, chanting, singing, jeering and making a ton of noise. Each time the visiting team fans (small zone opposite end fenced off) make noise then the home fans ratchet up their noise to drown them out. Superb atmosphere! Interesting too that there are no concessions inside the stadium and in fact no toilets either. Basically you walk in and out and that is it. All the concessions, toilets and fan sales are outside of the stadium. There are Police constantly on vigilance. 

Unfortunate for the home fans but the home team gives up a goal around the 60 minute mark to a header off a corner. They mount many attacks, but no scoring. Game ends up a 1-0 win for Wolfsburg. 

At the conclusion of the game we wait for many of the fans to depart given there is simply too much of a crush of people. At half-time I bought a carbonated water at a vendor and used my best German. Problem was he said "sechs" which is the number six in German. I am shocked that a glass of water could cost that much. I think he didn't understand why I was asking more questions as he reverted to English. The actual cost is 4Euros, but they charge you 2Euros for the plastic cup. You can return the cup to get your 2Euro refund which we did after the game. 

I am getting pretty hungry as it is already after 17:15. No problem as we will find delicious German food on the way to the train. Lana remembered a food cart selling Leberkäse on a bun. We wait in line and then after our order wait longer. It was worth the wait as Lana ate a fair bit herself. 

Food cart with leberkäse, but also many types of German weiners.

 

This is a picture of my Leberkäse in a bun. I squeezed on some of my favourite German mustard as well. 

OK, we are fairly close to the Stadion train station and there are hundreds of fans hanging around and getting in a queue for the train. Different from North America, after a game fans hang around for a long time and drink beer and eat and talk. We see that an S train is on its way to track 5 so we head to the tunnel and then onto the platform. Many fellow riders are crowding the platform and we wait quite a while for the train. Then we jam inside and eventually in two stations we are at the Flughafen station. On the way to our hotel, I purchase a tomato and mozzarella sandwich within a bagel baguette. Lana wants "Chinese" food so she buys her take-out and back to the room. It is now past 19:00 so we have been gone for around six hours. She enjoyed her Chinese food and I wolfed down my sandwich. In the morning Lana had bought two Portuguese egg tarts (Pastis de nada) that we enjoyed as our dinner dessert.

Our last full day in Deutschland. Lana wants us out of the room by 07:30. Our Air Canada direct flight is scheduled to leave at 10:15. Of course we have already completed our ArriveCan app as required by the Canadian government before landing in Vancouver. All our 18 bottles of wine are packed away. I will need to complete packing most of my stuff prior to going to bed tonight. Also, we will need to weigh Lana's suitcase tomorrow to ensure she is under her allowable weight. 

Day 20: Reversing on the Freeway (Friday, September 9th)

We enjoyed our last hotel breakfast and loaded up on the eggs. Our bags were pretty much packed last night. Our goal was to leave before 10:00 and we were ten minutes before our self-imposed deadline. Our GPS unit takes us to B50 which happens to be closed! Then we figure out a new route with the GPS and eventually it takes us down a road that turns into gravel and then a dead-end! Yikes, not too dependable although we figured out an alternate route fairly quickly using Lana's iPhone. Thank goodness for Google Maps! Traffic not too bad on the way to Frankfurt Flughafen (Airport) although it was the usual German semi-trailers that clog up the side roads and slow the freeway. 

