Deutschland and living a life of luxury!

Setting off from Clervaux was the start of a day of new things. In Diekirch, after having a quick look inside the military museum there, I went to the tourist information to see if there was an internet cafe and a camping shop, which the lady inside (who spoke a small amount of English) said there was and pointed to them on a map of the town. Heading first to the internet cafe, it turned out to be closed down and by the looks of the place, had been for some time. Next was the camping shop, which ended up not actually existing at all and when I asked the receptionist at the campsite 500m down the road, he said that there was one but about a kilometer out of the town. Fortunately this was in the direction I was headed so I pedalled there and bought a thick woolen hat and a fleeced, woolen blanket, to try and stop every night in a tent being freezing cold!

The ride from Diekirch to Larochette was an extremely pleasant one, following a small stream through a wooded valley, and seeing as it was around lunchtime, I decided to stop at a cafe and have an actual lunch, instead of continuing with my riding diet of waffles, fruit and water. 5 minutes later I was sat in the sun, with a great view of the castle and eating a large sandwich I had bought from a small boulangerie, along with a large coffee. The early afternoon's cycling to the Moselle River was relatively uneventful, apart from a few hills and I arrived in Grevenmacher where I had planned to cross the river into Germany. This wasn't as easy as I'd hope as the bridge that was on my map had been completely demolished to make way for a new bridge they were just starting to build. This meant I had to detour to one of the bridges in Trier, where I was thinking of staying for the night anyway, and it turned out to be a brilliant ride along the river, slipstreaming a couple of roadies who turned onto the cycle path justm ahead of me. I easily found the tourist info in Trier as it was right beside the Porta Nigra and thanks to a tip off by my parents, the lady inside gave me the directions to a Jugendherberge in the north of the city.

New things: First useless tourist info person. Proper lunch stop instead of sitting by the road. Germany (on this trip). Hostel.

When I went to sleep that night, all my clothes were clean and drying, there was a much slimmer chance of me being cold and I even updated my blog (France + The Headwind)!

Setting off after a good breakfast and an extra few rolls made for lunch, I headed out of Trier in the direction of Saarbrücken. This was the direct route on my map and it ended up being a route that went straight over some mountains - after a reasonably slow day, I ended up in Sankt Wendel tourist info at half four, looking for somewhere to sleep. There were no campsites or hostels in the area and with a long day of hills behind me, I didn't fancy cycling off to find some. This led to the woman in the tourist info finding me the cheapest place to sleep in St Wendel, which turned out to be a B&B run by a little old lady who spoke no English.

I thoroughly enjoyed the B&B, we chatted in German about my trip, her family (there were lots of photos on the wall) etc... and I was pleasantly surprised how well my German coped after totally ignoring it since my GCSE. I even got a luxury breakfast and she insisted that I ate eveything on the table or if not, that I packed it for lunch whilst on my bike!