After the efforts made the day before, this stage would be a lot easier, despite a very steep climb out of Zell. The weather was perfect for hiking, not too hot, not too cold, and even though rain did fall from time to time, the showers never lasted long enough for us to get into our rain gear. And the pain in my calf seemed to have vanished completely.
We took our backpacks down to breakfast with us for once to avoid the four-storey climb back up to the room to get them and set off at around 9 PM, a little later than usual.
The climb out of the town began immediately outside the hotel, with an ascent of 200 m over 1 km. It was another steep one, with two optional sections in via ferrata mode. We stuck to the main trail, but even there we found roped and cabled sections at times, with official warnings informing us that the trail was very steep, that good balance was required, and that we should not attempt to tackle it if we suffered from vertigo.
This initial climb led us to the Collis Tower (built in 1906 for tourist excursions) with its spectacular view of Zell far below. We had a brief rest there, then continued to climb another 20 m or so to the 300 m line.
The sun was now out properly and the walking was very pleasant as we walked through the woods high above Zell before descending to the village of Merl that we skirted through the vineyards above it.
With the better weather, the grape-pickers were out and we finally got to see just how tough harvesting grapes by hand is in this region with its steep slopes. One guy climbed up between the rows of vines with a huge hopper on his back into which the pickers tipped the grapes they had gathered. He then headed back down to a truck parked below into which he emptied the hopper before setting off uphill again. It must have been pretty exhausting work for him. The grape-pickers on the other hand needed a good sense of balance as they were continually bending down and straightening back up on a very steep slope. It has long been a dream of mine to take part of the grape harvest, but I think I’d prefer somewhere in the Loire valley near home to the steep slopes of the Moselle!
We were also able to observe a nifty bit of recycling. Once the juice had been extracted from the grapes, the compostable waste was placed at the foot of the rows of vines where it would no doubt be spread out at a later date. The air was heavy with a heady aroma rising from the wine-press waste. We felt we could almost get drunk by inhaling it!
We made a brief stop for a snack at the Königshütte, built by a local hiking group in the 60s, that had a fine view back along the distance covered that morning, right opposite the sort of isthmus crossed the day before.
As the trail skirted the village of Bullay far below, we were walking through more beautiful woods, with, from time to time, some very tall trees. There were occasional rain showers, but as I said earlier, they never lasted long enough to justify getting into the rain gear.
Neef appeared in the distance, with its weir and lock for shipping, and the trail began to descend to the village. Since setting off that morning, there had been a continual discrepancy between the distance announced in the guidebook and on the AllTrails app, and the one given on the Moselsteig signposts. And it wasn’t just a slight discrepancy either: there was a 5 km difference.
On approaching Neef, we finally had an explanation for this. At a crossroads, there was a direct path down to the village while the official trail turned into a valley, headed uphill and then followed the higher ground to a summit cross (Gipfelkreuz) above the river before descending to Neff proper through the yards 5 km later.
At the crossroads, Odile decided that she had had enough for the day and that she would go straight down to the village. In order to make this blog as complete as possible, I opted to follow the official trial. We arranged to meet an hour and a half later at the village train station.
The trail climbed fairly steeply up to the woods above the vineyards behind Neef, then began a gentle descent towards the cross from which I was able to see the whole route we would be walking the next day from Neef to Ediger-Eller. As I walked, I could hear a brass band playing in the village below, and Odile texted me to say that she was sitting on the main square having a slice of cake and that it was the village wine festival that day.
The final section of trail down from the summit cross was a fairly easy one, ending with two long flights of steps down to the railway station where Odile was waiting for me.
After checking into our guesthouse, an odd little place with an amazingly well-equipped communal kitchen, but no breakfast service, we had a quick shower, did a few stretching exercises for my calf muscles and then set off to explore. The village was absolutely packed with people, making the most of the different stands set up by each wine producer. This being Germany, there was a stall selling sausages too. We also came across a shop selling jam made from the local vineyard peaches (we picked up a jar for Odile to take home). The wine producers’ stalls were also selling beautiful homemade cakes that would have not looked out of place in a fine patisserie. We stopped at one for a glass of wine served by a couple of boys who couldn’t have been older than 14, something that would have had the social services up in arms back in France! The riesling that we drank was absolutely delicious and confirmed our decision to return to this region one day with an empty car.
For dinner, we ended up in a pretty unusual place down by the river with a view of the lock. Ostensibly a pizzeria, it was run by Indians and alongside the pizzas and pasta dishes, there was a whole range of different curries and everything else you would expect to find in a decent Indian restaurant. After an excellent onion bahji, Odile had a chicken curry with a red lentil sauce, while I had one of the best chicken biryanis I have ever eaten.
We shared a table with a charming Dutch couple who were in the area for the walking. They had done sections of the Moselsteig before and kept returning to the region because they had fallen in love with it.
On the way back to the guest house, we passed an automatic wine-vending machine. I had seen signs for such machines all along the trail, but this was the first time that I had seen one up close. It certainly had a fine range of wines to offer.
The wine festival was in full swing as we walked back through the village, but by then we had had enough wine for the day and so decided to have an early night. Even though the brass band kept playing until 1 AM, we slept pretty well and couldn’t really say it disturbed us.
Footsteps 