We needed to fill the gas tank before returning the car at the Hertz Rental return at the Flughafen. There is a Shell gas station at Cargo terminal we have used in the past so we pulled in there. Problem is there is no obvious way to re-connect with the Flughafen and then Car Rental Return. We kind of fluke out to find the entrance to the airport roadway to take us to Car Rental Returns. There was a turn off on the right and it was lightly raining and I slowed down but by the time we saw the sign Car Rental Return we were just past the off ramp. I pulled to the side waited for the traffic to go by and then reversed onto the freeway and then onto the off ramp.  Had we missed this ramp, it would have been another twenty minute drive around the airport again as everything is on a ring road surrounding this huge airport  ;-)

We were checked into the Hilton Garden Inn just after 12:00 so that worked out very well. We have stayed here many times in the past so quite aware of its location. Always good memories. Room on the 10th floor and it has a bathtub for Lana! We discover that the electrical outlets can accommodate North American plugs. Open our suitcases and get our stuff organized as we have two nights here. For our lunch we have some favourite casual places near our hotel. Plus, Lana visited REWE at the one end of the hall to confirm potential grocery purchases to take home. Lana bought a spinach and mushroom flatbread at Ditsch. I went to Le Crobag and purchased an egg sandwich which was delicious. We finished a bottle of sparkling water and off to the regional train station located in the bowels of the airport. 

We needed to purchase a day ticket for the railroad which covers up to five persons. It is a bit of a walk to the train station located in the lower level. Total cost 18.40Euro which is a good deal as we will be going back and forth between the airport and Frankfurt at least twice today = four trips. The railroad platform was super busy with people. Took a while for the S8 train to show and then we are on our way to downtown Frankfurt. Very quickly we had our ticket checked by an agent. We learned that everyone on the train must wear a face mask or face a 50Euro fine! The agent did not have an extra mask, but was not harsh with us. I was wearing a face mask, but Lana had forgotten hers back in the room. 

We got off at the Hauptwache (main walking street in Frankfurt) as we always do. Lana is looking for some special tea and we want to visit The Galeria Kaufhof where we buy our favourite Gewürztraminer. Lots of people shopping in the Hauptwache as the weather is very inconsistent with warm sun and rainfall. We could not find our usual Galeria Kaufhof, but what had occurred was it might have been purchased and changed the name to simply the Galeria. We went to the basement floor and our wine section was still there! Very quickly though I was intercepted by a fellow doing a wine tasting! How could I refuse?

Steven was serving five Mosel Riesling wine from Weingut Nick Weis St. Urbans-Hof. All the wine he was serving were 2021 vintage which he described as a classic vintage for Kabinett style. Most of the wine were of the drier style, but the last wine he served was a Kabinett at 40 grams of residual sugar. We had a great discussion about Mosel Riesling wines and the fact he lived in Vancouver a few years ago while working for another Weingut. Good acidity in the 2021 vintage. If you see LAY on a Riesling bottle that means the type of slate. I ended up purchasing the 2021 Kabinett for about 18Euro and that is the very last wine we can buy on this trip. No more wine skins!

The train stop is right beside the department store so we are underground and looking for the S tracks. There is a transit working direction people at the back end of the platform towards the middle--apparently the trains are all stopped at the front end and if people aren't lined up to where the cars are, they will either have to run to meet the train or miss it. We get off the train and follow the escalators and eventually up to the top floor where it is a long walk down a couple of halls. Lots of travellers here as it is a combination of air and rail here. Back into the room and Lana takes the opportunity for a nap. We are to meet our friend Markus at the U Bahn Schweitzer Platz stop at 18:00. This will require a transfer at an S stop and then find the appropriate U train to take us to Markus' stop. Many people in these train stations. We wait a very long time at the Airport platform as the S8 or S9 trains won't arrive for at least 15 minutes. I alert Markus by text and we actually show up at the designated meeting area about five minutes late. 

Markus lives in the hip Sachsenhausen neighbourhood of Frankfurt. We know Markus through Lana's friendship with Wolfgang whom we visited in Heidelberg last week. Markus always takes us to a restaurant in his neighbourhood. We walk to Adolph Wagner (Äpfelwein Wagner) restaurant which we have visited on at least two occasions in the past. It is known as a neighbourhood place suitable for large parties. Plus, they serve Äpfelwein in large quantities. What is äpfelwein? For a North American we would describe it as like apple cider. You order a sparkling water and pour some into your glass in order to lessen the taste/alcohol from the äpfelwein. This apple cider is pretty dry and "rough" hence the need to add some sparkling water .

