The more beautiful Mosel

At 8:30 a.m. we dug our bikes out of the locked garage here and headed 5 minutes down town Bacharach to buy groceries. The only grocery store in town was probably expensive but the next one down river is about 1/2 hour away by bicycle. Back at "home" and up 55 steps later with several arms full of groceries and we were ready to start our day. As planned we drove about an hour by car across the picturesque country to the town of Cochem along the Mosel River. The Mosel River is much less touristy, we had read, but it sure was busy today for a Monday. The Mosel flows into the Rhine about 2 hours north at the city of Koblenz. From there the Rhine flows out to Rotterdam, Holland and the Atlantic Ocean.
We had driven by car through here about 10 years ago but the 25 km bike trip was more than worth the double-see. In our opinion the Mosel Valley is considerably more beautiful than the Rhine Valley. Bike paths are closer to the river and are better maintained and marked. Maybe it was because of the bright sunlight today but the views were excellent. Still some river boats and cruise boats and some commercial barges but not nearly as many as on the Rhine. We rode up river to the town of Beilstein. As we viewed the town on the opposite side across the river we both looked at each other almost at the same time and decided we had been there before but did not remember. Ten years ago we drove up the Mosel River and remembered that we had stopped at a town and walked up around behind an old church to a roof top terrace for coffee. The church ladies as we recall were running the cafe shoppe. We could still see the roof top terrace but from the opposite side of the river this time. At that time as I recall, all we saw across the river were rows and rows of vineyards climbing steeply up the opposite bank. With the sun in the right direction it made a great picture.
We biked a couple km further up river before turning around and heading back toward Cochem. In the village of Poltersdorf, we rode in through town and found a small cafe open so had to stop for our afternoon coffee. After loading the bikes onto the back of the car we set "Gertie" for home. She had us head in the opposite direction from the way we came so after starting out we had to turn around and decided to go her way - a different way home. Good thing we did turn around for not 5 minutes down the road we were the second car behind a head-on collision that had just happened. Both cars were totaled - some injuries to one of the drivers but they refused my offer of some stuff from the first aid kit we are required to carry. Maybe a coincidence but we know our guardian angels were watching over us. We were able to do a u-turn in the middle of the road and head back the way we had originally come.
Back home it was tomato 'suppen' and a sandwich for supper before walking back down town
to see the lights of town after dark.