July 13, Dreisbach to Trier by bike

    July 13, Dreisbach to Trier by way of Saarlouis (again)

    The Dreisbach youth hostel had Wi-Fi available for three dollars. It wasn't the greatest signal, but I was able to get my email, including one from the Hotel Ratskeller in Saarlouis informing me that I had left my "charger." They offered to mail it to me.
    I needed the charger. I have a Galaxy Note, and like almost everyone with one of these phones my mini-USB charger has gone out, so I have to charge the phone with an external battery charger. So Lucy and I returned to Saarlouis to get the charger.
    We almost made a terrible mistake. Dreisbach doesn't have an active rail station, so we would need to bike to Mettlach, about four miles ahead, or backtrack to Besseringen about a mile.  I almost took the quickest route, but chose instead to bike on to Mettlach. Mettlach is less than a mile from Dreisbach as the crow flies, but as the bicyclist peddles, four miles. You have to bike around a long peninsula.
    The high-quality bike trail from Saarlouis to Dreisbach also peters out at Dreisbach. We were forced to use public roads for a short while, after which a more modest bike trail of hard-pack gravel appeared along the Saar.
    The ride from Dreisbach to Mettlach is simply beautiful -- the kind of natural beauty that is almost a religious experience. I've included a couple of film clips at the top of this post to give an idea of what the area looks like.

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    The train ride to Saarlouis took perhaps 20 minutes. We biked to our former hotel, picked up the charger, and then decided to get something to eat. We ended up having an ice cream lunch. Lucy had four scoops of chocolate. I had a waffle with ice cream, whipped cream, and strawberries. Mine came out after Lucy finished hers, and for some reason she thought I needed help eating it.
    After "lunch" we trained to Kanzem. This was only eight miles from  Trier, so it's not like we were doing an intense day of biking. I'd say we biked a total of 15 miles.
    When we started out the day, we quickly found that our muscles weren't sore, but our butts sure were! For the first few minutes we wanted to quit, but it got better.
    Shortly before we reached Konz the bike trails became more expansive, with the grass carefully trimmed and lots of park benches and so forth. The area along the Mosel from Konz to Trier is heavily used, by bikers, walkers, roller bladers, you name it. Oh, and there are a lot of ducks and swans to be seen.

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    We stopped to snap a photo of a couple of swans, and the big white one marched up to Lucy, stuck its head in the air and honked loudly a couple of times. We interpreted that to mean "get out of my space," so we retreated.
    Our hotel for the evening was again the Park Plaza in Trier, this time obtained solely through the use of 38,000 Club Carlson points. They didn't have the points and cash offer as there was a music festival in town. The festival included fireworks, so we weren't in Trier by accident. I love fireworks!