Motorcycle Touring - Adventures in Luxembourg Part 5
Part 5 - Past Mighty Cedars and Broken Tanks
In the last episode I talked about exploring the historic town of Vianden, with its wonderfully restored castle. Followed by a trip south, through more wonderful countryside, to Remich on the Moselle River and a tour of the St Martin winery.
But I left off as we were weaving our way back to Vianden via the intriguingly named ‘Little Switzerland’
Now my experience of Switzerland is pretty limited, I’ve flown into and out of Geneva, and driven south from Geneva through Annecy on my way to Chamonix and some of the other ski resorts that lie just over the border in France.
So, as we wind our way toward… Little Switzerland, I can’t help but wonder what this corner of Luxembourg might have in common with the famous alpine nation to the south?
Well, it doesn’t take long for me to find out.
Somehow the transition in scenery is both subtle, but also quite pronounced. Beginning with the trees…
We’ve been winding our way through the gorgeous Luxembourg countryside for a little under an hour, riding through picturesque vales and farmland, the odd isolated village, through woodlands, via little twisty roads, even smaller tracks, and the odd patch of cobblestones.
After stopping briefly for fuel, Collin explains that there is some very steep, negative camber, hairpin turns up ahead, which he suggests we take slow, leaving plenty of space between riders, just in case anyone stalls or has to stop.
June then twists around acrobatically behind Collin as we draw near, to point out the turns ahead, which we then ride as suggested, before bunching up to ride closer together once the corners are behind us. This is where I notice the trees becoming larger and their bark and twigs turning a pronounced reddish colour.
In the shade beneath the trees, water from the rain two days earlier is still draining away, combining with pebbles and tree debris to create large patches of wet, slippery looking road, so we take it easy, and in no time we’re crested the top of the hill and are heading down the other side.
Now the giants really starts to appear, the forest fills with ferns and tall craggy outcrops of pale grey stone that reminds me of a climbing trip to the Forest of Fontainebleau, just south of Paris.
A small stream appears beside the road, then turns into a big stream, then a small river, which we cross several times on small wooden railed bridges…
The penny finally drops… this must be Little Switzerland, or the Mullerthal as I later discover it is otherwise known as.
To be clear, this isn’t fast riding terrain, nor is it especially difficult or technical riding, its just a unique and amazingly beautiful landscape, that it felt like a privilege to ride through.
Half and hour, perhaps forty-five minutes later, and we were heading back out onto a bigger, faster road, that follows a broad slow-moving river to our left, and is towered over by a huge vertical limestone cliff on our right.
Of course, I’d added yet another location to the list of places I would sorely like to go back and visit again, perhaps more slowly, stopping off to do a little walking and camping, maybe even some easy rock climbing or scrambling.
Along the way we’ve lost a few members of the group. Arthur peeled off to fill up with petrol back in Remich, and hasn’t re-joined us, while Oliver and Thomas have taken a different route back from Remich because there was somewhere else they wanted to visit
We catch up with them all again later on, back at the hotel, for another relaxed evening on the veranda beneath the awning, where this time I get to chat with Derek, a rather affable clergyman, motorcyclist and classical scholar all rolled in one, who has just submitted his doctoral thesis before coming on holiday to Luxembourg.
Being a keen amateur historian myself, I can’t help but ask Derek to go into a little more detail than he might have normally, but he’s careful not to overdo it with his captive audience.
On the other side I got to talk to Tim and Janina, who were riding two-up on a Kawasaki Versys, the same make and model as Collin and June. I haven’t seen much of them throughout the day, but I did hear that Tim had dropped the bike earlier at some point in the day, with both of them on board, after forgetting to take his front disk lock off before setting off.
Neither were hurt, and the bike wasn’t seriously damaged, but after finishing another delicious meal, as everyone sits back with a drink, the conversation turns naturally to some of the silly mistakes we’ve all made on bikes, and that in turn becomes a chat about how and when everyone started riding. As part of which, it becomes clear that some of the folks around the table have been riding for quite a long time, over fifty years, and are now well into their seventies, including Derek and Tim.
Of course, tomorrow is our last day of touring Luxembourg, and its quite a long day, so after enjoying another glass or two of wine everyone drifts off to get some sleep.
Day 5
This is the bit that some folks on the tour, including me and Adrian, were particularly interested in.
It’s a slightly longer day of riding at 172 miles, but we start by heading west, away from the castle and into the newer bits of Vianden, including the petrol station, where we all stop to fill up.
Then we’re off and following some quicker roads, including the motorway, in order to reach Bastogne and Malmedy, in the confusingly named Luxembourg province of the Belgium Ardenne, just under ten miles from the border of Luxembourg itself.
We’re heading there to visit the War Museum, where we plan to stop for a look around, followed by some lunch, then a ride around the Ardenne and some of the historic towns involved in the famous Battle of the Bulge. The last major German offensive during the second world war, which was hampered in large measure by the unusual terrain of the area.
