After an easy day, this one, with around 17 km to cover, would be a little tougher with some steep ascents. Plus the weather forecast was for showers throughout the day so we kept the rain gear at the top of the pack. And wisely so.
This stage began with a steep, 300-metre climb out of Bernkastel to put us high above the Moselle. It was a very grey day and the views, albeit as spectacular as ever, lost a little of their lustre in the dull light.
Once the climb out of Bernkastel was over, the trail was more or less level, with slight dips and rises, for the next 7 km or so. The showers that were forecast kicked in and that meant we kept stopping to put on or take off rain jackets (I still haven’t found a rain jacket for hiking that doesn’t make me feel like a walking sauna despite manufacturers’ claims of “breathable” fabrics).
At one point, we were overtaken by a friendly German couple with very light packs and the weirdest hiking shoes that I have ever seen – they looked like a scuba diver’s neoprene boots and when it started raining they added full covers with what sounded like suction cup soles, blue for him and pink for her. Even though we kept overtaking each other all day, I never got around to asking them about their footwear and what its advantages were. After an online search, I think I may have found the boots, a German brand called Frisch. As for the boot covers, they seem to be a Polish brand called Zbksywa.
The trail passed high above the village of Graach and the bridge crossing the Moselle to Wehlen. The rain had let up at this point and the walking became more pleasant.
A little further on, we spotted a vineyard set out in a completely different way to every other – rather than being perpendicular to the river, these vines were parallel to it. I’d have loved to know the reason why. However, with no one around to ask, I’ll just have to use my imagination. An experiment with the slope’s exposure to the sun? Or a wine-grower who’d hit the bottle a bit too hard before planting his vines?
Shortly after, on approaching Zeitlingen where we would cross the Moselle again, there was an old Jewish cemetery on the hillside, way outside the village and the Christian cemetery.
Just before entering Zeitlingen, the trail passed through an interesting garden with 50 different fruit trees from various regions of the world. The place needed a little upkeep (some of the trees were in very poor shape), but it allowed us to discover that unripe persimmons are the most amazing green colour.
After crossing the bridge in Zeitlingen, we reached our planned lunch stop, the Machern Abbey Brewery. We had fond memories of a similar abbey brewery on the Danube that we had visited on a boat trip from Kelheim in Bavaria a few years earlier. This place had the same sort of layout, with a huge central courtyard with tables where people were eating and drinking despite the gloomy weather. All around were the abbey buildings with a church, a museum and a shop to buy the different beers. We headed straight for the café without realizing that there was a huge and beautiful Munich-style brauhaus in a building across the yard. There was a wider selection of food there too, but the café provided just what we needed in the shape of soup, an Alsatian-style flammkuche and cake. The abbey beer was a decent but rather ordinary lager. The couple with the odd shoes from earlier had taken the same option and were at the table just next to ours. They left just as Odile was attacking her dessert and about a minute later, the heavens opened with a terrific downpour. We waited for a while for the rain to let up, wandering around the other abbey buildings, which was when we discovered the brauhaus and, after a while, the rain indeed eased off enough for us to set off up what would prove to be a longish climb to Ürzig that took us all the way up to a pedestrian pass over the Hochmoselbrücke, a stunning feat of engineering carrying the motorway that eases access to Belgian and Dutch ports from Frankfurt. Impressive as it was, I’m not sure I’d like to see it from my window every morning.
After crossing to the other side of the bridge, over the top of a tunnel for road traffic, we had one final ascent to upper Ürzig along a sandstone gully that reminded me of Park Butts, a street that led up from the town centre of my hometown of Kidderminster.
On reaching the top of the gully, it was just a short descent to our hotel where we were able to dry off all our damp gear.
We had been delighted to see that the hotel’s restaurant was specialized in Balkan cuisine and were looking forward a dinner of cevapcici, the grilled meatballs discovered on our family holidays in Croatia. However, it was the restaurant’s ruhetag (day off), which meant we’d have to find another solution. We decided that if it started pouring with rain again, we’d stay at the hotel and use the room’s kettle for the two dehydrated meals bought in Montreal that I’d been carrying in my pack for such emergencies. However, when it got to dinner time, the rain had stopped and so we decided to head down to lower Ürzig in search of a restaurant, even though we hadn’t booked anywhere.
Luckily, the first place that we tried, the Sankt Maternus Keller, had room for us… at a table shared with the couple with the odd shoes from earlier. This time, we got talking (although the shoes were not mentioned). They told us that they were only going as far as Zell in their week on the trail and that we wouldn’t see them the next day as they were heading off to do a nearby via ferrata.
We had a great dinner served by a heavily pregnant but very active young lady and the charming grandmother of the wine-growing family that ran the place, then headed back up the hill to our hotel with fine views of lower Ürzig in the evening light.
Footsteps 