The Moselsteig – Day 2 – Schloss Thorn to Wellen

I set off from Schloss Thorn at 8:30 after a good breakfast and an excellent night’s sleep. It was a pleasant, gentle, uphill walk to return to the official trail where I had left it the day before. My weather app showed nothing but sunshine for the whole day, yet I began walking under a very cloudy sky and in a strong, cold wind. At least it was dry, although there were a few dark clouds massing on the horizon.

On reaching Palzem, I didn’t follow the trail down into the village to the railway station and the official end of the first stage. The way the trail is designed, that would have obliged me to return to the spot where I was at that point before setting off towards Nittel. So much for being a trail completist – one day in and I’m already adapting it to suit me!

After passing through some vineyards, the trail crossed a main road to reach a small chapel at the entrance to some woods.

On the first day, I had been struck by an official notice from the Moselsteig authorities advising hikers how to negotiate a stretch of road that the trail was obliged to follow. There were more of these signs today each time the trail met a road, stating how busy the road was likely to be, how best to cross it or walk along side it and even how fast people usually drove on it! I suppose some would complain about a nanny state, but it was actually quite reassuring to have such information and to see such efforts made to ensure the safety of hikers.

The cold wind was blowing hard, but the woods provided shelter. However, when I emerged onto a stretch of open farmland, I was glad to have two layers instead of a simple T-shirt. This section across the farmland led to the small village of Helfant, and its surprisingly large church, St Bartholomäus, could be seen looming over the village in the distance.

Like the previous day, the walking was a pleasant blend of open, rolling farmland, woods, orchards, and vineyards. The chilly wind kept blowing, but I nonetheless took a break in Helfant to swap my hiking trousers for shorts. There were a few climbs coming up and I was optimistic that the day would get warmer. Even so, I kept two layers on top.

As I approached the village of Wincheringen, I came across a sign for an automatic wine-vending machine in the heart of the village. It was only 11 o’clock or so at this point, so a little early to begin imbibing. Plus it would have been a detour, so I gave it a miss, sure that there would be plenty of opportunities to sample the local wines further on.

Shortly after Wincheringen, the trail reached a point with great views of the Moselle below and then continued to follow the river from this high vantage point all the way to Nittel, apart from a brief section in woods that obscured the view.

The Luxembourg bank of the river opposite was covered with vineyards and those that I was in seemed to descend all the way down to the busy road below along the German side.

The trail descended to the village of Rehlingen, then climbed again steeply to a small chapel and cemetery. There was a rest bench right opposite it, one of the recliner benches you find so often on German trails, so I took a long rest there. The reception at my hotel in Wellen didn’t open until 4:30 and if I’d carried on walking, I’d have arrived way too soon in a village where the hotel owner had already advised me that the was absolutely nothing. So I decided to rest there, stop for coffee and cake in Nittel and then take the train to Wellen to arrive for opening time.

As I sat there taking in the view and reading, two other hikers passed by, two ladies I’d seen ahead of me that morning in Palzem and Helfant. I don’t know how they ended up behind me, but the wine-vending machine may have been involved, because when I caught up with them a little later, they were moving much more slowly than that morning and said something about being very tired!

During my long rest stop, the wind finally cleared the clouds, the temperature began to rise and I was finally able to take off my jacket before setting off again for the last 5 km to Nittel.

As I was heading downhill through a vineyard just before the village of Köllig, a deer popped out from a row of vines, took one look at me, then turned and fled. I don’t know if deer eat the grapes on the vines, but there was a huge field of corn nearby and I had already seen a few partly devoured ears of corn along the way, so maybe I had just spotted one of the culprits.

There was one final section of fairly wild woods where I overtook the two lady hikers seen earlier – they seemed to be having trouble negotiating the roots and rocks on the path – and then it was downhill all the way to Nittel.

On emerging from the woods and finding the road down into the village, there was a rather odd sign…

Rather than running ducks, I presume it meant free-roaming ducks as there was a small farm just after with countless chickens and goats. Not a duck in sight though – maybe they’d roamed too far!

On arriving in Nittel, I had the option of following a track through the vineyards directly to Wellen along the foot of the Nittel cliffs, but I decided to stick to my plan of coffee and cake before taking the train. However, on reaching the bottom of the hill and the village, I discovered that the bakery was closed on Tuesdays. Plus, there wouldn’t be a train for a while. So I decided to walk the 3 km to Wellen along the river. A cycle track runs the whole length of the Moselle so I took it to reach the hotel, stopping for half an hour or so that I wouldn’t arrive too early.

The hotel in Wellen was perfect for my needs – clean, cheap, and with friendly owners. As I had been warned, there was nowhere to eat in the village, so I walked over to Grevenmacher in Luxembourg (my second visit to the country in two days). There, in a rather swank restaurant, I had a local speciality – kniddelen – the perfect dish for a hungry hiker consisting of gnocchi-like dumplings in a cream and ham sauce, served with stewed apples. Surprisingly, everything went very well together, but the portion was so huge, I was unable to finish. Even so, I could feel it had set me up for the next day’s hike.

Then it was back over to the German side of the river for a fitful night’s sleep interrupted by the heavy traffic on the road along the river that passed just in front of the hotel.