23-MAY-11 Montauville-Metz 50.4 km

Montauville-Metz 50.4 km

We rolled into Pont a Mousson around 3pm and started looking for a chambre d’hote. Don had found something online and we had tried to make a reservation for Saturday, but she was full. We hoped that on Sunday night she might have room for us.

After much computer fiddling Don found the address and we rode on to The Cottages. The nice hostess regretfully informed us that she had no room available. I asked her to suggest another chambre, and she recommended Cote Jardins in a nearby town. She graciously telephoned for us and made the arrangements.

Although the town was nearby, it was up a long hill, and we were tired and ready for a shower and a rest when we arrived.

The house, tucked away behind the Mairie, looked rather plain, but the husband and wife were very gracious and when we went into the house we were very happy with our choice. The rooms are spotlessly clean and very comfortable. There is a nice salon and wonderful gardens.

That evening our hostess provided Table d’Hote of pork chops, salad, pasta and selected cheeses. Our host offered an aperitif to start, and he mixed up an interesting drink of Mirabelle juice, sloe gin and a little sparkling water. It was delicious. Mirabelle’s are those little yellow plums.

We had a great night’s sleep, and breakfast was ready for us early. Along with our bread our hostess offered several jellies. One was dandelion jelly and it was delicious. I got the recipe.

COTE JARDINS
Chambres d'HOTES
Marie Jo & Francois
ALBERT
12 rue de la Mairie
54700 MONTAUVILLE
www.cotejardins54.fr

After photos with our host and hostess we hopped on our bikes and started the day’s ride. We stopped briefly for a snack in Jouy aux Arches and shared an apple while we sat under the big Roman aquaduct which crosses the road. It is still in good condition and is well-maintained by the town. We never cease to be amazed at the range of the Roman settlements or the endurance of their constructions,

That afternoon we entered Metz and went into the town center to the Tourist Information Center. While we found the bike paths in Nancy to be excellent and very well marked, we cannot say the same for the bike paths in Metz. We checked out the huge cathedral there and then moved on down the road.

We were happy to roll into the dependable B&B Hotel north of Metz, in a very prosperous industrial area. Although the B&B Hotels are very basic we are quite happy to use them when we can. The small rooms are clean, the beds are good and each room has a bathroom with shower. Pretty much everything we need, except , of course, electric outlets. We now bring an extension cord

They also offer free wi-fi, but we always run into a problem because they want to text the logon code to our cell phone. We always have to spend a lot of time explaining we don’t have a cell phone (well, we do, but we don’t want to make an international call on it), but after awhile we get it across to them that we want to use their cell to receive the code. Once they catch on to the idea they usually are cooperative and get the code for us.

After checking in and showering we walked over to the nearby shopping mall to pick up a few groceries and a bottle of wine. We grabbed dinner at the cafeteria there and turned in for the night.


DEVILISH DEVIATIONS
May 24, 2011

Don has been running into some trouble with
Trixie, his GPS. He very thoroughly plans our daily routes on the computer and then downloads the route into Trixie. Of course, Trixie thinks she knows best, so every morning when we set out she immediately reroutes us. This frustrates Don no end.

So, for this leg Don decided to fix Trixie’s know-it-all rerouting approach by marking many waypoints so she couldn’t change his route.

After a good breakfast at the B&B Hotel buffet we set out on the next leg of our trip and immediately ran into route problems. Trixie led us off, down a potholed road, which became gravel and didn’t look very hopeful. We got to the river and came upon a big gate stretched across the trail. There were no Interdit signs, so we detached the trailers and shimmied around one end of the gate.

On we went along the gravel path and as I rounded the corner I saw Don pacing back and forth along the levee, grumbling and staring at his GPS. Where is the bridge across the canal? There was supposed to be a bridge right there. Well we could see the bridge foundations, however the bridge went missing 20 years ago. Thank you Garmin. Never trust the latest version Garmin MapSource.

So, we continued along the dirt path and eventually came to another gate to get around, but we finally did find a bridge and lo and behold, we were back on the official bike route.

All went well for several miles until we came to a yellow sign--deviation. We looked down the bike trail and it looked clear and in good condition, and the sign was off to the side, so maybe it wasn’t in effect today. We continued along the bike path.

After a few miles we began to see cranes and big trucks and I was hoping they were across the canal at the plant there. Well, no luck, there was a sign with pictures of pedestrians and cyclists with a circle and a big red slash., Just the same, we wheeled out bicycles and trailers into the hardhat area, detached the trailers to get around a piece of equipment, and we were back on good cycle path., None of the workers yelled at us, and one nice guy even picked up my trailer, weighing at least 50 pounds, and lifted it over the barrier for me.

The trail was very nice for several miles, but then we crossed another bridge and oops, another big fence, another deviation, onto the busy highway for several miles.

We went through the very nice town of Yutz, where we stopped at the BNP. Yutz isn’t so yutzy. It is a lovely suburban settlement, with lots of big, fancy houses in subdivisions. The town is much bigger that I expected and seemed busy and prosperous.

We moved on along the river, with good bicycle path now. The river gets wider with every mile, first a hundred feet across, then two hundred, and now several hundred feet across. We are getting close to the border with Germany now.

We planned to stay in Sirck-les-Bain and stopped at the Tourist Information to get help with the arrangements. Although this seems to be a pretty big town, the unhelpful Tourist center informed us there were no chambres or hotels in the town. They finally booked us a zimmer over the border in Schengen. The bike path disappeared, so we had to ride the busy highway about 5 miles, up and down hills, to get to our lodging. No answer at the door, but Don went around the back and found a guy working on cars there. He was helpful and spoke pretty good English. This turned out to be JJ (for Jean-Jaques), our host,

After getting settled in our room, and paying the bill up front (the guy seems rather suspicious of his clients), Don did laundry and we showered, then we walked over to the nearby Lidl to pick up some groceries. We have a nice little kichen available to us, so we decided to make some salad and have a pizza for dinner. Breakfast was 10 euro, about $15 each, so we picked up some milk, OJ, croissants and bread and jelly too.

After dinner Don worked on his photos and I was playing Hearts. I was so tired I fell asleep right there at the kitchen table, game half finished and mouse in my hand. I hit the sack around 9pm and slept very well until about 3am. Then I listened to my audio book for awhile before getting the computer out and working on my reports.