                                  Online picture of the interior of Adolph Wagner. Very old, classic German and lots of wood.

Markus got us an english menu although we have gotten decently good with translating German menus.

           Lana's order of Frankfurter Schnitzel with Grüner Soße (sauce) and home fried potatoes. 

In Frankfurt, bread sellers are allowed to come into restaurants/beer gardens where a fellow comes around with different German breads you can have with your meal. He is not employed by the restaurant and visits various restaurants in the area. Anything he sells is his earnings. 

                                    Randy and Markus. For some reason the photo has twisted us. 

Grüner sauce which is a Frankfurt specific condiment--it's made of 7 herbs (chive, parsley, sorrel, borage, cress, chervil, burnet) mixed with sour cream and hard boiled egg. 

Jug of apfelwein that contains much more apfelwein that you think. We kept pouring for hours until it was empty. Plus, adding some sparkling water to cut the juice. 

Randy's order of Wagner Schnitzel stuffed with sauerkraut, bacon and creme fraiche and comes with mashed potatoes. Pretty good, although I still prefer German fried potatoes!

We leave around 21:15 and walk back to the train stop and say our goodbyes to Markus. A great visit and catch up. We transfer to the S9 train and for some reason our S train was stopped a number of times on the way back to the Flughafen. Not into our hotel room until after 22:15. Another good day in Deutschland!

Day 19: Castles & Riesling Porn! (Thursday, September 8th)

Well, it appeared to have rained somewhat over night, but the new forecast for today is sunny and cloudy with maybe some rain much later. We enjoy another superb breakfast in the hotel dining room. Late start to the day as well. We have two goals today being our last day in the Mosel. First task is to visit the local castle high on the hill above Bernkastel and secondly and most important is to visit the Rieslinghaus or aka Weinhaus Porn. It makes sense to do our hiking up to the castle and later visit for a wine tasting and perhaps purchase more Riesling.

Burg Landshut is the castle very high on the hill overlooking Bernkastel. The hike is advertised as steep, but only about twenty minutes total. The history of the site is that there was an ancient Roman castle at this spot in the 4th or 5th Century. Many centuries later at the end of the 13th Century local powers built what you can now see on the hill. Another German castle overlooking a river, but it is always worth exploring this kind of history.

We took this picture from where we are staying. The castle is across the Mosel and very high up the mountain. 

                                                          Map of Burg Landshut. 

                      Selfie we took at the castle overlooking Kues on the other side of the Mosel. 

This is a great panoramic picture Lana took from the top of the castle overlooking the Mosel. We wanted to see if we could capture how the Mosel river winds around the hill behind Kues. This river makes many u-turns along its course. 

Picture of Bernkastel from on top of the castle. You can see it is like a triangle nestled into the hills and vineyards that surround it. 

                     Picture from inside the castle looking up at the stone ceiling very high above. 

The very top of the castle and you have quite a panoramic view of everything below inclusive of river, towns, hills and the many vineyards. 

                     One side of this ancient castle that cannot be seen from Bernkastel-Kues. 

For certain portions of the walk up to the castle are steep. At a regular pace you can make it to the castle from Bernkastel in about fifteen minutes. Lots of vineyards on the way up. Mostly smooth surface to walk on while hiking up but some parts are all cobble stones. Super windy today at the castle! Need to pay 1 Euro each to take the ancient stairs up to the top tower. You get your tickets from a machine and then use the ticket to gain entry towards the top by scanning and then the turnstile opens. Worth the money as you walk up a number of ancient steps and then you are at the very top. Up top we get talking to a couple from Allentown, Pennsylvania who are on a river boat cruise. They took the Yellow tourist bus up the castle like the majority of tourists. They indicated their cruise boat travels between cities during the night. At 12:00 we can hear the church bells ringing below. We spend some time watching the large tourist boats ply the waters below and find a  comfortable wooden seat to get a rest and enjoy the scenery. Maybe a 150 metres elevation gain on our hike up? 

