Day 5 - Reaching the Rhine
Tuesday 1st July 2014
The mist is lying low over the River Sûre at dawn, the valley cold and ethereal as the coffee brews.
By the time we are packed up and ready to go the sun has burned through and the day is warming up nicely. I use the Tomtom 'winding roads' option and it plots a lovely route across Luxembourg to the border with Germany.
This is a beautiful country with great roads, even the tiny tracks are smooth tarmac with not a pothole in sight. We traverse the Eifel Mountains, all hairpins and sweepers.
We stop for coffee in a small village at the border. It's a pub with a few tables across the road overlooking a river. There's no car park but so little traffic that we pull up outside the door and amble across the road.
And so on into Germany. The road takes us to the Nurburgring, running alongside the track for a few miles, but it's empty of speeding traffic. We arrive at Camping Rheineck in the village of Bad Breisig on the Rhine in the late afternoon.
I've
stayed here before and so I know the ropes. One thing I remember is
that the local Chinese takeaway take phone orders and deliver to the
campsite.
So armed with a dictionary we spend a jolly half hour translating our way to a slap up feed. Just the phone call to make now. I can already taste the crispy won ton and sweet & sour.
There's this strange tradition in Germany call Ruhetag. It translates as 'calm day' and essentially means 'We are shut so don't bother us today'. It can be any weekday of your choosing. The Chinese had chosen Tuesday.
So we eat tomorrow's breakfast of ham, cheese and bread rolls and raid our snack store of biscuits, crisps and nuts. Ah the joy of camping. And so with tomorrow's Rhine crossing in our minds we get our heads down.
The mist is lying low over the River Sûre at dawn, the valley cold and ethereal as the coffee brews.
By the time we are packed up and ready to go the sun has burned through and the day is warming up nicely. I use the Tomtom 'winding roads' option and it plots a lovely route across Luxembourg to the border with Germany.
 |
| On the Luxembourg back roads |
This is a beautiful country with great roads, even the tiny tracks are smooth tarmac with not a pothole in sight. We traverse the Eifel Mountains, all hairpins and sweepers.
We stop for coffee in a small village at the border. It's a pub with a few tables across the road overlooking a river. There's no car park but so little traffic that we pull up outside the door and amble across the road.
 |
| Coffee stop near the border |
And so on into Germany. The road takes us to the Nurburgring, running alongside the track for a few miles, but it's empty of speeding traffic. We arrive at Camping Rheineck in the village of Bad Breisig on the Rhine in the late afternoon.
 |
| Camping at Bad Breisig |
 |
| An Englishman abroad |
So armed with a dictionary we spend a jolly half hour translating our way to a slap up feed. Just the phone call to make now. I can already taste the crispy won ton and sweet & sour.
There's this strange tradition in Germany call Ruhetag. It translates as 'calm day' and essentially means 'We are shut so don't bother us today'. It can be any weekday of your choosing. The Chinese had chosen Tuesday.
So we eat tomorrow's breakfast of ham, cheese and bread rolls and raid our snack store of biscuits, crisps and nuts. Ah the joy of camping. And so with tomorrow's Rhine crossing in our minds we get our heads down.
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