After a great night’s sleep and a tasty breakfast, I was ready to tackle the first stage of the trail. I wouldn’t be going all the way to Palzem, the official end of the first stage as I hadn’t been able to find accommodation there. Instead, I would be veering off around 2 km before Palzem to stay at Schloss Thorn, a wine estate that has a B&B in one of its wings.
I began by heading to the tourist office to get my Moselsteig pass stamped. This document, once filled with stamps for the whole trail would entitle me to a number of gifts, along with the chance to win a weekend in a luxury hotel. However, that plan came to a sudden halt when I got to the tourist office at 8:15 to find that the stamping could only be done inside and that the place didn’t open until 9:00. With days when I’d be finishing after the tourist offices closed and the impossibility of getting the card stamped on a Sunday, I decided to abandon the idea. A pity they don’t use the same system as on the Alpe Adria Trail where our phones got “zapped” at the checkpoints along the way, leading to the pleasant surprise of a box of souvenirs arriving at home a few months after we finished.
After that minor disappointment, I made my way back down to the station, stopping off at supermarket to pick up a few supplies for lunch. I could have avoided going back to the station by cutting across from the hotel and the centre of the village, but I’m a bit of a trail completist, and it didn’t feel right not to follow the Moselsteig from its beginning.
And it turned out to be a pretty inauspicious beginning. The trail began between two bushes near traffic island at the exit from Perl. There was no sign indicating the distance to cover to reach Koblenz or any other kind of information. And the first few hundred metres were fairly overgrown until I emerged onto a track heading uphill that took me back to the spot where I could have joined the trail if I had crossed the village from the hotel.
The track continued to head uphill to the Dreiländereck, a point with a view of where France, Germany and Luxembourg meet. And that was where I found the Moselsteig information board that I had been expecting to see at the start of the trail. This was also where I saw the only other two hikers I’d see that day, a local couple out for a stroll.
It was tricky following the trail at first, as there were numerous other local trails heading off in various directions or following the Moselsteig. After going wrong a couple of times (never seriously), I got back on the right trail and was able to follow it easily for the rest of the day. As usual in Germany, the trail markings were excellent, always indicating the right direction whenever it was possible to doubt.
The rest of the day’s trail unfolded between woods and open countryside that reminded me a lot of the Herefordshire or Shropshire countryside near where I grew up: rolling fields with handsome old trees, very different from the industrial agriculture around where we live in France.
There were also a lot of apple trees, all heavy with fruit, and a sign by the trail at one point seem to be saying that the local farmers always kept a few fruit trees on the land where cattle grazed. There were also plenty of more formal orchards. I helped myself to a couple of apples which were absolutely delicious. And just before Schloss Thorn, I got talking to a local farmer and wine grower who had spent the afternoon collecting fallen apples that he told me he would take back to his farm, clean, and turn into apple juice. All that while waiting for his grapes to be ready to harvest in a couple of weeks.
With no villages along the way, this was a very rural and bucolic day. Even if the scenery was not spectacular, it was a delight to be walking in this setting. Unfortunately, the sky remained overcast for the whole day. If the sun had managed to break through the clouds, it would have been even more delightful.
I veered off the official trail around 3 km from Palzem and followed a track across more agricultural land, a blend of cereal crops, small vineyards, and orchards.
The accommodation at Schloss Thorn was basic, but perfect for my needs. For dinner, as there was no restaurant nearby, I added another 3.5 km to the day’s total by walking along the river and crossing over into Luxembourg for a Turkish pide and a beer. Amazingly, after more than 40 years of travels around Europe, this was my first time in Luxembourg, a country that had never been on any of my journeys until now.
As I walked back along the river, I encountered a flock of Egyptian geese, truly beautiful birds with very distinctive plumage.
It hadn’t been a particularly tough day, apart from the occasional but brief steep climb. It would no doubt take a few days to get used to carrying a bigger pack (10 kg or do, including 2.5 litres of water) after a summer spent with small day packs, but I had surprisingly few aches and pains at the end of the day.
That said, after the 28 km covered on his first day between going back down to the supermarket in Perl and crossing over into Luxemburg for dinner, I turned in early and slept like a log!
Footsteps 