It is lunch time and Lana googles local restaurants and we navigate our way to Wein-und- Pilsstube in Bernkastel Altstadt. Good ratings and we were keen on something casual and not expensive. This area is quite touristy.

When we arrived there were no outdoor tables available so we ate inside at the window and could watch the owner busy pouring drinks and then having her lunch with her husband when she found a couple of moments. 

Lana ordered a Schwepps Bitter Lemon with a sparkling water to cut it a bit. Randy ordered his usual glass of Riesling Spätlese. 

Flammkuchen Original mit Speck und Zwiebeln. Speck is like bacon and the second ingredient is onions. Pretty decent flammkuchen and it arrived within about five minutes of our order. You gotta love that efficiency! 

Our destination is Rieslinghaus or Weinhaus Porn as it is also known as. We visited here six years ago and did a J.J. Prüm wine tasting. Incredible selection of Mosel Riesling and knowledgeable staff. Also, Erich Weber of Hofgut Falkenstein said they would carry some of their sold-out wine. We hope to find some of his wine to buy and try some other wine as we have four slots left for wine purchases and this is our last day in the Mosel. 

We arrive and are met by Jürgen who speaks English and provides a one-page brochure that kind of explains how you can do a wine tasting or simply drink Mosel Riesling wine as it is a a wine bar. The brochure is in English, but we use Google Translate to figure out most of what it is describing.

We decide on a wine tasting of five wines from their special Wine Porn label. It will cost 9Euro which is a pretty good deal. All these wines are VPD and of the very top quality of grapes and vineyards. There are some Weingut we are unfamiliar with so that could be educational. An information brochure is provided so there are some details in English. Jürgen needs to move his car so he disappears, but Annette is available if we have any questions.

The Rieslinghaus has their own house label = WinePorn. The way it works is they have agreements with various top Mosel Weinguts to have the sole distribution of a house label wine by that maker, but under the "Wine Porn" label you see below. 

Our lineup of five wines. Starting from the right to the left they go from dry Riesling to sweeter Riesling just like a tasting in a Weingut. 

2020 Clemens Busch Trocken 

2021 Vegeler Feinherb

2018 Grünhaus Feinherb

2020 Loersch Kabinett

2018 J.J. Prüm Spätlese

OK, while it was an adventure we only liked the bottle on the far right from Clemens Busch. We were at this Weingut back in 2016 and still have our bottle that we purchased in our wine fridge. While it is a dry Riesling it did not taste dry and had a great nose. Plus, it is a biodynamic Weingut so good for the environment. We bought one bottle and found two bottles of Hofgut Falkenstein 2021 Riesling Spätlese Feinherb that we tasted last week with Erich Weber at the Weingut and loved that particular wine. We are in luck to find it!

We got chatting with Jürgen about Mosel Riesling and he prompted us on the bottle below as a great find and something to look out for. Not sure if we will find it in Canada, but we can make a note of it. At this point we only have one wine skin left and we might keep that for a wine purchase in Frankfurt.

  

Back to our hotel and Lana had an opportunity to have a good nap. I loaded the pics on our blog. Kind of a lazy afternoon for both of us. When we first arrived at our hotel, we were told we had to pay a tourist tax. This involved getting a 'card' (Die Bernkastel-Kueser Gästekarte) and then there were some discounts that applied at local places. The one that was really a good deal was at Weingut Brunnenhof which happens to be a short walk from our place in Kues. Plan for tonight will be dinner there with our two glasses of free wine. It does not open until 18:00. We arrive and find a seat in the back courtyard. Pretty obvious that the owners do not speak English which is OK. We get our free wine which is a Sekt for Lana and a glass of Riesling for me. Within a few minutes there is some drops of rain and then more rain so we move inside.

