Week 21: Hiking and Biking

The weather in our corner of Germany has been pretty spectacular for the last few weeks: sunny, but cool (I'd say in the 70s). The trees are starting to change, there is a bit of a nip in the air in the morning in evening and it is getting darker much earlier.

In celebration of the weather, we spent this weekend (Sept. 24th & 25th) mostly outside, first with a great hike in Luxembourg, followed by a bike ride on closed section of roadway. The hike was in the city of Vianden. We started at the Chateau and worked our way up the hill behind it. This page shows the profile of the hike (in German).

Vianden Castle

You'll note around kilometer 4 the very sharp drop. At this point, we were descending along the ridge line. The path had been well used in the past, but definitely was not used quite as regularly recently: there were a number of instances were I looked on either side of the ridge--quite steeply down to both my left and right--more than once each before I found the trail again. The picture below gives you a sense of this downward climb. Yes, we are both on the trail.

Hiking the Ridge

The trail looped back around to the castle, passing through an adventure park. (Kristin, there are at least 3 of these within 90 minutes of our place--they are really big over here!) For those of you unfamiliar with an adventure park, it is also known as a high ropes course. You are strapped into a harness and then work your way around different elements at different heights in the trees. They are tons of fun if heights aren't a problem for you. Jason and I have gone with friends to one in the US, but have not done one here in the EU...yet.

On Sunday, we went out for a bike ride from Dreis to Kluesserath. The area was having a biking festival, with a total of five towns participating. There were lots of people out on the bike paths and the section of the road between Rivenich and Kluesserath was closed to traffic, so you could really get pumping going down the hills into the river valley. This section of the ride was edged by vineyards. The grapes are about ready to be picked, I would hazard to guess, but we haven't seen anyone out among the vines yet.

The ride was mostly flat, except for the trip down into the river valley. The hill was deceptive, though, as on the way down it seemed very steep and I was dreading the mere idea of riding back up. But, either it was a bit of an illusion, or I am stronger than I think, as it turned out to be quite a manageable incline. The ride was a total of 36ish kilometers round trip--about 20 miles. I found that my tailbone was still not completely healed from my fall in the bell-tower, but I made it and the weather made it a perfect day to be out.


View Larger Map

Shortly after the end of the ride, I was off to the train station for work, headed to Afschaffensburg, just outside of Frankfurt. Such a shame to have to leave a day like that as early as I did, but the need to demo called, so off I went.