Wednesday 8th July – Week 4 – Moselle to Verdun

CNN reports storms over Europe this morning and although the worst of it is more Northeast than we are, we are still in this rain, shine, rain, shine, heavens open, overcast type of weather pattern. It is supposed to be gone by the weekend and the only real impact it is having is that we're staying in hotels, rather than camping. As far as the sightseeing goes, we usually just have to shelter under a shop awning until the current shower passes.

We're changing our itinerary on the fly at the moment – and it's really great to have the flexibility to do that. We had originally planned to spend 5 days in the Rhine / Moselle region, but are now going to spend time in the champagne region at Verdun (site of a major World War I battle), Troyes and Epernay.

After a latish breakfast, we left our hotel and headed down the Moselle. The vineyards climb their way up the sides of the valley, the steepest ones being at an angle of 65 degrees. We stopped and took photos along the route and did a walk in some of the small towns. Bratwurst has become my favourite food of the moment, so I had a couple for lunch (Anne just had one of course). The scenery is very beautiful, with the river, the villages and the vineyards, but there is only so many photos that you can take that involve a church steeple, some houses, a bit of river, a boat and a vineyard. That's my view anyway, although there are some people who say you can never have too many handbags, shoes or motorbike jackets, so maybe I'm wrong there.

After the Moselle, it was back onto the motorways and the hour and a half drive to Verdun to find a hotel for the night. Tonight was washing night and as luck would have it, we spotted a laundromat in the centre of town, so after checking into the hotel, we headed to the laundromat and more importantly a nearby bar to wait for our clothes to do their thing. Dinner was at the same bar and was a Carpaccio and a small dessert between us, so I guess we were still burning off the numerous Bratwursts we had eaten over the past few days.