We got up extra early today. The Captain from the marina stopped by to collect his 25 euro fee for spending the night there. The people in the Leboat boat next to us were also getting ready to leave. We decided to speed ourselves up so we wouldn't be behind them all day. The weather is cool and rainy. Shortly after we left, we passed by the European Parliament buildings. Then we were on our way!
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| European Parliament and related buildings (this and next two pictures) |
Our original destination was Vendenheim, but we were there by 10am and there's really nothing to see or do there. So we decided to push on and go to Hochfelden, which will take about another 3-4 hours.
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| To operate the locks, you have to first pull a cord that's over the canal, as Deena's doing above. |
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| We passed by a bunch of barges moored on the left. |
We have passed through many locks on this trip so far. On the first two days, we were going into locks and the water was lowering. On this part, and I think for the rest of the trip, the water is rising in the locks.
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| Deena in a lock |
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| Sue in a lock |
Somewhere along the way we had to wait for a lock to open. While we waited, David ran to a nearby cornfield and snatched a few ears of corn (he can't resist). Of course, it was feed corn - better used as a paperweight than for eating!
We stopped in the town of Mommenheim for lunch. The restaurant at the edge of the canal was closed but we were told of a place not too far up the road. It was about a 20 minute walk for lovely lunches of quiche and salad. We also bought some wine, pastries and pretzels to go.
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| Our boat! |
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Lunch! (Quiche Lorraine and Salade)
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| More Lunch! (Salmon Quiche and Salade) |
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| Some of the goodies for sale where we had lunch. |
We had been told by the LeBoat people that through this section of the canal, the locks are in a sequential order. If you travel at the correct speed and don't stop, the locks will open as you get to them. However, when we stopped for lunch, we were out of our sequence, so when we came back, we had to call the lockmaster to come to open it for us.
We continued a short distance to Hochfelden where we tied up for the night. We took a walk into Hochfelden, but unfortunately on Monday all of the sights were closed. The first place we'd hoped to go was for a tour of the Meteor Brewery. Meteor has been brewing beer since 1640 right in Hochfelden! There was also a 13th Century church, which we found, but it was closed. There was also a museum in an old Synagogue, but you needed to make an appointment to tour it. After our walk, I came back to the boat and took a nap. David and Deena drank wine, chatted and fed the local swans some bread. |
| 13th Century Church |
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| Meteor Brewery |
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| Former Synagogue, now a Museum |
Then
we headed to the only restaurant nearby. We were the only ones
there and the proprietor, Patrick, was extremely friendly and funny.
We got no menus but he described the house specialty (plat du jour),
which was hamburger with potato pancake. We weren't sure we
understood him correctly, but sure enough, out came three burgers
each with a pair of potato pancakes as buns. There was also a
fried egg on top. This came with veggies and fries. All
delicious. A beautiful German Shepard was outside so (with
permission) he got our leftovers. Then we headed back to the
boat for the night.
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| Burger on two homemade potato pancakes with a fried egg on top! YUM! |
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| David with Patrick, the proprietor of the restaurant in Hochfelder |
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| David with a dog friend |
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| Working away on my blog! |
