Day 18 September 10

 Day 18, September  10, 2012 Luxemburg to Perl, Germany, 25.7 miles, total mileage: 482.2
One Day...
One Bike...
Two People...
Four Feet...
and Three Countries!
This picture does not do justice to how steep this cobble stone road is and yes people drive on this!  So we walked down.

 And after we made it down the hill, we happened upon a shop with Paul's favorite French word:  boulangerie.  Luxemburg has three languages: French, German, and a specific Luxemburg dialect/language.  Lucky we recognized the French one!

 This picture shows that people will build anywhere. As we traveled along the Azlette River, the embankments were obviously cliff-like, but where there's a will, there's a way.

 Soon we left the city and its environs and we were on our own.  Children were back in school and the holiday season had come to an end.  We saw very few people along this route.

 We left the woods and the river and headed into farm country.  It was hilly, lots of cows and corn.  This is a chemin rural and was for bicycles, walking and agricultural machinery.

This tree lined country road was one of may for the day.  Frequently there was a bench or a picnic table for anyone's use.

 We traveled along the top of this ridge.  At that point we did not realize that the other "hill" was Germany.  We made a left and suddenly a very windy, hairpin turns road to the river valley began.  We went from corn and cows to grape vines growing in all directions.

 When we reached the bottom of the valley, we cross the Mosel River and halfway across the river, we were in Germany.

 This was our hotel for the night.  A lovely place at the top of a very, very high hill.  The road up was so steep that we had to walk.  We were offered a beer by our host and enjoyed it while sitting in the hotel's courtyard.  Lucky for us, the bells in the church directly behind us are turned off from 10 PM until 7 AM!!!!!

 This garden was down the road from our hotel.  Apparently Napoleon had a home across the street and this was his garden.  It is a beautifully maintained and peaceful space.  Even the bells from the church seemed quieter while we sat and enjoyed the view.

Here is the third country of the day, France.  Perl is located at the spot where Luxemburg, Germany and France come together.  Our original plan was to leave our bags at the hotel and ride to France, but there was no way we were going up and down that hill two times in one day.  We found a way to walk along the side of the hill and made our way.  France is in front of me, Luxemburg is that hill in the distance and Germany is behind me.  Not bad for a day!