Hotte an me finally had managed to find two weekends we were able to “reserve” for another bike packing trip. We let the weather forecast decide which weekend we would take. The most pleasant surprise of all was that Madeleine joined us on short notice. This made the trip even more enjoyable!
I made a video for us as a memory of the trip. I hope you also find the video fun to watch: https://youtu.be/sXTrlbH20Iw
Hotte wrote a blog post about the trip here: https://blog.quakosekiki.de/#gravel15
And if you like to take the tour or parts of it yourself: https://www.komoot.de/collection/2368211/-pfalzvogesen
Madeleine and me met at the train station in Karlsruhe. We joined up with Hotte who headed out from his place towards us right across the Rhine river in Wörth.
Day 1 took us through the so called Bienwald [1] which is a beautiful forest area offering us some great trails to start the tour. We then continued to the Dahner Felsendland [2] where we camped over night. On Day 2 we crossed the border from the Palatinate Forest (Germany) [3] into the Vosges Mountains [4] (France). Both regions are mountain areas covered with forests and inhabit beautiful small towns, castles, rivers, lakes. Most important for us: Loads of epic trails for the bikes 🤩
Traveling the north of the Vosges it is unavoidable to get in touch with a rather dark part of the European history. The remains of the so called Maginot Line [5] can be seen all over the place in form of old bunkers (abandoned or as museum) which was built to defend France against Nazi Germany. I am more than happy that we have left this past behind us. Now the two countries form a strong friendship 🇫🇷🇩🇪!
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bienwald or https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bienwald
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dahner_Felsenland or https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dahner_Felsenland
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palatinate_Forest or https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pfälzerwald
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vosges or https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vogesen
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maginot_Line