Odysseus

Odysseus
Our Barge, Odysseus

Thursday, September 02, 2010

Up the Mighty Moselle - Aug 12-15

Since the wend of WW II, the Moselle has been completely reshaped to allow for the biggest shipping allowed on European waters. We saw some mighty big boats and negotiated some pretty big locks but everything went very smoothly and in some stretches the scenery was very nice.

This coal barge, actually a "dumb" barge and a "pusher" barge a combined 180 meters, about 600 ft, long, is leaving the lock in Thionville.

A typical riverside village.


A view down the river.

Since this is a big river with big traffic there is no tying up to the bank just anywhere like on the small canals. We spent Thursday night right at the Thionville lock; there was a good spot on the wall in front of the smaller old lock that was abandoned.
Friday about 2:30 pm we left France. Here the Moselle, now the Mosel, is the border between Luxembourg, on our left, and Germany, on our right. I believe in the past I have made mention of cheap fuel in Luxembourg and the marinas are no different. We spent the night in Schwebsange after filling our tank and jerry jugs with the 1 euro a liter fuel.
Saturday after about an hours travel time we left Luxembourg behind, now completely in Germany. About 3 pm we pulled into the Water Sport Club Konz, just after the confluence with the Saar. We would spend a day here so we could take the very convenient train into Trier on Sunday morning.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

You haven't missed much of the coldest summer in 40 years in Ventura. Looks like you had another enjoyable year. Maryke is leaving England for Washington DC everything else is about the same.

See you when you get home.
Lynn

Don and Cathy Jo said...

There weather here in August was terrible, lots of rain and wind...even had a "tornado" last week when we were in Mittersheim. I'll catch up on that post later.
We'll see you soon!