01/08/2019 – Horsing around

Having eventually made it to the campsite by pushing my bike up an unbearably steep and rocky path, a nice clearing appeared. There were several other campers and some locals

Along the campers was a guy from Belgium who had decided to spend his last week before joining the army cycling around his country wild camping, seems like he’s found the perfect career.

The morning started off fantastically with some fantastic views heading into Luxembourg and some challenging (read as grim) hills.

This was of course rewarded by an incredible decent, almost 10km of glorious cycle paths through fields and forests without anyone else in sight.

I was heading to Luxembourg City to stay with a friend and whilst the northern part was stunning, I didn’t know what to expect of the city. Besides the road works, it’s a really nice place. There are some stunning old parts of the city.

After a curry and a few beers, we headed back only to realise the next morning that I’d lost one of the keys to my bike lock, not ideal. On the plus side, we managed to catch a bit of Notting Hill.

Next stop, Strasbourg. This took me down the border between France and Germany but not before getting to the point where all 3 countries meet. It was a strange place. Due to different tax laws, fuel in Lux was about a third cheaper than in France or Germany so there were a lot of fuel stations with queues to fill up. It seems as though the same applies to cigarettes and alcohol as people were walking out pushing a trolley full of the stuff back to their cars.

The morning was again, beautiful scenery atop the hills but then as I followed the river Sarr through Germany, the section that I was following seemed to just be an industrial canal.

Soon enough I headed into France with no plans for where to stay, I was never going to reach Strasbourg but wanted to get as close as possible. With no campsites nearby I did my first night of ‘stealth’ wild camping on the edge of a farmers field. Being surrounded by grasshoppers wasn’t ideal but I managed to keep them all out of the tent.

The riding got quite tricky the next day… after riding a horrific descent in the morning down a path which I wouldn’t be that confident with on a mountain bike let alone a fully laden road bike, I headed for a restaurant and was greeted by the best sandwich I have had in a long time. The couple who I was chatting to on the next table ended up paying my bill for me which was so nice of them which made up for the mornings ride.

The afternoons riding was just as bad though. After some road workers wouldn’t let me walk through a 10m worksite on their lunch break (which was definitely safe in my opinion) I took a lane just to the side of it which seemed to be going in the right direction.

The next hour was filled with nettle stings, thorn pricks and an interesting method of problem solving when the ‘path’ comes to an abrupt end.

After climbing up a small hill with the bike on my back to get out of the situation, I managed to find a road, Strasbourg couldn’t come soon enough.