But we’re off to a bad start. Me, Claire and Adrian have forgotten to switch on our comms before setting off, and its too fiddly to do on the move, so we agree to leave it until we stop for morning coffee.
In the meantime, its Monday morning and the roads are quite busy, and when we turn off the motorway onto a quiet road to re-group, we’ve already lost a couple of bikes. Fortunately, Claire and Adrian are still with us, and everyone knows where we’re going, so hopefully they’ll catch up later.
The next challenge happens as we travel through a one of the larger towns on the route. The traffic is still quite heavy here, and when we encounter a bus unloading its passengers, a few of us manage to ride past before getting stopped at a set of lights.
There was space for us all, but the bus isn’t hanging around, so as soon as the passengers are off, its away and pulled up behind us.
We’re only in the town for five minutes before turning off for a small detour to ride through a historic little village placed deep in a rocky gorge, where an old World War II tank acts as a convenient landmark.
But, by the time we turn off, the rest of the group are nowhere to be seen, we’ve all noticed, and our backmarker stops at the side of the road to indicate which way we’ve gone, but then the group appears and sails straight over the roundabout without noticing us.
Its understandable, the traffic is heavy and they’re trying to catch up, and the detour we’re on is a short one, which re-joins the road we’ve just turned off in about ten miles
Anyway our backmarker catches us up, and we ride on into the twisty roads of the gorge, another pocket-hole of beauty in this amazing country, and then pull over to the side once we reach the village.
We give it five minutes, just in case anyone realises they’ve missed the detour, and doubles back. I also leave a voicemail for Claire and Adrian, explaining that our coffee break is only twenty minutes down the road, and that we’ll join back up with them there, and then we’re back on the road.
Our detour through the gorge is brief, but well worth it, the cliff sides that loom over the village are thick with trees and foliage, showing just enough rock to be picturesque. As we pass through the village the gorge widens and softens in rolling hills through which our gently winding road makes its way back to the bigger road we turned off just twenty minutes earlier.
The hills have become rolling fields bounded by woodland with a small tumbling river running down its centre.
We cruise along for another five minutes, before coming to a big stone bridge leading into another good sized town, and where we’re stopping for our morning coffee break.
Crossing the bridge, we find Oliver and Thomas waiting at the side of the road with a couple of other folks, ready to fall in behind us as head to a little off street car park, near to the café, where we find the rest of the group waiting.
Everyone is still smiling, and we hear how the bus not only cut them off, but then stopped at the lights needing to turn off, and completely blocking the road until the lights changed again, and causing everyone to loose track of us.
Over coffee in a nearby supermarket, Collin and June explain the plan for the rest of the day….
We’ll be heading to the museum next, where some folks may want to spend more time than others. Either way there is a good bistro there for a lunch stop.
As for the afternoon, everyone is welcome to continue riding with Collin and June, but the route for the afternoon is simply a motorcycle based orienteering route, where the goal is follow the trail of World War II tanks, and take pictures of you or your bike next to them
Now I’m an amateur historian, and several of the novels I’ve written, both my Flames of Time adventure series, and my Glass Darkly retro sci-fi series, are set in the mid 1930’s, so I’m hoping to spend a bit more time in the museum.
Anyway, we know the plan, so we can decide what we want to do later.
For now, its another hour’s ride to the museum, so we head back out, Adrian, Claire and I switch our comms on this time, and we’re off.
It’s pleasant, cruisy riding again as we set off, but it isn’t long before we hit more traffic, and this time I’m with the group that gets stuck behind a couple of trucks, resulting in most of us losing contact with Collin and June and a couple of the other bikes.
But my satnav is on, and I’m at the front, so I lead for a while, hoping someone who’s had a bit more practice at this than me will go past and take the lead, but nobody does, so twenty minutes later, when we turn off toward Bostogne and a big tree covered layby appears, I pull over to make sure we’ve got everyone, and see if anyone else would like a turn at the front.
We’ve still got everyone, and we’re on the right track, so we set off again pretty quickly, with Oliver and Thomas taking the lead.
Another few minutes and we’re into the suburbs of Bastogne, winding our way through smaller streets in order to avoid the busy centre, and then, before we know it, we’re turning off the main road and into the well kept grounds of the museum
Travelling through the town has divided us up again, but it isn’t long before everyone is parked up in the carpark and heading into the museum.
It’s a big place, and clearly quite a new building, surrounded by many acres of parkland that contain sculptures, the Mardasson Memorial, a twelve metre tall monument to Americans that lost there lives in the Battle for the Bulge, as well more tanks and even a couple of airplanes.
The museum is well worth spending a bit time talking about, as is our attempt to follow the trail of tanks that form our afternoon’s orienteering exercise, so I’ll save those for the next episode:
Part 6 - Getting lost and getting wet… again!