The Plan So Far

I am about to embark on my 5th lengthy cycle trip in Europe. Next Friday, September 8, we will be flying with Air Transat from Vancouver to Montreal to Lyon, France, for a 6 week adventure.

We have never been to Lyon, considered to be the foodiest place in France. Hard to believe any city could be foodier than what we have already experienced in France, but I'm up for the challenge. We will stay near Lyon in a small B & B, Des Toits en Ville - http://www.des-toits-en-ville.com - for 4 nights, then will either take the train or cycle through Burgandy to the small town of Fellering in the Alsace to the start of the Moselle (French), Mosel (German) or Musel (Luxembourish) River Cycle Route.

We will begin our ride at the source of the Moselle, the Col de Bussang in the Vosges Mountains in eastern France and follow the river downstream heading north through the region of Lorraine into the German state of Rheinland-Pflaz, into Luxembourg, then back into Germany through a spectacular, winding gorge between the Hunsrück and Eifel Mountains before joining up with the Rhine in Koblenz, 512 km away.

Besides great food, this trip will be all about water, amazing scenery and beverages. Actually, all our trips have been about that. But there will be a lot of vineyard scenery and locally produced beverages along the river. One wine will be Riesling, the grape that grows on the steep slopes of the Moselle gorge, between Trier and Cochem, regarded as one of Europe's great tourist attractions. The Luxembourg side of the gorge is famous for its Crémant sparking wine. Lorraine has a growing number of microbreweries and makes a fruit schnapps from the golden Mirabelle plums and in the Saar valley, viez, a local form of cider is produced. We will not be thirsty for long!

This is a developed cycle route, mainly French and German national infrastructure and we will be following designated cycle and pedestrian only paths along the river and canals or quiet country roads. There are services - accommodations in the form of hotels, guest houses, B & B's, hostels and even campsites and restaurants, etc. all along the route, according to our guide. The guide breaks the route into 14 stages, averaging just over 36 km per stage. If you cycled two stages a day, it would only take a week but we plan to linger and rarely cycle more than 40-50 km a day. And the icing on this tart, is that once we reach the start of the route, it's basically all downhill, descending 650 m from the Moselle source!

So come on along for the ride. We will be taking with us in spirit several dear friends who have experienced serious illness and loss this past year. You know who you are. We are only too aware of how fortunate Jim & I are to once again be able to undertake this kind of trip.