Trier Day 2

On Day 2 in Trier, we took a mammoth bike ride through the breathtaking wine-growing landscape of the Saar river. [Warning! It was a gorgeous day with fluffy Boucher clouds!]

Our first idea was to bike to a castle that is supposed to be on the Mosel toward Luxemburg. According to the map on the side of the bike trail, it was in the town of Konz. Of course, when we go to Konz, the tourist office told us that the castle was really close to Trier. We decided to press on, having found the beginning of the "Saar Riesling Road".

A note about German bike trails: they give you information, but sometimes not enough. Sometimes, you are biking around, trying to follow a sign for a certain winery, and you end up riding up and down a street in a tiny town, feeling like an idiot because the winery is really just somebody's house.

Which brings me to our first victim:

Weingut Parmesang.

We were riding up and down the streets of this dusty town, looking for the winery that was promised us way back in Kronz, after our crushing (ok, not so crushing-- and I think Jeremy was relieved) castle dissapointment. We finally spotted the place, and I went to ring the doorbell. "Hi," I said to the confused man who opened the door, "can we buy a bootle of wine?". "One bottle?" he asked, and then led us across the street into his wine shack/cellar. He gave us a bottle, and told us it was 5 euros. "Could you maybe open it for us?" I asked (we wanted to drink some for our picnic!). More strange looks, but he obligingly went back into the house to fetch their wine opener.


Some time later, we rode into the Prize-Winning town of....ummm....Kleezelbach, and saw it was filled to the brim with wineries. We repeated the procedure and rang the doorbell of yet another unsuspecting German. This time, an 8-year-old boy answered the door. "Hi...ah... can we buy a bottle of wine?" "Grandma!!" Five minutes later, the grandma came to the door, and very nicely went into the back to give us the wine. (Jeremy by now is edging farther and farther away from me). It seems that one is supposed to call ahead to the little family wineries. Luckily with my American-accented German, I can get away with not knowing anything. I mean, there were signs on the road! Are you a business or not?

We hit the end of our trail at Saarburg, where we took the cable car up the mountain for some ice-cream refreshment.


You could even bring your bike up the mountain! The cable car was almost totally open, and it freaked us out, so we closed the windshield causing us to simmer in our our juices (it was hot!) and all the 5 year-olds to point and laugh at us. We were a little braver on the way down.