This the final video (out of seven) of our cycle trip from Andermatt, Switzerland northward along the Eurovelo 15 and 5 routes. In this video we leave Cochem, Germany on the Mosel River and cycle north towards Deutsches Eck where the Mosel meets the Rhine River. We cycle south on the Rhine to Bacharach, then to Mainz, and then train to Frankfurt where our trip started three weeks earlier.
Hi, I’m David. And I’m Leslie. And we enjoy spending our vacations traveling around the world by bicycle. On some previous trips, we cycled around Sweden and Denmark, marveling at the amazing cycle path there. A couple summers ago, we flew into Paris. We made our way to the Lir Valley and cycled around there for a few weeks. It was amazing. Mostly though, we spent some great time here in Ontario, marveling at the wonderful landscape that we live in. We’re starting this trip at the end of June 2024 and plan to spend about 3 weeks cycling largely north on the Eurov 15. We flew into Frankfurt, spent the night, assembled our bikes, and then took a train to Andermmont, Switzerland, where we then cycled down 15 through Likensstein and Austria to Basil, Switzerland. Then we cycled a little bit west towards the UVL 5 and cycled through the Alsace region through Strawburg and then cycled back into Germany to Offenburgg and then took a train to Luxembourg where we cycled over towards the Moselle River down the Moselle River to Coblins and then back up on the Rine and ended in mines where we took a train back to Frankfurt. This is the seventh and final video in our series where we leave the city of Koke and begin cycling northward on the Moselle River for approximately 50 or 60 kilometers going through some cute little villages and very steep vineyards on the side of the Moselle. As we’ve shown before, we eventually reach reach where Moselle and the Rine come together, the confluence called Deutsches, and there’s a big monument there. So, we spend some time enjoying the the sights and the crowds of people there. Then we begin heading south up the Ryan River back towards mines. This section of the Rine is known for its uh old castles and it’s a UNESCO World Heritage site. We cross over the 100 km mark, making this the longest ride of our trip. And then we get to the city of Bakarak where we enjoy walking around, seeing some sites, have a nice dinner there. The next morning, we continue south on the Ryan River towards Mines where we’re going to catch a train taking us to Frankfurt Airport Station where we then pack up our bicycles and check into our hotel back where we started the trip about 3 weeks earlier. And the next morning, get up early and check the bikes in for the return flight to Canada. All right, we are uh on our long day of cycling from Coke down Mosul for about 50 km to Kens and then we’re going to Turn right and go up the Ryan River for about 50 km to Back where we’re staying tonight. 102 km according to the GPS. And it’s sunshiny. I think it’s 19 or 20°, high of 28, 0% chance of rain, which I again believe today. And uh the whole day we’ll be on the left bank of the Moselle and then we’ll cross near Koblins and then we’ll be on the I guess again the left bank going you’re going going down the river on the ring. So there it is. It’s one of the dozens and dozens of large campgrounds we’re seeing. had exceedingly no accommodation for tents. As you can hear from the car noise, this was definitely one of the busier sections of our ride. And you can also see that this is one area where we’re not separated from the road very clearly. And we never had one incident. The drivers were very respectful. It was uh easy if it was a little noisy. Yeah, crosses though. Some church up in there as well there. Cut it. little boat, isn’t it? Yeah. It’s a crazy thing here. Had to have been here a long time cuz they built the road over it. We were under it. It’s weird. might be peep. So I got this Oop. So, the vines coming up we’ve nominated as the steepest vines we’ve seen. Yeah. Hopefully, we’ll get a good picture of him here as we come around the corner. Cyclist and a walker. Hello. Hello. Hello. Walkers. They’re doing the the steep terrace walk. Those are crazy, aren’t they? Oh, not just not. So, we’re about I don’t know 15 kilometers from Copeland’s now. A lot more action notably trains and boats. Big highway there and some seemingly near vertical hills with grape vines on them. And those are south facing so no expense spared. Yep. So, we’re going over the Mosul. So, right there is up river. Straight ahead is blends. And then down there is the down direction for the Mosul. And just around the bend presumably is the meeting of the line in the Mosul. This is the back of Deutscheek. Interesting feature there. The greeting party. Yeah, we may have to walk from here on out, I think. So, there’s the Rine. The mighty Rine. So, we’re going to go back down that way when we’re done. I think we’re okay. It’s pretty pretty low key here. That’s a big statue. The cable car. That’s Those are cable cars. to reach a sec. There’s some of the there’s some rind. Those are bigger. The rind ships. They can handle bigger ones. I’m really glad we came down here. This is kind of a fun thing to cycle to. There’s the line. I’m going to park at the next line on the right. Moselle on the left. Jack statue there. more than starting. After leaving Jozek, we now head south on the Ryan River for the first time in about a week. After having last been on the rine when we passed out of Basil towards the Alsace another one up there. We’re now cycling towards Bakarak Germany where we’ll spend the night and then we’ll have our last half day on the Rine before we take a train back to Frankfurt. Not sure what town this is. Plenty of docks. like 5 km or so up. This is a nice This is alternates between amazing path and I hit you path. So, we’re about four bikes out, four kilometers from Board and there’s some grape vines back here on the rine. Either that’s the worst river cruise. They pile you on big lumps of dirt or it’s a barge. So, it’s about as warm as we felt, I think, out in the open here. Three lanes of asphalt and no shade. That thing has two cars in the back as well. Think you have some bikes behind you. What was that? Oh yeah. Well, so we are using our uh Senna R1 helmets. So Lesie can talk to me and I can talk to her. We can talk in grocery stores when outside. We can be pretty far away from each other. and still talk. It’s actually so much better than having to like catch up with each other and turn your heads around and talk. Noisy little section here. Yep. Another one. film it. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Great train there. We just got passed by a train. Train passing train. Two fairies, two castles, two cyclists. This section of the Ryan Valley is a UNESCO World Heritage site. Actually, it’s a UNESCO World Heritage Corridor, and it’s known for its scenic, stunning beauty, its historic castles, which we’ve been passing throughout the entire ride, charming towns and vineyards. It’s a 65 km stretch. It’s really spectacular. Nice to see. Yeah, we’re just passing how many kilometers here. Uh 90 something. 96 point something. Yeah. Oh, St. G. There’s a big castle up there, too. No, above the church. No, no, above it. Way up there. Oh, way up. Yeah. We spend the right amount of time in the right place. That’s nice. There’s a lot in this town. Yeah. There’s light. There’s the fair we’ve been riding with for the last 20 minutes. We’re going to beat it to the dock. It’s the zoo post. Looks like it’s actually for the last night of the trip. We stayed in Backrack, Germany. We couldn’t have picked a more picturesque town to spend our last evening. It’s one of the towns in the UNESCO listed upper middle Rin Valley that we mentioned earlier. We could easily have spent more time here with castles, uh, lots of old walled parts of the city, beautiful churches. It was really a very pleasant evening. Yeah, I did. After checking into the hotel, we walked around the town and took in everything that it had to offer. One of the most notable landmarks in Backrack is the Wernern Chapel, a ruined Gothic structure built in the late 13th century. It was actually never completed and became somewhat of a destination and pilgrimage site. It was worth the hike up because of the views back down on the town. After hiking around, we found an amazing little restaurant on the city wall. had a spectacular dinner. Our last one and it had to be spatzel. Ended with some rezling ice cream and it was really just a glorious evening. All right, just left uh Bakarak heading south on the Rine. Our plan today is to cycle about 50 km to Mines and get the train there to the airport station. Uh looks like it’s going to be a nice sunny warm day. It’s I think already 21. Castle up on the hill there on the right. And uh paths are quiet right now. We’ll see how the train trip goes. We’re trying to simplify the trains a bit and rather than connecting, we’ll just skip to mines where it’s one train to Frankfurt. Trains have been very busy. So Ryan is on our left still between the trees. Hard to see somewhere over there. Had a nice dinner at a restaurant sitting next to actually on the old Black Rock City wall with the high-speed train and freight trains tracks 10 ft away, which actually was not as bad as it sounds. Nice little fall there. And we’re sitting next to an old watchtowwer. And we can see some the old cathedral and had a nice, very nice dinner actually. Some Rezling wine. Maybe our second to last glass of Rezling. There’s a tower up there on the hill. I think there’s quite a few of these birds on the way today. Old church here. I think we’re about 6 km from Bingan. And there’s another castle up there on the hill. Berg up on the hill. Still in the UNESCO rest place, UNESCO World Heritage stretch of the Rine. That’s a big ship. Yeah. Yeah, that is this big flment. There’s definitely castle way up there. A pretty little section here. narrowing a bit. I think that’s the town of Bingan up ahead. Another way of coming down the path to your scooter. Yeah, a town with a chairlift up there. Mostly been brick today on the path. Smooth as these things get, I guess. As we approached the city of mines, the bike path moved inland from the river a little bit, and we were mostly cycling on a series of dikes. Yeah. Uh well, that’s got to do that. There’s a branch of the branch of the like a little channel next to us. Not any other control thing here. Heat. Heat. Approaching the city of mines was sort of the worst part of the path that we had ridden on over the last week or two. And we kind of winded and winded our way through the city streets heading towards the uh main train station in the city. Once we got to the train station in Mines, we had a short wait for a train. It took about an hour to get to Frankfurt airport. Unfortunately, on this trip, there was no way to reserve a spot for our bikes, but as we had done for most of this trip, we just crammed our bikes into some spaces that were available and and mostly stood up. As we found to be the case at this Frankfurt airport station, like many other stations we were in, you spend a lot of time waiting for elevators and sort of convoluted pathways to get from the platform to wherever you’re going. We made our way through the underbelly of the Frankfurt airport back towards our hotel where our bike bags had been waiting cuz we stored them there. And so now we’re ready to pack up our bikes and make one last quick trip into Frankfurt before we get on the plane tomorrow. We spent our last evening walking around Frankfurt, enjoying some nice weather, some nice food, and a little geocaching before heading back to the hotel for our last night on the trip and then packed up and left the next morning for the return to Ontario. We hope you enjoyed these videos as much as we enjoyed making them. Stay tuned for our next set of videos where we fly into Barcelona and ride north along the coast of Brava.