There is a paper menu - very casual. Not many food choices as they are interested in selling their wine. Once we are inside we know we need to get our food order in. It is a very long wait for the delivery of our food. I estimate around 40+ minutes. The German couple across from us ordered at the same time and received their food about ten minutes before us. While we are waiting it rains on and off so we made a good decision to come inside. 

For certain this is a local hangout and if there are tourists they will be Germans. It is a nice enough place and their wine is drinkable. We would not return given the sheer wait time for food and the fact that before we received our food we heard a microwave beeping. Yikes! Not a good indication of the quality of the food. 

Lana's order of Flammkuchen Haus dem Steinofen mit Speck und Zwiebeln. I think this is deja vu as we had this same order for lunch this afternoon. Lana stated it was a better flammkuchen. 

Randy's order of Weingulasch im Brottopf. This is a regional specialty that we have never eaten before. It is bread stuffed inside with a stew of beef and pork. Interesting dish. Lots of meat inside and I never came close to finishing the outside bread. I/we did finish the meats. I would not order it again as I am not a lover of stews, but I can see why it may be popular with people who love meat and bread! We try to figure out what exactly was getting heated in the microwave and we suspect it was the stew. 

We return to our hotel room after 20:10. Lana decides that we need to figure out what wine and clothes are going in our new luggage. She does a good job of cramming eleven (11) wine skins/bottles into our new bag and I add my soccer boots, soccer shin pads and my soccer jersey/shorts/socks etc. We are way under the weight limit so that is good news, but not much more we can add. Lana has an expendable luggage and I place two small wine bottles in my carry-on. Good to figure out now how we will accommodate all this wine in our bags. As I update the blog it is raining heavily in Kues. The weather forecast is rain and the same for our next destination being Frankfurt am Main. 

It has been a day without rushing around and enjoying the views from the castle. Plus, our last wine tasting and probably our last wine purchases. We have one wine skin left in case we find something in Frankfurt am Main to buy. Thunder and lightning occurring at 20:30 so should be an interesting weather night. Like our last place we have not watched any tv/streaming devices. The current news from Canada is the indigenous brothers who knifed and killed ten people in Saskatchewan and further injured eighteen more. Not a good reason for Canada to be in the International news. Our last day in the Mosel. Tomorrow we drive to Frankfurt am Main Flughafen to return our rental car and check in to our hotel located in the airport. 

Day 18: Biking the Mosel & Drunken Swans (Wednesday, September 7th)

The king-sized bed worked for both of us last night. We both shower and then across the narrow street to the hotel dining room for our breakfast. The place is very busy, but we find a table looking out the window and towards our room across the street. Excellent breakfast layout ranging from scrambled eggs, breads, buns, jams, smoked salmon, cheeses, cold cuts, fruits, juices etc. Everything was excellent so a good start to our day. It is around 09:30 when we return to our room. Our plan is to rent bikes and cruise the Mosel biking trail. Weather should be cloudy, but warm so perfect for Lana.

This is Lana's breakfast bowl with Muesli and a European Rote Grütze (stewed red fruit) plus some berries. 

 

After breakfast we walk down towards the bridge and into a bicycle shop which rents bikes as well. We were in the shop yesterday to confirm they rent bikes. Akku Laden is full of bikes and we know it will be 19Euro for a regular bike (Randy) and 30Euro for an electric bike (Lana). The girl is very helpful and she provides a basket for Lana's bike so I can put my pack in it with our lunch, water and my travel journal. We decided in advance to head towards Piesport as it was in the opposite direction to Traben-Trarbach which we visited yesterday. A website provided mileage of 18.5 km from B-K to Piesport. We have our plan and off we go. Some of you may remember the "Piesporter" wine of the 1980's that many people drank. That wine was from this town. 

Lana with her electric bike and helmet. She has had some bad luck on bikes in the past so she maybe a little nervous...

