Marc and Carolyn's Cycle Touring Adventures : Tour de Grand Est - Stage 4

Good bye to Metz on a quiet Sunday morning. The streets were extra quiet as a marathon was happening too.

We saw a few of the lovely buildings on our way out. Le Temple Neuf.

(The Cathedral is in behind these buildings, you can see the spire.)

We found the open bakery to provision for lunch.

We had a good chat with a cycle touring couple who we had seen at the campsite as we all waited for our fresh sandwiches to be made.

And then we headed for the river.

We followed a water way for at least the first 25 k. There was some industry,

And lots of inlets (water in both sides of the bike path here).

The path was lovely, and quite busy with lots of cyclists enjoying a Sunday morning ride (there are cyclists on the bridge).

We actually caught up to our friends from the bakery and drafted them for a while 😉

Along the path there were interesting flowers, purples and reds and these interesting tall yellow ones.

We had the wind at our backs all morning. Smooth sailing.

When we got to Thionville (still in France), we came up off the river. It was a very interesting climb, a small narrow alley for your bike tires and little steps / flat bricks for your feet. Quite effective really.

Heading to the Luxembourg border was back to countryside, fields and forests.

One small road block didn't deter us, and indeed once we managed our way through this...

We found ourselves in Luxembourg!! I feel like we sort of snuck in through the barriers 😀😳

The rules of the road here:

Only a few more kilometers and we arrived at Camping Kockelscheuer.

We set up camp, and left our panniers, and then took our bikes into Luxembourg on a reconnaissance mission to see if we could get cooking gas and check out some sites. The gas venture was a bust, but we found the way to be easy and safe so we will do some serious exploring tomorrow. Riding with no panniers is a particular delight after all these heavy kilometers.