Postcards of past 2 weeks

Time flies, what on earth we do with it ? A brief recap will help us all I think.
Our friends Graham and Else met us in Luxembourg City and took us for a bit of sightseeing then back to their place for lunch, what a lovely day



Time to move Linquenda from Grevenmacher, so back down the Moselle River, sharp turn right onto the Saar and back up to Saarburg to moir on commercial quay and wait for next visitors Kirsten & Lars

Had a great 5 days with Kirsten & Lars, did a bit of tourist stuff in Saarburg then cruised up the Saar to Merzig




Hot weather continued, seems to have been a hot and humid summer, have had a little bit of rain as of late thank goodness because a month ago there was great concern for water levels of a lot of the rivers .
After Kirsten & Lars left we moved back down to Schwemlingen onto a commercial quay, a particuarly beautiful stretch of the Saar

Left Schwemlingen early Friday morning suddenly the fog moved in ! Crawled along to Merzig, moored and wait until it lifted.


Safety arrived to Völklingen latter that day, on a pontoon near the steel works , more on them in next blog, blakberry season and this us a particularly good area for them so Knud got busy picking, I got busy making jam, think you will enjoy this batch Pam

Le Tour de France

As many of you know we have a passion for Le Tour and have been fortunate over the years to see a number of stages. A few years have passed since we saw our last Tour so we were thrilled when we heard this years route and realised we would be very nearby if we got ourselves organized. So the planning began. Had to take onto account that the lock system on the Moselle River was shutting 9 days for maintenance so needed to be in place before that happened so Monday the 27th we were back in Remich, Luxembourg.
Our nearest point to Remich where le tour was passing was Schengen so the week before Karen & I cycled the 10km up to Schengen to check things out. Already the town was gearing up, posters and signs everywhere


Monday Knud and Erik cycled over to see part of stage 3

Finally the day had arrived, early start to cycle down to Schengen to get a good place for the wait.
We were not the only ones to arrive early, already there were large groups of very excited school children , all wearing yellow tshirts with Schengen is alive printed on them. By the end of the morning there were 100's of kids all being very enthusiastic.

For those of you who have not experienced le Tour the best way to describe it would be an advertising circus. About 2 hours before the cyclists wizz past the caravan comes through. Loud music, blaring advertising, floats & the throwing of samples into the crowds which I'm afraid to say really doesn't bring out the best in people .











The yellow umbrella you can see in some of the photos belongs to a rather pushy greedy women who used it to catch samples, this couple I might add only stayed for the samples and did not stay to watch the cyclists
So a bit of a wait then the first cyclist wizzed past, Guillaume van Keirsbulck his solo ride for almost 180km would have to go down as one of the greatest rides. Then 1 min latter the rest of the rides tore past






And finally the winners are

What a great day we all had. Then it was time for Karen and Erik to say goodbye and head off in their camper van to meet up with Tracy & Pat to see some more Tour stages. What a great 2 weeks we have shared.

Time Flies

So here we are, beginning of July, past couple of weeks wizzed past, what have we done with our time?
From Saarburg we headed back down the Saar River onto the Moselle River & headed back up to Grevenmacher for a few nights then back up to Remich on the 26th June. The locks are shut for maintenance for at least 9 days and we wanted to be in the best possible place for when Le Tour passes through Luxembourg.
Wine tasting with Karen and Erik
A few bottles purchased, Knud & Erik stagger under the weight
Knud and Erik off for a ride
Karen cooling off in the Moselle
Tractors are just not only for the fields, also great for caravan pulling, about 5 of of theses set ups paseed by.

More wine tasting and underground cellar tour

Graham, Else and Angela for dinner one evening, amazing how many can fit around the table



About 3 km from where we are moored, over in Germany is an amazing mosaic. The lavish mosaic floor of the Roman vilka in Nenning is one of the most important finds of its kind north of the Alps. This beautiful floor was uncovered by a farmer back in 1852, he notified the authorities in Trier and they took over, building a shelter over it and then they began extensive excavations uncovering a palacial villa whose size & appointments makes it one of the most opulant of its kind in the Roman provinces . The mosaic has been dated to the 3rd century AD.