We came across this Blue Heron very quickly into our ride. Lana could only get this close before it would scoot away. 

There must be a lot of fish in this river. This is a Bream. 

                                   Very hard to translate this German version into English.

                                            Zander fish (Pike Perch) common to these waters.

We are not sure what kind of duck this is, but they are beautiful and this mother had about six ducklings with it. She got very loud and hissy when we were near and even gave us the duck stink eye!! Then the father showed up and we got outta Dodge!

                                       We saw quite a number of swans on the river. 

     Of course as we ride along the Mosel and inland on some legs there are many steep hillside vineyards! The vines grow right down to the side of the highway and/or biking lanes. We tasted some of the Riesling grapes off the vines and they were quite sweet. They must be close to harvesting time? Another interesting observation was various parcels are owned by many different Weinguts. They tag the bottom of each row. By far the most rows were owned Weingut Fritz Haag who is quite well known for excellent Riesling wine in the Mosel. 

While we were riding in this particular stretch of the Mosel we saw a machine far up the steep slope trimming the vines. Lana took the time to video the machine and posted it on YouTube. Check out the link below which should take you to the video. It is amazing the work they can do on these steep slopes. 

Video of a machine trimming the grape vines on a steep slope.

I just had to take this picture to demonstrate that not all grapes grown in the Mosel are Riesling. They have red Spätburgunder (Pinot Noir) and Weißburgunder (Pinot Blanc) as well. 

                    Just another example of the steep slopes and the amount of slate in the soil bed. 

We were surprised in one of the small towns we cycled through as there was a mobile bakery much like our old style milkman deliveries. We figure this baker had many regular customers in each of the small towns. This van is completely automated--the awning and shelf all retract and extend at the push of a button. The van also makes a ringing noise as it nears its stop so people in their houses can hear that it's arrived. 

              In the small town of Minheim we came across two vending machines that sold wine! You make a selection and pay with card or maybe cash and out comes your bottle of wine. This is so much like Japan! Great idea though for customers who need wine in off-hours and/or during the pandemic limits in-person contact. 

As we arrive in Piesport, we decide it is time for lunch and we find a bench right beside the Mosel. We have a couple of buns from breakfast and some cold cuts we purchased in Wiesbaden that Lana has kept cold. Plus, the peach cake we bought yesterday. The usual Mosel RV park is right behind us. Lana discovers the trees near us are walnut and chestnut trees! Besides the vines there are orchards of fruit trees. Very quiet here down by the river, but lots of fellow cyclists going in both directions. Oh yeah, the vast majority have grey hair! It took us one hour and 20 minutes of riding time to get here. 

Ride observations:

- Lana loves her electric bike as she is able to keep up and still gets a good work out

- most of the ride is on smooth surfaces

- for the ride from Bernkastel-Kues to our final stop it is a HEADWIND which really makes it hard pedalling 

- Lana doesn't have to push herself any harder as she simply ups the setting on her electric bike

- heading back to Bernkastel-Kues, the winds change and are in our face on the way back! What the heck!

- mostly sunny and pretty warm at 25 degrees Celsius

- some of the riding is along the highway and over one busy bridge

- easy to take various detours and go farther into villages and vineyards

- I did not think there was much elevation gain but it was 154 metres so not too bad

- almost 51 km ride over a riding time of 3 hours and 21 minutes

- you can speed up or slow down

                     Along the route we came upon this fenced in animal which might be a caribou? Lana thinks it's a reindeer :)

We decided to turn around at Neumagen-Drohn which was around 25 kms biking from BK. This is a stone sculpture of an ancient Roman wine boat. While we were admiring the sculpture we got talking with a guy from Newfoundland and his lady friend from the States. They are on the Mosel taking a tour on a barge (Iris) that stops at various places on the river and then they got off and bike to meet the barge at the next major docking. 

We finally come upon a place in Neumagen-Dhron that serves Federweißer so we stop at Dorfcafé. We find a table outside on the patio and in the shade. Huge score. While the server speaks no English she understands our order and brings us two wine glasses of Federweißer. Lana discovers she's been pronouncing this drink wrong--it's FEY-des vys-ser not FED-er-vys-ser. She says learn something new every day. Very sunny now with no clouds in the sky. Great break and another opportunity to try this unique wine beverage. Fairly busy here with many other cyclists and fellow tourists. The two wine cost 6.40Euro and we pay with cash. 

OK, the biggest surprise on our biking adventure on the Mosel was coming across at least six or seven Swans in a vineyard right beside the river in Piesport. More were coming up from the river as well. You don't want to make a swan angry as they can be quite aggressive. Anyway, these swans were eating the red wine grapes at a rapid pace! They use their long necks to get at the grapes and then in their beaks. They work fast and I can imagine the wine makers are not happy with this invasion by swans. Wondering if eating these grapes can make them drunk?  

                                                                     Feeding frenzy!!!

Pretty uneventful ride back to Bernkastel-Kues and it was tiring with the headwinds. We return our bikes and have a brief chat with the fellow who helped us yesterday. The bikes were dependable and pretty decent quality. Nothing went wrong and we did not damage either bike. Bikes returned around 15:30.

We are both dehydrated and need an instant infusion of cold water. Walk to Edeki supermarket to find cold water. Plus, Lana looking for bath salts, but no luck. We did find some carbonated cold water bottles and discovered they were more expensive when listed. While sitting in the entrance to the supermarket Lana decided to buy some goodies in their bakery. She loves the pretzels and a pretzel dough baked like a croissant style bun as it is soft and flaky. We devour the pretzel (covered with cheese and ham) and finish off two of the water bottles. A German Mom sitting next to us told us our two empty water bottles were refundable for the deposit. We haven't been returning out plastic water bottles because we were thinking the deposit was maybe .05Euro?!??!! Turns out the deposit amount in Germany is much higher. Lana figured out the process and we got .50Eruro in return for her efforts. Check out the link below for a video of how this works.

Plastic recycling refund machine. You take your receipt to the cashier and they refund your money.

The link below provides the data of our biking trip today using Garmin Connect. 

Click on this link for the map and data of our biking trip today.

We walk back to our hotel so we can send our photos from Lana's phone to my email and then I can upload to our blog. I undertake this while Lana takes a well deserved nap before we head off for another German dinner. Lana's research finds a German place across the river (Bernkastel) that has good ratings and prices and of course Schnitzel.

About a fifteen minute walk to Alter Moselbahnhof. For certain it is in the heart of the tourist zone of this quaint town. We need to wait for our table to be cleared, but we are in luck as we have a table right by the open window and great views across the river to Kues and the bridge. This place is busy with a constant stream of customers and persons they turn away as they don't have the tables. The food came super quick and that was much appreciated.  

Lana's order of Schnitzel mit Rahmchampignons und Pommes Frites. Basically, a mushroom cream sauce and fries. She loved this Schnitzel and right now she is on a Schnitzel kick. 

Randy's order of Flammkuchen mit Salami, Zwielbeln und Pepperoni. Really good, but I thought I was getting Pepperoni! Their idea of Pepperoni is a pepper and not the cured meat. I drank a glass of Riesling Spätlese and it was pretty good. 

For certain, Bernkastel-Kues is a major tourist destination. We think this is a secret meeting place in Deutschland for grey-haired old people as 90% of the people we see fit in this category and yup, that description fits me! Nice night for a walk home across the bridge and uphill towards our hotel. It looks like the hotel is not open for dining tonight so that will reduce the noise. Last night many of their patrons were there quite late and very loud. Lana relaxing on the bed and surfing the internet while I update our blog. Unfortunately, the weather forecast for tomorrow is rain, rain and then more rain.